Re: Melbourne Trams/TV 9 beatup

[David Langley <del@ancc.com.au>]

Chris Brownbill wrote:

> So how do we get the other side of the story told?  There will be other slow
> news days, if the road lobby can do it why can't the rail/tram lobby?  We all
> sit here and bitch about the road lobby doing this or that while the rail lobby
> do bugger-all.  Well you cant blame the road lobby - they're just doing their
> job.  So who is the rail lobby - maybe its people like us aus.rail ers!

I guess that the road lobby is strong because they have little to lose if they
don't get a hearing. If you are employed by the govt and then wish to go off and
lobby for an improvements somewhere, and the govt just wants to close you down
sometime, then you will probably get told to "pull your head in or you will lose
your job sooner". When the railways and tramways become private, then a
railway/tramway lobby surely would come from within the industry which is exactly
where the road lobby comes from.

A related story from some years ago. A small group of railfans met a number of
times with members of the railways passenger operations group (coincidentally also
railfans, or maybe not coincidentally) and we (yes I was a privileged member) had a
little bit of input into the service being run at the time. One of our successes
was to get the railways to run the mid afternoon Bendigo and Ballarat services on a
Sunday instead of running empty cars attached to Sunday evening trains. The Bendigo
train was a great success, the Ballarat a little less so, but it shows that with a
properly organised (from both sides) get together, success can sometimes follow.

Whether the govt is going to listen to anyone from aus.rail would be an interesting
point. After all if you don't agree with Jeff you will get sand thrown in your
face. Robin Cooper might be a different kettle of fish.

David Langley.