On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Roland Perry wrote:

In message . com, at
03:52:52 on Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Boltar remarked:

The winner of the London Overground concession is MTR Laing according

Sounds like a sensible decision. Why pick people who already have
years of experience running railways when you can pick a building
firm.

But isn't Laing Rail actually Chiltern, and the construction business was
sold off years ago. The Evening Standard in London is apparently saying the
Chinese have won the bid, though. Not sure what that means.

MTR is a Hong Kong company; i guess Hong Kong counts as China, although
saying 'Chinese' certainly suggests the big red bit of China to me. It was
started as a government agency, then partially privatised - the HK
government still owns most of it. Mention has been made of their already
being involved in running other railways outside Hong Kong, but i don't
think this has actually happened yet; they're contracted to build some
lines in China, but haven't successfully completed anything yet.

tom

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It's the 21st century, man - we rue _minutes_. -- Benjamin Rosenbaum