Re: Big train wreck in England! - 70 Dead?

[ajwright@spam.ozemail.com.au (Ashley Wright)]

On Sat, 9 Oct 1999 23:30:17 +1000, "Andrew" <ahonan@zipworld.com.au>
wrote:

>I am not confident that we can rely on the Sydney system to be safe. Many of
>the practices and procedures in operations and maintenance are in a time
>warp. The demands on the system are increasing and  these procedures are
>being dragged out of the 19th century.
>Track condition is monitored by the RVX vehicle but this happens every 3
>months. In between this there are only track walks.
>
>In operations, the people in Train control (in Sydney) are using very old
>systems to manage movement of trains.
>There was a close call this year in the Hunter valley where two trains were
>on the same line in a head-on situation (one of them was an XPT). An
>accident did not occur as train control in Broadmeadows alerted the trains
>of the situation.
>

The Hunter is quite a lot different in terms of traffic and signalling
compated to the Sydney metro area, so not sure how you can make
assumptions about Sydney on that case.

  Considering all the works that have been going on in Sydney for
years (and most probably isn't Olympics related) I would say that they
are doing a good job and making the system much safer. I wouldn't have
any fears about traveling day in day out on the system. But thats not
to say some things cannot be done better.
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 Ashley Wright, Canberra, Australia  ajwright@nospam.ozemail.com.au                                                                           
 www:  http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ajwright   Do not reply to my email. Delete word 'Spam'.                   
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