Melbourne Historic Fleet - Action/Petition
Cawood, David
Sunday, December 2, 2001 9:39 PM
Hi Gentlemen
I have been very pleased by the passionate debates which have come forth
from my earlier e-mails.
Bravo for Greg King's thoughts and observations in a balanced context are
admirable. From my perspective here in NZ, the next step is action. I think
the action we can all be involved in is the creation of a Petition which
outlines several specific action points which we would like the appropriate
Minister to consider and cut through the red tape and commercial interests
to achieve. Including Thornbury Depot, the provision of multi voltage,
continued panto/trolley pole operation on specific routes, possibly 12 and
16. Most importantly the inclusion of a seperate contract for the operation
of the Historic trams (with Connies) by a commercial or voluntary entity
with peppercorn running rights and Historic operational exemptions.
Do you want to word such a petition Greg?
Let's put all the talk to some constructive use! Putting money where are big
mouths are - me included!
Cheers
David Cawood
From: "Greg King"
Date: Sun Dec 2, 2001 12:26 am
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder]
Hi Peter,
Let me put a few points here from someone on the "inside" about all this
firstly, let me state my position, I believe we should have routes 12 and 16
"W" operated, I also believe that the former Preston depot AKA Thornbury
depot, the museum with cars running in the reserve to Merry Creek and return
between service cars. That said, here are reasons why it is difficult to
make happen.
Ever since the spate of rear end collisions that the "W's" had prior to June
2000, there has been a reluctance with all levels of management to run
anything without a new braking system. The problem goes back to two main
problems, the much vaunted "slack adjusters" that never worked, a way of
saving a few dollars for a pitman. Secondly and, the most significant part,
goes back the Kennett govenrments outragous deal done with the ticket
machines. On the "W's", the things were so heavy, they over balanced the
cars so a counter weight had to be added to the other side with
corresponding changes to the brake rigging, THIS is the underlying problem
with a brake system that worked effeciently (and I can attest to that having
been an Instructor on them for many years) for 70+ years, proof of all the
above is, the City Circle and the resturant cars never had those rigging
modifications and had no problems stopping. Thus the paranoia increased to
the rediculous situation we have now where a traditional tram is not allowed
to run on the system, has nothing to do with poles/pantographs (at lest not
for the moment) or voltage. Many tram drivers don't want the "W's" because
the door operation is painfully slow having been modified for one man
operation, management a frightened of them. My own belief is, they should
pull 50 cars out of the many stored (there would be at least 50 that are in
excellent body condition) and put them back into service as they were on the
12 and 16 and put those bloody useless "Tram Attendants" that the government
hired to be token conductors, back on those cars, perhaps call for drivers
that want to drive "W's" and have a seperate roster (I would be the first
with my hand up). As for some comments past about public wanting only modern
cars, crap! The public could'nt give a rats arse wheter it was a W, Z, B, C
or a bus, as long as it gets them there, they prefer trams at the moment
because, MOST are dishonest and want to ride free. We need more ticket
checkers that arrest these people. If we brought back conductors on the
whole service, 75% of passengers would tell them to "get stuffed, how are
you going to make me pay" and would probably end up in a fight. THAT is how
much society has changed since the loss of the conductors! Management don't
want double the payroll to pay, why would they, they are private companies,
they would rather go to buses where the passengers have to pay as they get
on. Don't elude youselves, it is an Urban myth that Melbourne loves it's
trams, if they were tobe scraped, the sreams would die as quick as they did
in brisbane and they DID love their trams. As for fare collection,
pre-purchased ticketing has been working well for decades in Europe, it's
the half arsed way we go about things here why it fails here.
Lastly, as I mentioned, Joe Public could care less about what they travel on
but, apart from the high steps and lack of air-conditioning (Japanes have no
problem fitting it to their conventional cars), the SW5-W7 series are the
most comfortable trams to ride on, especially the rock hard riding Citadis
cars!
Hope this has shed some light on the subject.
Greg
Melbourne are not pole compatible?If so what is stopping us running some
kind of service with W and older cars even if only occasionaly,on Sundays or
as happened one year,to the Australian Open{lots of visitors and not much
traffic at that time of year and visitors do love our old trams].I am sure
there are reasons,I just don't know what they are or if they are lack of
official will or actual official resistance.It seems to me that if you can
run Restaurant Trams running at series speed mixed in with service cars then
anything else would be an improvement.I'd back it in that anything except a
Birney[worst ride in Christendom] could keep average service speeds
on,say,St.Kilda Rd.and not delay other services.I'm not saying you'd run the
old cars every day just that when you did run them they needn't stuff up the
rest of the service.I'm with you David,I'd like our famous tramway heritage
to be a bit more visible,and to carry working connies.On that subject I'm
getting really pissed off with seeing 4 or 5 people chasing fare evaders
instead of 1 person actually selling tickets even if only on city safety
zones and at other busy points,I know fare evasion is a problem but surely
prevention is better than this dubious,and surely costly, cure.Any
thoughts?Regards all,Peter Bruce. --- In
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I have been very pleased by the passionate debates which have come forth
from my earlier e-mails.
Bravo for Greg King's thoughts and observations in a balanced context are
admirable. From my perspective here in NZ, the next step is action. I think
the action we can all be involved in is the creation of a Petition which
outlines several specific action points which we would like the appropriate
Minister to consider and cut through the red tape and commercial interests
to achieve. Including Thornbury Depot, the provision of multi voltage,
continued panto/trolley pole operation on specific routes, possibly 12 and
16. Most importantly the inclusion of a seperate contract for the operation
of the Historic trams (with Connies) by a commercial or voluntary entity
with peppercorn running rights and Historic operational exemptions.
Do you want to word such a petition Greg?
Let's put all the talk to some constructive use! Putting money where are big
mouths are - me included!
Cheers
David Cawood
From: "Greg King"
Date: Sun Dec 2, 2001 12:26 am
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder]
Hi Peter,
Let me put a few points here from someone on the "inside" about all this
firstly, let me state my position, I believe we should have routes 12 and 16
"W" operated, I also believe that the former Preston depot AKA Thornbury
depot, the museum with cars running in the reserve to Merry Creek and return
between service cars. That said, here are reasons why it is difficult to
make happen.
Ever since the spate of rear end collisions that the "W's" had prior to June
2000, there has been a reluctance with all levels of management to run
anything without a new braking system. The problem goes back to two main
problems, the much vaunted "slack adjusters" that never worked, a way of
saving a few dollars for a pitman. Secondly and, the most significant part,
goes back the Kennett govenrments outragous deal done with the ticket
machines. On the "W's", the things were so heavy, they over balanced the
cars so a counter weight had to be added to the other side with
corresponding changes to the brake rigging, THIS is the underlying problem
with a brake system that worked effeciently (and I can attest to that having
been an Instructor on them for many years) for 70+ years, proof of all the
above is, the City Circle and the resturant cars never had those rigging
modifications and had no problems stopping. Thus the paranoia increased to
the rediculous situation we have now where a traditional tram is not allowed
to run on the system, has nothing to do with poles/pantographs (at lest not
for the moment) or voltage. Many tram drivers don't want the "W's" because
the door operation is painfully slow having been modified for one man
operation, management a frightened of them. My own belief is, they should
pull 50 cars out of the many stored (there would be at least 50 that are in
excellent body condition) and put them back into service as they were on the
12 and 16 and put those bloody useless "Tram Attendants" that the government
hired to be token conductors, back on those cars, perhaps call for drivers
that want to drive "W's" and have a seperate roster (I would be the first
with my hand up). As for some comments past about public wanting only modern
cars, crap! The public could'nt give a rats arse wheter it was a W, Z, B, C
or a bus, as long as it gets them there, they prefer trams at the moment
because, MOST are dishonest and want to ride free. We need more ticket
checkers that arrest these people. If we brought back conductors on the
whole service, 75% of passengers would tell them to "get stuffed, how are
you going to make me pay" and would probably end up in a fight. THAT is how
much society has changed since the loss of the conductors! Management don't
want double the payroll to pay, why would they, they are private companies,
they would rather go to buses where the passengers have to pay as they get
on. Don't elude youselves, it is an Urban myth that Melbourne loves it's
trams, if they were tobe scraped, the sreams would die as quick as they did
in brisbane and they DID love their trams. As for fare collection,
pre-purchased ticketing has been working well for decades in Europe, it's
the half arsed way we go about things here why it fails here.
Lastly, as I mentioned, Joe Public could care less about what they travel on
but, apart from the high steps and lack of air-conditioning (Japanes have no
problem fitting it to their conventional cars), the SW5-W7 series are the
most comfortable trams to ride on, especially the rock hard riding Citadis
cars!
Hope this has shed some light on the subject.
Greg
Thought it made sense to go back to the beginning of this discussion.Firstam I right in saying that only Southbank Jct.to St.Kilda station and Port
Melbourne are not pole compatible?If so what is stopping us running some
kind of service with W and older cars even if only occasionaly,on Sundays or
as happened one year,to the Australian Open{lots of visitors and not much
traffic at that time of year and visitors do love our old trams].I am sure
there are reasons,I just don't know what they are or if they are lack of
official will or actual official resistance.It seems to me that if you can
run Restaurant Trams running at series speed mixed in with service cars then
anything else would be an improvement.I'd back it in that anything except a
Birney[worst ride in Christendom] could keep average service speeds
on,say,St.Kilda Rd.and not delay other services.I'm not saying you'd run the
old cars every day just that when you did run them they needn't stuff up the
rest of the service.I'm with you David,I'd like our famous tramway heritage
to be a bit more visible,and to carry working connies.On that subject I'm
getting really pissed off with seeing 4 or 5 people chasing fare evaders
instead of 1 person actually selling tickets even if only on city safety
zones and at other busy points,I know fare evasion is a problem but surely
prevention is better than this dubious,and surely costly, cure.Any
thoughts?Regards all,Peter Bruce. --- In
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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/