My New Job (Was: Social Thurs 8 Jan 2009)

[Abigail]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 03:31:56PM +0000, Roger Burton West wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 02:28:15PM +0000, Joel Bernstein wrote:
> >>From LU's website
> >There are many reasons why signals fail.
> 
> In the case of the eastern end of the Jubilee Line, because the
> constructors were told to take their budget for signalling and spend it
> on getting the line open in time to carry the millions of people who
> were going to visit the Millennium Dome. (The powers that be having
> wisely decided that allowing people to get there by car, coach, bus or
> boat would be Evil.)
> 
> Which is why the signalling was done on the Very Cheap, and still breaks
> down frequently.


OTOH, goverment can ever screw up if they have too much money for
signalling. There's going to be a high speed train line between Amsterdam
in Brussels, taking the Netherlands out of the 19th century.

Over here, the goverment only wants to best and newest. So everything 
is delayed and over budget. However, the tracks have been ready for quite
a while. Even the signalling is installed. The newest and greatest signalling.
Decised upon late in the project ("Oh, there's a *new* standard! Shiny!
We got to have it!"). But it got there. Except they never bother to tell
the train manufacturer they switched signalling systems.

So we now have shiny new tracks. With a top notch signalling system.
And no trains that can work with it.


Abigail