by Whaleoil
September 27, 2006
And that is exactly why there should be some scrutiny.
It is simply not acceptable for $38 million of public funds to be handed out willy-nilly on suspect studies.
Oh and while we are talking about suspect, we can all remeber Helen Clark’s faux outrage and promises to look into something she didn’t know anything about despite the fact her dear husband was one of the panelists.
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by Whaleoil
September 26, 2006
It is Time to open the “Main Truck Line”
New Zealanders are getting anxious about the ongoing closure of freight lines in the regions.
We shouldn’t be.
Instead we should be welcoming this opportunity to upgrade our transport system to make road travel easier and safer for us all.
We should get the trains off these rail beds, tear up the tracks and lay down a road bed dedicated to trucks — and express buses if need be.
This is such a logical and cost-effective move you would think it would have been done long ago. But the idea is always challenged by those who believe our transport solutions lie with nineteenth century technology rather than the advanced technology waiting in the wings.
Certainly, the rail operators in the UK were outraged by the report by Paul Withrington, “Reigniting the Railway Conversion Debate” published by the UK Institute of Economic Affairs, in June 2004. The abstract reads:
[quote]The economic functions of railways could be carried out by express coaches and lorries at one-quarter the cost of the train, using 20 — 25% less fuel, requiring one-quarter to one-third of the land, and imposing a casualty cost on passengers half that suffered by rail passengers. The railway conversion debate was initiated in the 1950s by the late Brigadier Lloyd and carried forward by the Railway Conversion League, subsequently renamed the Railway Conversion Campaign, until the death of its chairman, Angus Dalgleish, in 1994. The purpose of this
paper is to reignite that debate. The government should remove all impediments to the conversion of railways to roads.[/quote]
The UK railroaders should know better than to reject such findings out of hand — because good managers should be asking these kinds of questions, and examining these kinds of strategies, all the time. Sue Kedgley deplores closing these rail lines because, she asks, “Hasn’t the government heard of climate change?” Well, the UK study finds that
the trucks use 25% per cent fuel than the trains, and this efficiency improves by the day. Trains are only kept on the rails by their weight — everything is heavy and weight needs fuel. So “steel on rail” is doomed to become less efficient than “rubber on road” with every passing day.
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