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[email protected] · January 8th 18, 09:35 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On Mon, 8 Jan 2018 10:13:16 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:49:27 on Mon, 8 Jan
2018, remarked:

mix of internally generated surplus and govt investment grant pays for new =
train fleets. I can't recall a train fleet being "flogged off" to pay for a=
new one. It was Caroline Pidgeon who remarked that the proposal was "craz=
y" (or some similar term).

And will almost certainly cost TfL more in the long run. Whoever buys the
trains won't be doing it for the good of mankind, they'll want a long term
profit. As ever short termism rules in british government.

What government wants is stability (whichever political party in power
we are talking about).

Thus, raising taxes to fund those trains could result in voters making a
change at the top, which tends to cause all sorts of costly consequences
reversing earlier policy decisions.

A long term lease (which is the opposite of short-term-ism actually)
does at least make things predictable.

Oh please. It'll cost a damn site more long term, its just kicking the actual
costs down the road for the next government/administration to have to explain
to the public. Its exactly the sort of moronic short term thinking that got
us the NHS PFI debarcle simply because the treasury have some pathological
aversion to any sort of direct public investment unless absolutely necessary
regardless if it'll actually be cheaper in the long run than the
keep-it-off-the-books route.