Evening Standard wants Boris to scrap new TfL projects

[Republica]

Originally Posted by Martin S

Even in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, the Conservatives invested money to improve infrastructure.

Youve gotta be taking the piss completely here. And by calling it the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire you make yourself known as a bigot.

[potto]

well as soon as he accidently listed the Heathrow Express as a great piece of Conservative public transport investment he blew his cover

[Martin S]

Originally Posted by gothicform

can i just say that by 1984 the APT had been fixed and was working properly and reliably. there was actually one in service providing high speed links between london and glasgow every day but the govt had it pulled after it was becoming politically embarrassing that the project had in fact succeeded with the unit setting records that even today virgin with their wasteful WCML cannot beat. the technology from APT was then rolled wholesale into the 225 which is without a doubt, the best train running on the uk network today.

British Rail made the crucial mistake of introducing the APT-P in the winter when its many problems caused the service provided to be so unreliable that it had to be followed by a conventional train to pick up stranded passengers.

The nadir of all of this was the derailment of a set at linespeed that, fortunately did not result in a major disaster but which led British Rail to suspend revenue earning services.

It is quite correct that the train, after a long period of trial running was debugged but what had happened was that the 20 year gestation period from initial idea to the APT-P meant that its crucial Anglo-Scottish market had been lost to the airlines.

There were also other problems. The train was just too ambitious and tried to introduce too much technology at once without the backup of a fully trained and equipped maintenance capability. There was also the issue of tilt nausea and the awkward arrangement of the train with a central power car that meant that buffet and dining cars had to be duplicated.

Certainly, a lot was learned and that would have gone into the IC225 project but Britain's lead on tilting technology was lost to the Italians and our WCML trains are now Pendolinos.

It was a shame and I don't exonerate the conservative government from partial responsibility but, following the failure of the project, British Rail carried out an independent inquiry, which ruled that the technology of APT was difficult but manageable and that the problem was that BR lacked the project management expertise to deliver the project. So perhaps that was the most important lesson learned.

[Martin S]

Originally Posted by Republica

Youve gotta be taking the piss completely here. And by calling it the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire you make yourself known as a bigot.

Doesn't alter the fact that a government with the reputation of being rabidly right wing and anti-public transport did invest public money in a city that, at that time had a reputation for being rabidly left wing. That is not happening today under a Labour government.

I'm sorry if the use of the Socialist Republic jibe offended you but it was widely in use at the time and I think many people in the area saw it as a compliment.

[Martin S]

Originally Posted by potto

well as soon as he accidently listed the Heathrow Express as a great piece of Conservative public transport investment he blew his cover

What cover is that exactly Potto? If I were besotted with Boris Johnson and the Tory party, I would say that. Why not? However, if you read my posts, the point I am making is that under the Conservative administration, far more money was invested in public transport projects (i.e. new railway lines, electrification, light rail schemes etc ) than is being done under New Labour.

The Conservatives not only invested our taxpayers money but facilitated the private sector to invest in rail schemes hence Heathrow Express etc. Why is that considered a bad thing?

Remember one thing about political ideology applied to public transport. The Conservatives may oppose the idea of collectivised state transport and public spending but people of a left wing persuasion often oppose it as well.

Bob Mellish, when he was a Labour politician, said that railways were a bad thing as they meant poor taxpayers subsidising rich businesspeople to travel about. It is not a one-sided issue.

[potto]

ah it was just very similar to the typical posts that got put up in the long running London mayoral debate. We had to worship the Conservatives for even art and culture! I was supporting Ken purely for his understanding of urban issues and for what he had achieved.

The Evening Standard is an utterly biased and nasty piece of work especially visible during the election campaign and therefore should be open to abuse no matter ones view on national politics. Im sure you are full of different ideas and schemes with your knowledge of the rail industry but there is no coherent alternative that comes from the Evening Standard. Political target practise using urban initiatives is such an ugly thing and very depressing.

[Martin S]

Originally Posted by potto

ah it was just very similar to the typical posts that got put up in the long running London mayoral debate. We had to worship the Conservatives for even art and culture! I was supporting Ken purely for his understanding of urban issues and for what he had achieved.

The Evening Standard is an utterly biased and nasty piece of work especially visible during the election campaign and therefore should be open to abuse no matter ones view on national politics. Im sure you are full of different ideas and schemes with your knowledge of the rail industry but there is no coherent alternative that comes from the Evening Standard. Political target practise using urban initiatives is such an ugly thing and very depressing.

I don't really disagree with what you have said - apart from the idea that we have to worship the Conservatives.

I was living in London until just under two months ago and a regular reader of the Evening Standard - and it is quite true, the Standard was extremely anti-Ken, especially Mr Gilligan. I suspect that if he had seen Ken walking along the Thames he would have published a headline 'Livingstone can't swim'.

I certainly don't worship the Conservatives. They after all were responsible for the botched privatisation that has made subsequent investment much harder but I believe that the facts speak for themselves - when you look at public transport, more investment in actual infrastructure took place under a Conservative government. All the same, much less than many of our European neighbours consider to be standard.

These things are frustrating for everyone. I went to the launch of Thameslink 2000 back in 1991 (people didn't laugh at the title then) and I worked on its Transport and Works Act submission in 1997/8. But it is only now, that things are starting to move - I think. Crossrail was announced over 20 years ago and we are still 3 years away from it actually starting. As for my local public transport dream project - Merseyrail - that is now stuck in the this week, next week, sometime, never implementation strategy.

You can't put all the blame for that on New Labour - but the reason I get annoyed about it is because I remember how Labour in opposition regularly castigated the Tories for their failure to invest in infrastructure projects and, if anything, they have achieved much less.