Seriously, *seriously, hard bloke

Well yes but I really don't think LUL is in the same state that
Railtrack was in back then - thankfully.

 

He only had to wait five minutes for a train?! Lucky guy!

 

That is so you, Mr M. <VBG>

 

<bites>
What would you know about it? When was the last time you used public
transport to go anywhere in London?

Oh and the 5 mins was from entering the station to time of the incident
so the waiting time was less than 5 mins. You just can't get decent
investigative journalism these days.

 

I did some work for Railtrack about 6 years ago and was absolutely
shocked that they had no electronic mapping of their tracks. It seemed
utter fucking chaos to me.

They ended up paying OS about 100k to provide mapping.

They had no record of how many tunnels they had, what percentage of the
line was in cuttings or embankments either.

 

yes - you were surprised by that? From my limited knowledge of asset
management in other industries it does seem to be a huge failing of the
public sector and / or utilities that they didn't have knowledge about
the assets they owned. It seems that one of the key things the private
sector utility companies have done well is to ensure they know exactly
what they own and what state it is in. I'd concede that part of that is
driven by the industry regulators who have made such systems and
knowledge part of the licenses but the profit motive is also a key
influence.

 

I dealt with one recently involving a stag party who hired a narrow
boat, 35of them on a boat designed for 10. Driver (pissed) decided to
go for the narrow arch on a bridge (the one with the big sign saying
"No entry"!). Stag was in the front well and stood up and shouted back
to him that they werent going to get through - just as the boat went
under the arch at a grand total of about 4mph. Might be slow but
crushed his head between the top of the boat and the brick arch. All
his mates jumped off to try and help - so the boat went up in the
water and mateys head exploded!
Fair amount of claret was sprayed!

 

Strawberry Jam, was it?

#;-)>>

 

Heh, TOG and "investigative journalism" can't be used in the same
phrase, unless the words "is tottaly crap at" are there too.

 

I agree about the inability of public sector companies to account for
things; primarily I suppose because they don't have to worry *too*
much about shareholders and analysts nosing around the accounts, and
there is perhaps an attitude of "there's always more money available".
Although the NAO (?) are probably getting tougher as the PSBR spirals
out of control.

However, I am a bit surprised that they didn't know how many tunnels
they had! That seems a fairly easy thing to count!!

<snip>

 

Jesus H. Kerist. Times like that, you know who your mates are.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6? DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#16? FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19

 

Yup - tthe ones who stayed on the boat!

 

I got one of my chaps to bring me a kebab whilst I was dealing with
it.

 

[public sector asset knowledge]

You are possibly right about the motivation or lack thereof. I think one
real issue is being aware of how important it is to understand what you
do own. I'd worked for LUL for a long time before terms like Asset
Knowledge or Asset Management were ever mentioned in my hearing.

The National Audit Office have been into LUL of late and I've had to
attend a number of meetings and organise things for them. Decent people
but you wouldn't dare lie to them.

The Audit Commission are the lot who investigate local government and
LUL is now part of TfL which is an agency of the Mayor. Therefore we
will undoubtedly have their unwanted attentions at some point in the
future. I understand they are "worse" than the NAO.

Please define what a tunnel is. And then explain the difference between
it and a very long covered way or overbridge. Multiply that sort of
question a thousand times for all the different asset types, components
and relationships between assets and you'll see why it isn't an easy
task to disaggregate something like a railway which is designed to
function as a system.

 

Extra chilli?

 

Chili sauce? Donner[1] or Shish?

[1] Or in this case Doner?

 

I wonder if it has it occured to him his son *might* have been executed
because the father was a well known troublemaker before the fact.

 

On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 20:54:28 +0100, Paul Corfield

Best of luck then!

? I would have thought that a tunnel is defined as a hole made
through a lump of rock or earth through which you can run stuff, like
trains??

A covered way or overbridge is a manmade structure over the top of
something, while a tunnel is a hole cut through an existing natural
formation. Seems easy enough. Even if you get into "cut and cover"
type tunnel construction, it's still a tunnel if it's cut through
something that was already there rather than a structure being built
over the top of it.

Am I missing something deeper here?

I suspect it wouldn't be that hard really - engineers who built the
things must have been able to distinguish the stuff. After all a
railway didn't pop into existance as a single entity - it was
constructed out of component parts by humans. This is a set of LH
points, this is a diamond crossing ... etc.

I can see the main problems being political - "ah, but does this count
as a point or a slip ..." An engineer would probably have a very
clear view (at least when building the thing).

Feel free to correct me ...

 

Badly packed, prolly...

--
Platypus - Faster Than Champ
VN800 Drifter, R80RT
DIAABTCOD#2 GPOTHUF#19
BOTAFOS#6 BOTAFOT#89 FTB#11
BOB#1 SBS#35 ANORAK#18 TWA#15

 

It depends if the same dim Railtrack field manager was involved as i had
a couple of months ago.

<Dim Railtrack Field Manager> Sorry Drive, you can't go on. We've
covered the body but we can't find the head.

<me> Have you tried looking about 100yds from the body in the direction
I've just come?

<DRFM> Why?

<me> There appears to be a head between the rails. And it was glaring
at me.