Digging Holes With A Spoon - This is the thread where we complain about painstakingly slow railway engineering work

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Oxford to Didcot
buses on a Sunday
for the last 4 bludy years
How much engineering work can one short stretch of line need?

aarghhh!!!!

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 11:51 (nineteen years ago)

Circle Line too.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

It is not as bad as the Pulaski Bridge from Greenpoint to LIC. My next door neighbour (similar age to me) said that they had been working on it since she was born! They would start at one end, work all the way to the other end then go back to the beginning again. It still wasn't finished by the time I left LIC in the mid 90s. I wonder if it's finished by now!

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

Privatisation, ye cannae whack it

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

is privatisation to blame?

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:10 (nineteen years ago)

They blamed ~~organised crime~~ the Unions in Brooklyn.

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe there's a build-up of ash on the line, from Didcot power station, and they have to clean the rails on a Sunday.

― C J, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

is privatisation to blame?

I blame it.

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:13 (nineteen years ago)

They blamed organised crime the Unions in Brooklyn

precisely: this is why I have always been sceptical of the atttitude 'let's blame all the railways' ills on pricatisation'. When the railways were nationalised and there was union power, the railways' problems were blamed on that. Shurely the real reasons are a chronic lack of investment over decades, regardless of from whom this money comes (or doesn't).

Maybe there's a build-up of ash on the line, from Didcot power station, and they have to clean the rails on a Sunday.

maybe we should change the title to 'sweeping the rails with a toothbrush'.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:15 (nineteen years ago)

The railways' problems were not blamed on the unions - not even Thatcher tried to pull that one. Why don't you look into the standards of engineering and maintenance and the training of skilled engineers pre- and post-privitisation? I mean, what's a couple of deaths here and there (of staff or "customers") when you can keep your shareholders happy?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

I blame privatisation too. It creates more bureaucracy and enables miscommunication/blame-tennis between different bodies, slowing the whole process up. Maybe.

― blueski, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

Privatisation of the railways had little to do with "problems" and much more to do with ideology

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 12:50 (nineteen years ago)

I blame Darwin. Clearly, the survival of the fittest ensured that *PRECISELY* the wrong kind of leaves would end up on the track.

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:20 (nineteen years ago)

I now can't get that Gong tune, "Fohat Digs Holes In Space" out of my head

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

Why don't you look into the standards of engineering and maintenance and the training of skilled engineers pre- and post-privitisation?

hmm: this was certainly the case under railtrack, but with network rail the subcontracting has been taken back in-house ... and is, i understand, mostly being performed by former BR engineers (as opposed to the casual labour that made the railways such a terrifying proposition for a few years there).

I mean, what's a couple of deaths here and there (of staff or "customers") when you can keep your shareholders happy?

er ... all maintenance is now carried out by network rail, which doesn't have shareholders.

it's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than what we had under railtrack, which was frankly fucking terrifying.

Shurely the real reasons are a chronic lack of investment over decades, regardless of from whom this money comes (or doesn't)

OT fucking M, sadly.

― grimly fiendish, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

er ... all maintenance is now carried out by network rail, which doesn't have shareholders.

So it's been re-nationalised, to all intents and purposes and, hey presto, it works again

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

it works again

but it obv doesn't! which was the point of the thread in the first place!

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:44 (nineteen years ago)

Well, they've got x many years of mismanagement under privatisation to put right!

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:45 (nineteen years ago)

I don't understand why anyone would want to go to Didcot anyway.

― C J, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:45 (nineteen years ago)

you have to go through there to get to other places :/

or you could be going to ogle the power station

― emsk, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 13:48 (nineteen years ago)

So it's been re-nationalised, to all intents and purposes and, hey presto, it works again

eh? not quite sure if this is an attempt at sarcasm, or what point you're trying to make. but, as GG points out: no, it doesn't work again.

1) "re-nationalisation" would, obviously, involve no private train operating companies (TOCs). so we're a long way from that. all that's happened is the organisation responsible for track maintenance is now - thankfully - under government control again.

2) the situation now is better than it was under railtrack, but a long way from what most rail users would like. there are many reasons for this: chronic underfunding is one; the fact that TOCs can effectively hold NR to ransom over when and where maintenance work is carried out is another (i might be getting this wrong, but i'm pretty sure NR has to shell out huge sums of cash to that cunt branson et al if they go 0.0002 seconds over the agreed time for maintenance work). hence everything's done in little bursts to work around greedy TOCs trying to maximise income from their piss-poor services, rather than in a sensible way ("let's just get this fucking job done").

BR was far from perfect too; don't get me wrong. but the situation now, although an improvement from railtrack, is still fucked, and will be as long as greedy arseholes like branson get to run their train sets as anything other than a public service.

― grimly fiendish, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

I think you'll find I was the one being critical of privatisation on this thread

― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

Shurely the real reasons are a chronic lack of investment over decades, regardless of from whom this money comes (or doesn't).

i haven't suffered too much from the railway works, but have often come a cropper with tube works, especially at the weekend (and when they don't quite finish monday mornings, which is the only morning i have to use the tube near dawn). its especially a problem returning from my gf's parents, who live near chingford.

but i can't get too vexed. the tube has suffered from problems that weren't solved for years. finally, because the problems are doubtless at breaking point, they are being solved, and it is going to take time to be fixed. obviously, if i used the tubes regularly and was being fucked with, my attitude would be different.

i fell asleep during one of BBC4's tube night shows the other night, which was rough because i really wanted to watch the whole thing. focussing on the early days of the tube, i was struck again by how beautiful some of the early tube stations were, this sense of pride and hope in what was being built. its naive, i know, but i sense that's missing now, probably mostly due to a comparitive paucity in funding, and the plethora of things that money has to cover.

― stevie, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

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