"Robert Neville" wrote in message

Tom Barry wrote:

I've long wanted to find it again, but I remember reading a quote
from a Tory candidate in Hackney or similar saying basically that -
private sector involvement in the Tube is a great idea, trust the
socialists to mess it up. Which isn't necessarily the view on the
street.

It's an interesting conundrum. Do you turn it over to private
enterprise who are driven to increase profits or keep it as a
government (read: unionized) operation who are driven to increase
costs? Both result in the passengers paying more.

Profits aren't necessarily evil if the appropriate controls are in
place to ensure performance - but that obviously didn't happen with
the PPEs. The history of the system prior to the PPEs isn't much
better.

I've always thought the idea of splitting the track from the
operating companies (for both the Underground as well as intercity)
was untennable and a fatal flaw. We're talking a _system_ here.
Trying to manage manage parts of a single system as separate entities
seems on it's face to be a recipe for disaster.

One of the further problems with the LU PPP was that Metronet and Tube
Lines were liable to pick different systems even where their sections
met. For example, Metronet were going to choose a different
signalling/train control systems (obviously from one of its owners) to
that used elsewhere on the Underground, despite the fact that Tube Lines
and Metronet trains share tracks in some places. That would have created
needless costs and problems at places like Rayner's Lane and Ealing
Common.