Re: Observations from the United States

you ozzies would post a concise explanation of the events that took

place when

MMTB was privatised, the reasons and results. Thanks so much, guys.
...
Another neat little project for our stateside members would be a

short list of

Australian and NZ cities currently operating trams, lrvs, museums

and/or

heritage lines. Thanks again.
...
That oughta keep you guys out of mischief for a while [lol] ;-)

Okay Don,

As I'm laid up sick, I will try and briefly answer your challenge.

Firstly, the MMTB was combined with the suburban railways in 1983 un
the then pro-public transport, Labor government, in principle it
worked fine, however the bureaucrats stayed and it created a top
heavy organisation, there were more problems but it would take weeks
to describe it all. When the Kennett govt came to power in 92
(conseratives and based their privatisation practices on the former
british Thatcher regime which is now showing the falicy of it in
their country), they sold off the bus section to private bus
companies as "private enterprise could do it better" what it really
meant that, private bus companies in Melbourne (if not Australia) are
traditionally over worked and under paid, working long shifts up to
11 hours with a half hour meal break (sometimes taken on the bus) for
less pay than the tramways buses got, I know this as I used to be a
private bus operator. Eventually, they split the system in have to
create "competition" (how do you do that when they don't run the same
route??) and then flooged the lot off into four companies, Yarra
Trams is a joint French and Australian consortium whilst M>tram is an
English/Scottish based company called National express, the latter
also got one half of the suburban trains and Connex (another French
company) got the other bit. Whilst there have been improvements to
rolling stock and the so called "super stops" (geez, do you need all
the bells and whistle at a stop waiting for a tram?) it is not for me
to say whether there has been major improvements, especially if you
stack it up against the old days of the MMTB when the tramways were
truly efficient.

Cheers Greg


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