Re: Road Cost Recovery.

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

telljb@ozemail.com.au (Tell) wrote in aus.rail:

>mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly) wrote in part:
>>The worst case scenerio is probably the most likely ,ie , the feds get out of 
>>rail all together (when they sell their share of NR), the ARTC is a flop due 
>>to lack of funds to fix the crummy tracks, we cant get rid of the idiotic 
>>access charges, and rail slowly fades away. (Would anyone care, apart from the 
>>rail fans)
>
>I have stated this before and I repeat again, the over
>whelming majority of Australians could not give two
>hoots about the national rail scene.  
>Do you know what concerns most people about railways.?
>Being held up at a level crossing by a train.!  
>The very same people will tolerate heavy road
>transport.  It is a strange world we live in.
>
>Get ALL governments out of non suburban railways on the
>standard gauge and turn it over to the private sector.
>It will survive, make no mistake about that.
>A healthy non government national rail system means
>that private pass trains will also survive.
>
>Governments in Australia have had long enough, and
>untold billions of dollars to produce a decent
>integrated rail system, they have FAILED.
>  
>----Tell
>Alice Springs NT
>
Did you have a Damascus Road type conversion or have you always been
in favour of privitisation? I thought you once help an opposing view
perhaps?

Whatever the case, I admire your wisdom, your farsightedness and your
strength of character in admitting this on a newsgroup so seemingly
biased against us. Yes, I agree with you as you seem to have such
similar characteristics to myself (:-)) <- A very BIG smiley!!!

Although, privately run metro transport should prove an interesting
challange. The local papers in Melbourne (The Sun-Herald and The Age)
both had as their editorials the Auditor-Generals report on the state
of Melbourne's public transport infrastructure noting that billions
are required to be spent on rolling stock, signalling and tracks to
bring them up to a safe and reliable standard. The A-G most
prominently noted that privitisation will not magically fix this any
better than the state government. 

Didn't the previous Liberal government (Thompson wasn't it?) admit
that they made the public transport system into such a shambles by
lack of investment that they might as well close it down anyway? Labor
didn't do much better by selling the trains off and then leasing them
back to make the books appear to balance better.

Les Brown