Wednesday, February 04, 2004

THE GREAT FIDDLE YARD IN THE SKY*

The Evening Standard reports:

"Thousands of London mainline rail commuters are today condemned to travelling on overcrowded and "grubby" 40-year-old slam door trains because of a "catalogue of blunders" by industry chiefs. "

As opposed to the grubby 20 year old stock I ride on every day.

"Amazingly, [great tabloid word that] the train manufacturers were not given sufficient information about the network - making it difficult to build stock "compatible" with routes."

Rail privatisation strikes again.

"As a result of power supply problems, slam door trains will not all be withdrawn in December as intended - 300 will continue until June 2005."

And this, 15 years after the Clapham rail disaster, the inquiry of which recommended the earliest removal of the said slam door stock.

Today's commuter nightmare: dead body on the line.

A good day to take off and do jobs around the house.

* - "Fiddle yard" = the hands of a model railway enthusiast.

:: Posted by pete @ 21:15