Re: End of the Sand Train?

[dbromage@metz.une.edu.au (David Bromage)]

Stuart Thyer (sthyer@anatomy.unimelb.edu.au) wrote:
>In article <34c2efca.29215915@news.ocean.com.au>, pcc@ocean.com.au (Leslie
>Brown) wrote:
>
>> 
>> 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.
>
>Unfortunately I don't believe that to be true. It's because the
>Governments choose not to do these things properly.  Take West Coast rail,
>hardly a customer service provider with any experience before they got the
>Warrnambool train, but somehow they managed to turn it around and improve
>passenger numbers.  If the governments stopped employing british managment
>(who have privatised & got it wrong) and brought in Americans (who have
>known since year dot how to run a railway at a profit) then maybe we would
>not be suffering the rail downturns we are now.

You don't even have to go that far afield. QR makes a profit, even on
(some) passenger trains. Granted they have coal to help balance the books.
Silverton has made a profit every year of its existance, which goes back
about a century. 

Cheers
David