Lack of maintenance (Rant)

[DerbyBoy]

Lack of maintenance is rife!

A metal railway bridge near me used to be blasted and painted every few years when I was kid - now it is flaking with rust and hasn't been touched for about 25 years.

A pub garden I sat in for a pint showed that no-one had taken an interest since installing a patio heater. The slabs need power washing - the picnic tables need de-crapping and maintaining.

In the toilet the push down taps either shut off immediately or rune for 10 mins.

At work, no-one replaces failed light bulbs as it now needs a requisition to be completed and signed by the head of the function. It will then be fixed within the 7 day service level agreement by the people who wander past it several time a day and stand around waiting for something to do.

Etc Etc

Regards

John

[Derek G.]

Look closely at pictures of the elevated railways in New York and Chicago...

Trouble is it will probably be about 170 years old so "the suits" that control the money expect it to continue to perform in the next 10 years in the same way as it as has been doing in the last 170, they have a big financial incentive to do so, and sometimes they are correct.

This sort of thing is really expensive. The trouble is the Brewers won't play fair with the licensees. In an attempt to get a bigger market share they will sign up a licensee to take (so many) 1,000 pints of beer per week. Then, once the licensee is committed the brewery will approach the next pub down the road and offer him beer at half price for a few months. This gets him committed as well. Then the landlord of the first pub loses money and goes out of business.

All in all this does nothing to increase the demand for beer, but might get some slimy sales manager a bit closer to his target .

This is an H&S issue. Don't forget it is your duty to report defective or inadequate lights you encounter at work if you don't want to share responsibility if (for instance) an elderly visitor trips over a doormat, and busts the head off his femur.

Derek G.

--

This Looks like Finito Ruperto.

[Windmill]

Someone who used to teach in a small local school told me she had to sneak around after hours replacing light bulbs, because she wasn't allowed to do that and the local Council would take years to get round to it.

[Frank Erskine]

Do It Yourself :-)

[Andy Burns]

Doesn't it get shaken off regularly by the double decker buses and artic trailers ramming it?

[Derek G.]

Wire brush and Dettol. ;-)

Derek G.

--

This Looks like Finito Ruperto.

[Dave Liquorice]

every few

Road lobby starving the railways of business and goverment not being interested in maintaining the countries infrastucture.

Ah, Camerobs "Big Society".

(oo, I like that genuine typo!)

[Tim Streater]

The rail lobby is a few anoraks. The road lobby is everyone else. That's assuming either lobby can be said to exist. The railways only run because of a massive subsidy, so they are obviously using a disproportionate amount of society's resources compared to other methods of transportation.

[The Natural Philosopher]

and we don't subsidise road construction, maintenance. highway patrols,. street lights, ?

[ARWadsworth]

[Tim Streater]

I thought the point of the road tax was to cover that. Plus of course the various taxes on fuel.

Railways make sense where there is no effective alternative - such as commuting into a big city. That is analogous to the situation in the mid-1800s, when for middle/long distance you either went by train or had a nasty journey by road.

[Huge]

No.

[SS]

Oh yes! they had the same problem with the Forth rail bridge until the chunks started falling off from a great height and onto pedestrians, ships and vehicles, H&S were in there like an express train (ha ha) didnt take them long to start sorting it, mind you it took a few years to get it sorted they had to cover the bridge in sheets to stop it falling below.

[J.G.Harston]

The largest use of the railways is rail freight which receives no public subsidy, is profitable, was why the railways were built in the first place, and is struggling to expand because of the restricted infrastructure.

JGH

[stephen.hull]

is NOT allowed to change plugs on appliances, We had to get a bloke who drove an 80 mile round trip to supply a new cable for the vacuum cleaner.

We sell electric plugs and in the past have taken them off the shelf, but now everything needs a risk assessment for health and saftey.

[Steve Walker]

Local roads, pavements, etc. are paid for from council funds and are used by everyone, be they pedestrian, cyclist or driver. Part of that money is provided from central government as grants, the rest from council tax and council charges for services.

Classified roads are paid for from central government.

Total spending on transport as a whole (including trains and buses) is a fraction of the tax collected from fuel and road fund license.

The rest of the money goes into the general pot, part of which is going to the local roads, railways, buses, etc.

So no, I would say that road construction and maintenance isn't subsidised. Highway patrols are just police, like we have everywhere else in society and street lights are of far more importance to pedestrians than drivers.

SteveW

[Nightjar]

That is what was claimed when it was introduced. However, these days, it simply goes into central government funds. It is also about £3 billion short of what is actually spent on roads.

Those bring in a lot more to the central government funds.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

The amount of money spent on railways per 1000 tonne km carried in

2007-8 was £385.90. For roads, the figure was £48.07.

Colin Bignell

[Tim Streater]

I expect some of that goes to pay the goods train drivers who sit all day with their train in a siding in Cambridge station. Presumably waiting for a slot where their train can go south without impeding passenger traffic. I used to see these frequently from my office window.

[Nick Odell]

Would you have a source for that? I believe the figures are usually expressed per million tonne/km and the the cost appears to be an order of magnitude higher than some in mainland Europe.

Thanks,

Nick