Martin Ludgate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>If the railway had to pay a substantial per-hour compensation fee for >>the time its activities block the navigation, then the railway would >>have a strong incentive to get the navigation reopened quickly, i.e. >>not *after* it gets the trains running again. > >That's actually what's likely to happen. Once the roadway has >been built, including the ramps up and down the flood banks, and >the cranes manoevred into place,
>I'm not sure how much quicker the river could practicably have >been reopened to navigation if your proposed compensation >system had been in place. >>You can bet that would be the case if a train fell off a bridge over a >>motorway. > >...mainly because they wouldn't then have to spend several weeks >building a road so that they could get their cranes to the site. They >could drive them along the motorway. Have they considered taking cranes in by barge to secure the unsafe stuff? Or even by rail, come to that? >I don't quite understand why folks see it as such a big issue - a >very unusual and unlikely accident (I don't recall a train accident >causing a lengthy waterway closure in the last thirty years or so) I think this issue also applies to closures for maintenance/(re)construction of rail crossings, where, in the absence of compensation requirements, Network Rail is awfully keen to shut everything for months just in case. So far, BW has usually been able to persuade otherwise, but I wouldn't bet on 100% success in future. Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
