Re: Upfield (VIC) update
Michael Walker (walker@hotkey.net.au)
Fri, 20 Feb 1998 23:12:58 +1100
> > In case you've forgotten, the Labor Party had marked the Upfield line for closure.The Liberal
> > government reversed this decision and upgraded the line.
>
> In case you have forgotten, the Labor Government marked the Upfield line
> for replacement with a much-improved light rail service, as they had
> previously done with the St Kilda and Port Melbourne train lines.
>
Whilst not in total disagreeance with your comments on unions (the all
time classic story was the time the unions refused to run the 4D double
deck train in Melbourne until every driver received a thermos flask in
their kit supplied by the PTC - 1. What has this to do with running a
particular type of train and 2. I have to supply my own thermos and many
other things eg bag, lunch box, tools and so on - why should train
drivers receive their lunch kit and free bag at company expense. In my
case I disagreed with supplying my own tools as working for a computer
company, they made their money out of my repairing PCs therefore they
should supply the tools. The rest though, I would never have dreamed of
asking for as my lunch kit has nothing to do with the company), I do
take exception to your comments on 'superior light rail service as
previously done on Port Melbourne and St Kilda lines'. The tram service
is slower to get to the city, is not wheelchair accessible (a seperate
bus service is supplied thus segregating this part of the community
unnecessarily) and runs at a not much better frequency than the train it
replaced. Lets be realistic, the people of St Kilda and Port Melbourne
didn't benefit, the government did as a tram service is much cheaper to
run. In the case of Upfield, the tram would have lost more time than the
train as it is much slower and the distance involved is much further
than St Kilda/Port Melbourne, would have more stops and would mean a
service reduction as the tram reservation would be moved from the front
door of the shops in Sydney road to the rail reservation 5 minutes away
and the local public transport service reduced from a train and a tram
to just one tram route. Again, the changes were not to benefit public
transport users, they were to make the service much cheaper for the
financially troubled Labour government to run.