Network Rail and the service watchdog tw*ts a

Quote by Lost
Oh and as for the channel tunnel ... What a bloody joke that is. Why not a half decent autoroute/motorway from London to Paris? far more practical!
Saying that i'd prefer nothing to anything.

Quote by swcpl2005
And whilst questioning Railtrack, just ask who funds them and who is going to pay this £14m fine?
Oh, that will be us, the already over-taxed masses who continue to be viewed as cash cows by this disgrace for a Government. It effectively gives Gordon Brown and his useless Chancellor another £14m of our money to waste and removes money from improving the railway infrastructure.
But don't worry as the head of Railtrack, Ian McAllister, has just been made a knight so that makes it all ok then.
You really couldn't make it up. The whole thing stinks. Snouts....trough.....etc

Quote by swcpl2005
And whilst questioning Railtrack, just ask who funds them and who is going to pay this £14m fine?
Oh, that will be us, the already over-taxed masses who continue to be viewed as cash cows by this disgrace for a Government. It effectively gives Gordon Brown and his useless Chancellor another £14m of our money to waste and removes money from improving the railway infrastructure.
But don't worry as the head of Railtrack, Ian McAllister, has just been made a knight so that makes it all ok then.
You really couldn't make it up. The whole thing stinks. Snouts....trough.....etc

Quote by Lost
Ok so Network Rail are going to get bollocked yeah ....Big deal! its :bs:
Quoted:- 'Network Rail has a month to haul the upgrade of its busiest line back on track after regulators imposed a record £14m fine and a package of measures to tackle the infrastructure company's lacklustre planning procedures'.

Well what the fudge is that going to do for the + journeys taked about (freakin loads more on a national scale)it's pi*sed about with since Chrimbo eh? Not a frigging lot lets face it. Oh yeah and If they get fined the £14 million quid where does that go eh?
How about we give the 20'000 journeys messed up with £700 each. At least that way the people who it pis*ed off are the people recompensed. Oh and howabout the senior management being held accountable with some of it exec's wages being slashed. not cutting the whole of the workforces bonuses!
I don't give a stuff about Railways get rid of them replace em with roads and carparks in the centres of towns. Britain and overland Railways? The days have long gone. Kapput, finito. :giveup:

Quote by Lost
Oh and as for the channel tunnel ... What a bloody joke that is. Why not a half decent autoroute/motorway from London to Paris? far more practical!
Saying that i'd prefer nothing to anything.

Quote by essex34m
To add to Fabio's post, can I add that any rail renewal (i.e. replacing of a section of track) takes on average 40 weeks to plan, and sometimes there are last minute problems that can't be forseen, such as equipment breaking/breaking down, manpower being unreliable, and yes, bad planning
There are many factors in this, I am aware of those factors, as I am one of those who works on these engineering problems, I worked on the worksite adjacent to the Liverpool St blockade, and was also present at Rugby once the New Year works was declared to be an overrun
One of the biggest problems, is that Network Rail don't involve the public enough, NR really should contact each and every passenger, to arrange when it would be convenient to do any works, as many members of the public want higher capacity trains, better tracks to run them on, and an increase in punctuality, but only seem to want all this work to happen when that passenger is on holiday, as it is never convenient otherwise
Once I read the OP, I treated it as convenient ignorance, as I seriously doubt any comments were made with any degree of knowledge

Quote by fabio
Oh and as for the channel tunnel ... What a bloody joke that is. Why not a half decent autoroute/motorway from London to Paris? far more practical!
Saying that i'd prefer nothing to anything.

Quote by essex34m
As has been explained elsewhere in this thread, there are a number of ways in which NR gain their income
And we all know that the fine was pointless, it punishes nobody but the passengers, because all that will happen is £14m will not be spent on projects that would have needed that financing
And when the Rugby blockade went tits up, i find it disgusting that Ian McAllister, recently knighted for services to transport, was absent from the offices because he "didn't want to get in the way"
There is no real decent way to 'punish' NR

In that we so do agree

Quote by Lost
Ok I admit to not being an expert in the field of railways. Hey i'll even admit to knowing very little. Now please explain how the fines levied against such organisations are paid for and too and and tell me to what great effect does joe public gain? And where at what point are the hands of the management slapped?

Quote by fabio
right... blown off my steam...
this is where we will agree to disagree...
I think we should have a world class railway like the french and germans..... the reason it is in the state that it is in the state that it is, is because of the under spending in the 80's and early 90's.... so we now lag well behind......
okay so you thinking we should get rid of trains,
okay... i am going to mention a few cities now, London, Brimingham, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow
all of them have metro systems that actually help keep traffic out of the city centres and do a good job of it....
those are just the ones with stand alone systems.... then add on top of that all the commuter lines in and out of those cities......
do you really think if you built new roads (how are you going to find all the new parking places, places to build said roads ect ect...) that would ease the situation........
look deeper into the situation.. it would cause havoc

Sadly I did a thesis on this for a college course about a decade ago fabio. I got a fair mark too. Though i did get the tutor disagreeing with what i said (but then he was a do-gooding red under the bed left wing church going representative of the vegetarians against paris hilton league :high-smile: )
The underground railways i can see the point of - lots of stations stops in and out of towns etc. And!! London Underground! makes ££££'s.
Onto car parks. How about taking the stations and making them multi story car parks. Charging parking, which is one of the biggest money makers councils have. And the tracks .... make them roads! they are already there the space is good. Look at all the space you could use. The stockyards depots offices etc In my mind it makes sense. I wish i still had me thesis i should of sent it to Tony When he was in.
This is all pipe dream maybe and not practicable but I think it works and could be a great way forward for the next thirty years maybe of national infrastructure building.

Quote by fabio

Ok I admit to not being an expert in the field of railways. Hey i'll even admit to knowing very little. Now please explain how the fines levied against such organisations are paid for and too and and tell me to what great effect does joe public gain? And where at what point are the hands of the management slapped?

Quote by niceguysdoexist
I have always thought the way forwards for rail and transport is massive investment in the rail infrastructure such that you had drive on drive off rolling stock for Lorries. All Long distance freight(over say 15-20 miles) should then be compulsorarily shipped via rail and just the last few miles via lorries . This would create massive Motorway capacity ..and give us a rail network that was efficient and greener and economically viable ...
But then again I could be talking bollox ...I often do

I hear what you say niceguy. The problem as i see it that really isn't roll off roll on still double handling and time inefficient? You still need trucks and man power at either end.
Kent Highway services have in fact improved times of truck freight journeys irrespective of the railways and also Kent being the busiest freight region in Britain. (ref:- Kent highways)
If indeed Britain was far more massive than it is maybe i could see the vindication in rail a little more, being that the stops between two points would be further apart and there would be less drop off points etc.
Also I'm sure that the ugly face of commerce would dictate that if rail was as effective and attractive as road in net profit, then the amount of £ invested in road haulage would be decreasing not increasing
Maybe just maybe I could see a rail network being cost effective and efficient if there was a blank canvass to plot it on but as i see it I can only see the way to get people/freight onto rail and increase the massive 4% of traffic it has at the moment is by forcing by whatever foul means Mr & Mrs Ordinary Bloke/ess out of their cars.

Quote by Lost
I hear what you say niceguy. The problem as i see it that really isn't roll off roll on still double handling and time inefficient? You still need trucks and man power at either end.
If indeed Britain was far more massive than it is maybe i could see the vindication in rail a little more, being that the stops between two points would be further apart and there would be less drop off points etc.
Also I'm sure that the ugly face of commerce would dictate that if rail was as effective and attractive as road in net profit, then the amount of £ invested in road haulage would be decreasing not increasing

Quote by niceguysdoexist

I hear what you say niceguy. The problem as i see it that really isn't roll off roll on still double handling and time inefficient? You still need trucks and man power at either end.
If indeed Britain was far more massive than it is maybe i could see the vindication in rail a little more, being that the stops between two points would be further apart and there would be less drop off points etc.
Also I'm sure that the ugly face of commerce would dictate that if rail was as effective and attractive as road in net profit, then the amount of £ invested in road haulage would be decreasing not increasing

Quote by niceguysdoexist

I hear what you say niceguy. The problem as i see it that really isn't roll off roll on still double handling and time inefficient? You still need trucks and man power at either end.
If indeed Britain was far more massive than it is maybe i could see the vindication in rail a little more, being that the stops between two points would be further apart and there would be less drop off points etc.
Also I'm sure that the ugly face of commerce would dictate that if rail was as effective and attractive as road in net profit, then the amount of £ invested in road haulage would be decreasing not increasing

No you aint nice
And for that matter i do agree with you that longer distance stuff may well be a valid arguement and that would be cool. However.... Could you seriously see the point in running a roll on roll off service between lets say London and birmingham or nottingham. Or Manchester to to Bristol? I still cant see it. Door to door delivery by truck works.
As for roads..... build more, convert tracks to roads . think what the eastcoast mainline would be like as a Mway!! More tonnage per hour and no extra land taken up to boot. :D Ok Ok so i'm a dyed in the wool advocate of the road.
i do of course see the idea of the reduction possibly of fuel usage by trains running 's of tonnes each load as opposed to a max 44 (and the myriad of lesser load masses) That, however, just reinforces my opinion that alternative fuels for road transport must be prioritised by govt
Hey this might be boll*x but its my type of bollox :lol: