I have no wisdom in this matter, holding only a recent doctorate in information systems management. I merely note that the inflation of costs associated with railway infrastructure is very much higher than other rates of inflation. Saltaire station was reopened in the 1980s for £60,000, which today would not pay for a ticket machine. I am asking a genuine question. Outsourcing away from a single organisation (BR) that could do its own procure and build to an industry structure in which "everything" passes through a network of infrastructure manager, Department for Transport, multiple other stakeholders such as England's Economic Heartland, consultants, engineering companies... leaves us in a situation where railways that could once have been built, no longer can be. Should that not make us angry? Outsourcing is supposed to reduce costs, not in inflate them. No doubt off-thread, but there should be someone with the drive and the clout to ask serious questions like: how can the very high costs of new infrastructure be reduced? On safety standards: rail is held to higher standards than road (but not air). Is that sensible, if it makes rail schemes unaffordable?
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