In message of Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:16:49 in
uk.transport.london, Robin writes
I expect the Dft and Treasury would rather commit corporate harikiri
than allow TfL to create a full in house operation.

And see Crossrail renamed as the "Bob Crow Memorial Line"?

cf. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bob_crow_station_posters_2
"It cost £1,050 to acquire the rights to Mr Crow’s photograph".
--
Walter Briscoe

On 21/07/2014 17:06, Walter Briscoe wrote:

In message of Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:16:49 in
uk.transport.london, Robin writes
I expect the Dft and Treasury would rather commit corporate harikiri
than allow TfL to create a full in house operation.

And see Crossrail renamed as the "Bob Crow Memorial Line"?

cf. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bob_crow_station_posters_2
"It cost £1,050 to acquire the rights to Mr Crow’s photograph".


Well worth it in terms of staff goodwill, I'd have thought.

(I think it's a pretty standard sum for that kind of photograph.)

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 12:16:37 +0100
Paul Corfield wrote:
TfL do not have powers to override government policy and that policy
mandates that rail operation is franchised / tendered out.

Fair point. I wonder if Boris is for or against this sort of thing? He seems
to have remained schtum.

TfL so there is no ability to cream money off the farebox. Essentially
MTR are a decent operation and I'm not surprised at all that they've
won the Crossrail contract.

I've read that the Honk Kong metro is one of the best run in the world. But
then it has hong kong employees with the attitude that goes with it.

Did you just say "TfL runs the Underground perfectly OK"? if so then
where is real Spud / Boltar? We clearly have an imposter. ;-)



Well it'll all be new infrastructure with ATC in the centre I believe with
national rail running the rest of the route so there's notalot they could mess
up. But the problem is it doesn't matter whether its private or public - you
get the same people working at the front line and if they can't be arsed then
it'll all fall over regardless. In my experience the LU station staff are
fantastic - the drivers OTOH...

--
Spud

In message , at 10:07:44 on
Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
I expect MTR will instill a new culture in the Crossrail business from
day one although they will inherit staff from Abellio and First Great
Western

Wasn't Abellio going to instill a new culture too?
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014 10:07:44 +0100
Paul Corfield wrote:
Having visited HK several times I've only had a 2 min delay in all my
rides on the MTR.

I've been on quite a few metros around europe and the USA and TBH the only
one I found that had service as flakey as LU was the NYC subway. Its
probably not a coincidence they both have very long individual lines making the
potential of problems occuring much higher.

I think you're being a little optimistic. There are regular problems
on Great Eastern with overhead wire, signalling and track problems
plus broken down freight trains. The Great Western bit is a suicide
hot spot with Southall and Hayes being particular problem areas. There
will also be three signalling systems to cope with and that's one
reason for the phased introduction of running on to the outer

Lets hope they've got plans for enough reversers running through the core
so when the inevitable ****ups occur in the sticks then at least the
important part keeps running. I'm not really sure why they feel the need to
run all the way to shenfield. I'd have thought Romford would have been far
enough.

I'd also say they've had a few brushes with the RMT and ASLEF on the
Overground so are not unaware of the issues and tactics that might
arise.

I'm sure the unions will find some immensely important issue that "their
members" don't like and which can only be solved with a strike.

--
Spud