Re: Latest from the NSW rumour mill

["Andrew Honan" <ahonan@wr.com.au>]

Ben Staples <98711576@student.hawkesbury.uws.edu.au> wrote in message
7kh64g$sgr@ob1.uws.EDU.AU">news:7kh64g$sgr@ob1.uws.EDU.AU...
>
> David Bromage <dbromage@omni.com.au> wrote in message
>
> > Latest rumour: Countrylink is to be privatised after the Olympic.
> > 49% of FreightCorp will be sold and listed on the stock exchange.
> >
> > I now open the floor to wild and uninformed conjecture and speculation.
>
> What about Rail Services Australia. Are they to be flogged oof, or are
they
> to wither and die.
>
> Ben Staples
>
>
>
The RSA is a difficult decision.
The organization has a lot of expertise (Overhead wiring & signaling) and
capital equipment. Unfortunately it has suffered from mismanagement from
successive state governments. It needs a commercial focus but this can only
happen in a reformed rail transport system.

It gets down to the argument that M Daly raised about vertical integration.
The urban rail task is predominantly state run and therefore a state based
maintenance group maybe viable, say working through SRA. Trying to fit
freight and interurban tasks into the metropolitan system is very difficult
especially during peak periods.

However there is a compelling case to be made that private maintainers can
also be contracted to the SRA.

On the freight lines (vertically integrated), the freight operators will
contract out the maintenance and capital works to whoever. The RSA will be
dealt out of this picture.

The RSA also own a lot of spares and specialized equipment. This
unfortunately is not costed properly to work jobs or depreciated in any
commercial sense. Much of the spares is to cover antiquated in-service
equipment.

Maybe there is a role for RSA  to be a stores and plant & equipment
operator??

Unfortunately I just don't believe that rail is high on the state
governments agenda, and as such the RSA is a victim to this. Sure, the
governments take note of unemployment, in regional NSW, and respond
accordingly, but ultimately it is only a matter of time for the RSA to go
under (or consumed by someone else) or rail to go under (by State govt
neglect.
The best thing that could happen for RSA workers is for Freight Corp to be
sold quickly and workers to come on board the this new group. The government
should offer huge voluntary redundancies as a result of the sale.
Likewise CityRail should organize their own capital works and maintenance
rather than through RAC.

AH