Oh Dear: Axe to fall on rail network

[threaded]

Coz they're a bit narrow?

Ah, you're only thinking of the width of the track (4 foot 8 an'alf inches when I were a lad)

But even a single track line is at least 36 foot wide, when you include the bed either side and the cess etc. etc.

HTH

[BlasterBates]

Well done Zeitghost.

About twenty years ago I went to British Rail for an interview, and he asked me "Shouldn't railways be just be covered in tarmac".

I thought long and hard, efficiency? no, cheaper? no they cost a fortune, more comfortable nope, more reliable, err ? in fact I ummed and arred so long he realised I agreed with him and then went onto the next question.

hmm now at last the answer, I was supposed to have given

[threaded]

Why mothball etc. etc. why not just tarmac the freaking things over and make nice new highways out of it?

[DaveB]

Assuming your train didn't fly off the track into the south midlands countryside.

Which, lets face it, could only be an improvement.

[lilelvis2000]

Bummer...I just bought a season ticket on my heavily subsidized line - the Clitheroe line in East Lancs.

Sigh..from the council tax, to the broken washer, to the car heater breaking, to the baby crying, now my train is being canned. Its all becoming too much!!!

[stackpole]

If we had a TGV network London to Brum would be 40mins journey time!

Assuming your train didn't fly off the track into the south midlands countryside.

[NoddY]

If we had a TGV network London to Brum would be 40mins journey time!

[stackpole]

"We can't be much of a government if we can't get trains to run on time." - John Prescott, 1997

He makes the Chuckle Brothers look intelligent.

[bogeyman]

Mothballing

From the New Labour Dictionary: -

moth·ball - (môthbôl, mth-)

To destroy or put irretrievably beyond use anything of any public good.

To missapropriate any public asset for the good of the party (or for the good of Mr. John Prescott in particular)

To muck-up, ****-up and generally mismanage and abuse the common wealth and assets of the nation.

(esp.) Destroy the railways because of doom-brain Prescott's hatered of his former opponents in ASLEF and RMT.

[wendigo100]

What were they then?

[AtW]

Debt levels were fine so long as the Govt paid - but since they were main people who paid they were able to refuse to pay which would automatically mean default for sucker of a company that chooses to depend on donations from single party to such an extent.

[wendigo100]

The debt of Network Rail, the not-for-profit company that runs the track, will soar to £20bn by 2008. It will need £1bn a year just to service this debt.

Does anyone know what the subsidy and debt levels were that Bozo Byers and Blair used to justify renationalising Railtrack?

[AlfredJPruffock]

An army of consultants will decide whether lines should stay open or close.

Music to my ears.

Pruffocks extensive knowledge of the UK Rail Sector (eg having taken the Hamilton to Glasgow train on the 19th Sep 1987) stands me in pole position as a consultant.

My daily rate is a mere 834 Guineas, with a discount for cash only payments.

I think my service proposal represents tremendous value to the overburdended UK tax payer.

[Lucifer Box]

An "army of consultants", eh? <toot-toot>

Where do I sign up? <ker-ching>

[milanbenes]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/tra...icle341731.ece

Ahh, progress...

"Ministers are preparing ways of closing or "mothballing" large sections of the railway network, according to an official document which was slipped out without publicity last week.

Dozens of branch lines and secondary routes could shut, in what would be the biggest rethink of the network since the Beeching report in the 1960s, which led to the closure of 4,000 miles of railway and nearly half the nation's stations. Loss-making services would be transferred on to buses, as a means of reducing the £6bn-a-year subsidy.

An army of consultants will decide whether lines should stay open or close.
",

More traffic jams eh.

Milan.