[Default] On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 23:18:56 +0100, Adrian Stott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> finished tucking into their plate of fish, chips and mushy peas. Wiping their mouth, they swiggged the last of their cup of tea, paid the bill and wrote:: > >Have they considered taking cranes in by barge to secure the unsafe >stuff? > >Or even by rail, come to that? > The bean counters decided years ago that maintaining a fleet of breakdown cranes "just in case" was money down the drain - similarly with snowploughs! > >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.
.............. and to suit themselves. In 1990, we had a bad, wet, snowfall that fetched down an awful lot of overhead lines in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, including two long spans - one over the A52 just east of Nottingham and one over the BR line (and Erewash Canal) at Stanton Gate. Putting the first back was relatively easy - the police closed the road for half-an-hour in the middle of the night with no notice to road users (such as they were) so the wires could go up - BR wanted us to have a possession of the railway for a day (on a freight-only line with, at the time, minimal traffic that could be re-routed) "and that'll take six months to organise, sir". They soon backed down when we explained that our customers with no electricity wouldn't be very happy with THAT! BTW, BW were no problem! Brian L Dominic Web Sites: Canals: http://www.brianscanalpages.co.uk Friends of the Cromford Canal: http://www.cromfordcanal.org.uk (Waterways World Site of the Month, November 2005)
