Re: Melbourne Trams

[David McLoughlin <davemcl@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz>]

David Langley wrote:
 
> I guess we can take heart in the fact the Jeff is about to sell the
> trams to private industry and they surely won't pay good money for them
> and then close them done.

Have you heard of National City Lines, the company owned by General
Motors, Firestone Tires and Standard Oil, which bought dozens of US
tramway systems in the 1930s, 40s and 50s and replaced the trams
with.... General Motors buses rolling on Firestone tyres and fuelled by
Standard Oil diesel????

In Jeff's defence he appears to have demanded in the contracts that the
private companies retain all existing tram lines, replace all but the
heritage fleet with new trams, maintain the infrastructure and not
reduce the timetables.

It is a pity there is not some money about to increase the segregation
of the lines so the trams are not slowed down by motor traffic (which
one look at the roads shows you is the problem, not the motor traffic
being slowed down by trams).

David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand