Re: Re: Exessive fandom at any cost - including safe public transport?
Greg King
Thursday, September 13, 2001 11:37 AM
Hi Bill and Bob,
Both of you are partially right and partially wrong, Firstly, I would like
to take you Bob, to task, in as friendly a way as possible, I am the first
to critisize our system, constructively, where required, it ain't perfect,
but it's one of the better transit systems I have seen in the world and I
have seen many, there ain't to many places in the world where you can catch
a tram in the off peak, every 7 minutes! The system is not (and really never
was) run by incompetants, sure there were some employed but every industry
has those, I hark back to a previous post about the genises of the system
and how, if it had not been for these people, you would'nt have had trams to
run when you were imployed by the old MMTB.
The current management (at least Yarra Trams) is very progressive, I might
have concerns about the new cars but, they ARE state of the art and
extremely well built. I take exception to the continuos put downs of our
system, you complain about the Z's, okay, they were not perfect but they wer
contemporary for the time (look what other transit marvels were built in
1975!)
carry more than a PCC and, if we used the time honoured method of the driver
collecting fares, there would indeed be people standing out in the street
holding up traffic with the RACV calling for their scrapping, the conductor
could have been better located but was necessary for the fare collection
system available at the time.
Now to Bill,
You obviously believe that everything modern has to be best etc., I agree
that the base system has to be modern cars BUT, what consititutes modern,
for example, the many fine tramways in Japan, most of them are now investing
in modern cars but others and indeed those with modern cars, still rebody
old equipment with new bodies, Air conditioned etc., a personnal friend of
mine is the Managing director of the Nagasaki Tramways, they work on the
"KISS principle, they actually recently bought the just retired 600 type
cars from the Nisshi Nippon Railways and put brand new bodies on them, they
work fine with their modern counterparts. I challange your remark that the
W's are not as comfortable as the new cars, sorry, that's rubbish, I have
worked on all our cars going back to 1973 and the W's are more comfortable
than any of the modern cars except for Air-con, A W properly driven is much
better in modern traffic than a modern car, if you ever drove trams in
todays' traffic you would realise that, with Chopper control, ther is a
delay between putting the foot down and actually moving, then a time lag
between taking your foot of f and applying the brake, in heavy traffic this
allows cars to continually force their way through and block the tracks
ahead, further degrading services, with a W, you can virtually sit on the
bumper of the car in front as everything is instantaneous. Modern cars let
you sit there and monitor them, you actually drive a W!!!
You are right about pre and post Kennett, without getting into politics, he
was an absolute disaster for transport, the insanity of two seperate tram
companies (shit, SF fixed that up in 1944!) and to seperate train companies
is ludicrous, like all conservatives, he did'nt want government to have any
responsibility, whether it be transport, health or education, the system
needed a shake up, but not what happened, even if it had to go private, one
system would have been far superior.
Like I said, I don't mind the system having the boot stuck in to it when it
needs it, but look at the other street systems in Australia and tell me one
that's better and actually atracting passengers! Now, lets all be friends
again and move on to something more positive.
Cheers
Greg
(who actually drives trams)
.
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Both of you are partially right and partially wrong, Firstly, I would like
to take you Bob, to task, in as friendly a way as possible, I am the first
to critisize our system, constructively, where required, it ain't perfect,
but it's one of the better transit systems I have seen in the world and I
have seen many, there ain't to many places in the world where you can catch
a tram in the off peak, every 7 minutes! The system is not (and really never
was) run by incompetants, sure there were some employed but every industry
has those, I hark back to a previous post about the genises of the system
and how, if it had not been for these people, you would'nt have had trams to
run when you were imployed by the old MMTB.
The current management (at least Yarra Trams) is very progressive, I might
have concerns about the new cars but, they ARE state of the art and
extremely well built. I take exception to the continuos put downs of our
system, you complain about the Z's, okay, they were not perfect but they wer
contemporary for the time (look what other transit marvels were built in
1975!)
carry more than a PCC and, if we used the time honoured method of the driver
collecting fares, there would indeed be people standing out in the street
holding up traffic with the RACV calling for their scrapping, the conductor
could have been better located but was necessary for the fare collection
system available at the time.
Now to Bill,
You obviously believe that everything modern has to be best etc., I agree
that the base system has to be modern cars BUT, what consititutes modern,
for example, the many fine tramways in Japan, most of them are now investing
in modern cars but others and indeed those with modern cars, still rebody
old equipment with new bodies, Air conditioned etc., a personnal friend of
mine is the Managing director of the Nagasaki Tramways, they work on the
"KISS principle, they actually recently bought the just retired 600 type
cars from the Nisshi Nippon Railways and put brand new bodies on them, they
work fine with their modern counterparts. I challange your remark that the
W's are not as comfortable as the new cars, sorry, that's rubbish, I have
worked on all our cars going back to 1973 and the W's are more comfortable
than any of the modern cars except for Air-con, A W properly driven is much
better in modern traffic than a modern car, if you ever drove trams in
todays' traffic you would realise that, with Chopper control, ther is a
delay between putting the foot down and actually moving, then a time lag
between taking your foot of f and applying the brake, in heavy traffic this
allows cars to continually force their way through and block the tracks
ahead, further degrading services, with a W, you can virtually sit on the
bumper of the car in front as everything is instantaneous. Modern cars let
you sit there and monitor them, you actually drive a W!!!
You are right about pre and post Kennett, without getting into politics, he
was an absolute disaster for transport, the insanity of two seperate tram
companies (shit, SF fixed that up in 1944!) and to seperate train companies
is ludicrous, like all conservatives, he did'nt want government to have any
responsibility, whether it be transport, health or education, the system
needed a shake up, but not what happened, even if it had to go private, one
system would have been far superior.
Like I said, I don't mind the system having the boot stuck in to it when it
needs it, but look at the other street systems in Australia and tell me one
that's better and actually atracting passengers! Now, lets all be friends
again and move on to something more positive.
Cheers
Greg
(who actually drives trams)
.
I don't know that Melbourne for example is greatly different now to
what it was in the early 80s when the W2s were withdrawn
Any resemblance between the post-Kennet Melbourne of today and the
pre-Kennet Melbourne of the "early 1980s" is purely cosmetic,
everything of substance has changed. If you can't see that, its no
wonder you think unadorned W2s are a sustainable transit vehicle!And some cold hard facts that justify that opinion are?
1. The practical inability to be configured for safe operation with
the current ticket system is a complete show stopper to start with.
2. The low performance compared to contemporary road vehicles,
including other more recent Melbourne trams, is a very serious
impediment to their use in normal street traffic.
3. A very primative low level of passenger comfort factors compared
to other competitive transport modes.
Cheers,
Bill
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