Re: End of the Sand Train?

[pcc@ocean.com.au (Leslie Brown)]

steam4me@enternet.com.au (Yuri  Sos/Melbourne) wrote in aus.rail:
>
>Or switching into PARANOIA MODE: given Jeff's petulance and desire for
>vengeance over anyone who annoys him, is this revenge on the voters of
>West Gippsland for throwing out the Libs at the last by-election? 
>END PARANOIA MODE HERE <g!>
>
So, are we all agreed then? Put an end to government interference in
the running of trains in Victoria and privatise the whole damn lot?

I'm sick and tired of watching rail-lines close down at the same time
the governement is espousing improvements to rail services, ie; the
goat-track that masquerades as the Mel--Adel line, closure of
Ballarat-Ararat, closure of Heywood-Mt. Gambier-Wolsley, and no sign
of the promised standard gauge platform at Nth Geelong.

It's about time that market forces decided closure of public assets
and not government neglect, which is admitted ten or so years later.
Too often government has closed a rail-line with the excuse that,
"well we let it run down so we might as well close it".

I can't wait for the day that rail-services are totally privatised in
Victoria. The government, and I mean all of them, has only ever proved
that they are incompetant in managing their own resources. If anything
good can be said about Kennet, it was that his government seems to
have appreciated this fact, unlike Labour.

Les Brown.