Hypothesis

[Nick W]

A new railway can not be more than two of the three following things:

• On Time
• On Budget
• Meets all original requirements

Is this true?

 

[Lewisham2221]

Doesn't that apply to anything new in this country?

I would tend to agree though. Usually because of all the government red tape and bureaucracy that surrounds everything these days. Typically, the project starts, gets delayed because of some minor oversight or other, which then results in the project being late and over budget because it took longer. And because it was going over budget half of the original features had to be scrapped...

 

[Nick W]

No, the Channel Tunnel rail link was/is on time, pretty much on budget save for the worldwide rise in steel costs and meets all the orginal requirements.

Shame Stratford International will be a ghost station for a while and the travelator was lost. I wonder if Ebbsfleet will be served.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1799934,00.html
"The rail link project has gone over its budget and it is understood that Bechtel last year received hundreds of millions of pounds in taxpayers' money to make up for cost overruns"

OK so let's just say it's on time and meets original requirements.

It has gone over budget, even if that's because of the steel costs have gone up.

 

[TheSlash]

A new railway can not be more than two of the three following things:

• On Time
• On Budget
• Meets all original requirements

Is this true?

Oi mate
You don't work for the railway so quite frankly you wouldn't know where to start with whats wrong.
You wanna be a railwayman one day? You join the pway/infantry and you work a 12 hour Saturday night.
You and everyone else in your gang give 110%, blood and sweat, you're physical exhausted at the end of it, but when you goto bed at 9am Sunday, you set your alarm for 12pm {lunchtime} because you are back on days tomorrow, the Monday, because your idiot manager is too tight to give you a week of nights doing much needed maintenance like rail joint straightening or sleeper changing, because the more money he can save in his budget, the bigger his bonus. In the meantime the track is falling apart and every day you are out there using victorian tools and work methods trying to keep it together, because it's the cheapest option available to the company.
You guys might of seen the big relayers sites that last from close of play Friday night, to open of play Monday morning, with all the fancy cranes and road rail JCB's, that's not NR and thats not me.
If i change a rail, it's with 10 people on 5 sets of rail dogs {tongs} physically lifting the old one out and over the top of the new one in the 4 foot, then lifting the new from the 4 foot into the housings.
If we change sleepers, we don't get a machine to dig out all that ballast, we do it by hand with shovels. Then we lift the sleepers in and out with sleeper dogs, before filling all that ballast back in again, by hand.
In todays safety concious world, can you believe blokes still dodge trains travelling upto 125mph in parts of this country?
Never mind your bull**** about ontime and onbudget, you just think about what goes into the day to day up keep

 

[Lewisham2221]

Oi mate
You don't work for the railway so quite frankly you wouldn't know where to start with whats wrong.
You wanna be a railwayman one day? You join the pway/infantry and you work a 12 hour Saturday night.
You and everyone else in your gang give 110%, blood and sweat, you're physical exhausted at the end of it, but when you goto bed at 9am Sunday, you set your alarm for 12pm {lunchtime} because you are back on days tomorrow, the Monday, because your idiot manager is too tight to give you a week of nights doing much needed maintenance like rail joint straightening or sleeper changing, because the more money he can save in his budget, the bigger his bonus. In the meantime the track is falling apart and every day you are out there using victorian tools and work methods trying to keep it together, because it's the cheapest option available to the company.
You guys might of seen the big relayers sites that last from close of play Friday night, to open of play Monday morning, with all the fancy cranes and road rail JCB's, that's not NR and thats not me.
If i change a rail, it's with 10 people on 5 sets of rail dogs {tongs} physically lifting the old one out and over the top of the new one in the 4 foot, then lifting the new from the 4 foot into the housings.
If we change sleepers, we don't get a machine to dig out all that ballast, we do it by hand with shovels. Then we lift the sleepers in and out with sleeper dogs, before filling all that ballast back in again, by hand.
In todays safety concious world, can you believe blokes still dodge trains travelling upto 125mph in parts of this country?
Never mind your bull**** about ontime and onbudget, you just think about what goes into the day to day up keep

Easy fella! I'm pretty sure that he wasn't slagging off p'way staff or their work, so no real need to release all that agro here.

As far as I can tell, Nick was talking about the design/planning etc. side of major projects, which at least appear to fail to meet 3 points these days, but, as others have pointed out, this type of scenario is usually down to things way out of the direct control of the people who are actually building and/or maintaining it.

 

[TheSlash]

Nick has simply jumped on the media band wagon. Do you see a well constructed debate for or against his question in his opening and sole post on the topic?
Does Nick work in the industry and so already understands the answers to his own questions?
Does Nick understand the financial and time perspective of simple things like a machine failure during a project? What about if a whole shift is pulled for random drug testing, that means they cease work from that moment and don't resume work until the results are back?
If these factors were included in the planning and design process, the project would look financially unattractive
As alot of these projects employ sub contractors, you can gaurantee corners will be cut and safety is always the first corner to be cut. I'll name you 3 examples straight away, Potters Bar, Hatfield and Gerrards Cross. They are well known examples. What you don't hear about is the lesser incidents where people are caught out before a major **** up
A good friend of mine was set on fire in a NR worksite after being encouraged to cut corners by NR officials, then when it was covered up and he had time off work, he was put on managing for attendance. Do you know why it was covered up? Because it would of reset the depot 'days without accident' score and cost someone they're bonus and would of put up the company insurance.
Nobody can make posts like that without backing it up.
[EDIT]
RoyalScot is exempt from my postings on this topic as i have known him for along time and he has been involved with alot bigger safety issues than the ones i mention, all thanks to privatisation.

 

[Nick W]

To Slash:
My post was simply a hypothesis, not the reason why.

But I feel the more important issues is NR's in-house maintainence. Surely there must be people employed as health & safety reps, which are probably sitting doing nothing because you don't see them?

As for the Victorian methods, surely these while tried and tested and more accurate due to human skill, would cost more than using a machine as groups of humans cost more than a machine and operator?

You mention dodging trains at 125mph. Do you mean that you could be replacing one rail while a train goes past down the adjacent track at 125mph? Surely there would be arangments to make the driver sound the horn or someone on lookout or some more sophisticated method?

 

[yorkie]

To Slash:
My post was simply a hypothesis, not the reason why.

But I feel the more important issues is NR's in-house maintainence. Surely there must be people employed as health & safety reps, which are probably sitting doing nothing because you don't see them?

Yes, obviously. You don't see them? How do you know who is doing that function? I am not sure what your point/question is, though.

As for the Victorian methods, surely these while tried and tested and more accurate due to human skill, would cost more than using a machine as groups of humans cost more than a machine and operator?

Quite probably, and in bulk almost certainly, but what if there is one bit of rail somewhere remote that needs changing? Is it economical to move a machine to such a location?

You mention dodging trains at 125mph. Do you mean that you could be replacing one rail while a train goes past down the adjacent track at 125mph? Surely there would be arangments to make the driver sound the horn or someone on lookout or some more sophisticated method?

Yes, there are. If you don't know that most basic principle, then why post at all.

Nick, I don't think some of the rants (now deleted) against you are entirely fair, as I know you don't intend to wind people up, but your extreme lack of knowledge and desire to post on subjects you have done practically no research on, does annoy people.

You seem unwilling to read any railway magazines, and unwilling to do much research on a subject, and you have very little real-world experience, and then post something that is provocative toward certain people.

It would have been better if you had done some research and then asked a few questions in a manner that is rather more complimentary toward the rail industry (ie not suggesting it's useless )?

 

[16CSVT2700]

Nick, I don't think some of the rants (now deleted) against you are entirely fair, as I know you don't intend to wind people up, but your extreme lack of knowledge and desire to post on subjects you have done practically no research on, does annoy people.

You seem unwilling to read any railway magazines, and unwilling to do much research on a subject, and you have very little real-world experience, and then post something that is provocative toward certain people.

It would have been better if you had done some research and then asked a few questions in a manner that is rather more complimentary toward the rail industry (ie not suggesting it's useless )?

We've been telling him that for the past year and he still won't listen so I'd give up now yorkie

Hence the reason why he's been nominated for Prize Tit of the Year and Most Immature Member of the year in the RC awards 2006

(Just to let you know I've been nominated for 3 awards too, VOTE FOR ME!!!)

 

[TicketMan]

Yes - vote for 50149 in the prize tit award (And vote TM for station staff of the year

Back on topic... Bad Nick leepy3: