fromZtoA

edinburgh trams : who got the cash

“Politicians should accept that they generally lack the appropriate expertise to fully understand the technical, financial and legal aspects of major projects”
Sarah B

“The fault lies with us, with our lack of industrial capacity, shortage of commercial nous and the paucity of engineering skills that once marked out Scotland as a nation”
George Rosie

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The chaotic construction history and ignominious failure of the Edinburgh Tram Plan has now been revealed, since last weeks’ politicised Unionist vote to bring it all to a very premature halt at Haymarket was won. Won by the very same south-of-the-border parties who championed the Airport-Newhaven lines in the first place, under dubious political motives (they knew it was unaffordable and wanted to saddle the replacement SNP government with a build-it-they-must-by-law infrastructure project that would hobble any social spending…)

But aside from the appallingly childish (Kleptocracy would be a more appropriate term, some might say) Unionist/Independence politiking at Holyrood and the naivety of the district council, there’s something even more humiliating for Scotland, if that were possible – the dreadful shameful fact we couldn’t build it ourselves.

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you’d never believe the scots were once famed for engineering :
who banked edinburgh’s 1/5th-built £800m tram budget
please note I’m not criticising the expertise these companies embody – see last weeks’ post on Halcrow’s London Underground works, which had been specifically written previously, to contrast with the expected tram news

tramway designers : Parsons Brinckerhoff*, New York + Halcrow, England
steel rails : Voestalpine, Austria
operational systems : Siemens and Bilfinger Berger, Germany
tramcars : Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, Spain
street + utilities preparation : Carillion, England

*PB now owned by UK’s Balfour Beatty

from George Rosie’s superb analysis of the debacle The Route To Nowhere

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There is perhaps a silver lining to all this: the power cable towers – a visual abomination in a world heritage city, stupidly and thoughtlessly chosen because burying the power would have cost “zillions” despite contractors having to re-position every single cable beneath the road surface anyway – will now no longer pollute the view to the Castle from Princes Street. I was also going to add in a list of cities that have successfully managed to build a modern tram system, but I’m too numptied.

Fareweel to a’ our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory!
Fareweel ev’n to the Scottish name.
Sae famed in martial story!
Now Sark rins over Salway sands,
An’ Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England’s province stands -
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Robert Burns

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An article by respected longstanding trams blogger, Sarah B
Comparison – Access to the Region’s Core wiki entry

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Finally, there is a purposely-hidden solution to all this tram nonsense – the blindingly-obvious Edinburgh Airport Rail Link to Waverley. Yes, it does exist, and it could have been instigated decades ago. But politics always comes before sensibility… like LRT Airport Shuttle fares, taxes on Hackneys and Parking Fines for those who rented a car in the face of being stuck out in the western showground sticks with no visible means of transport. Basically Tax Revenue for the council to spend on… ugly street furniture? £3,000 a day consultants to tell them chips are made from potatoes? Gold-plated pensions? (er, that last one’s a DEFINITE priority).

Bus graphic by Jamie Reid

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Jeremy Balfour (Tory) : Lesley Hinds (Labour)
Jenny Dawe (LibDem) : Andrew Burns (Labour) : Steve Cardownie (SNP)

Oh – I nearly forgot – whereforeto The Right Honourable George Grubb, Lord Lieutenant and Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh? What ails our esteemed city leader? Can we not look to him for leadership, just when we need it? Hmmm? Shurely he’s got something constructive to contribute, being leader an’ all that? Maybe a few words on the evils of kleptocracy, perhaps?

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Update from Lord Provost of Edinburgh 6 september 2011
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Continue reading…

building the Victoria Line

A rather amazing British Transport film of the Oxford Street canopy installation. You can see where they got the inspiration for Quatermass and the Pit…

These were the days when major infrastructure was designed, built and managed by individuals who actually knew what they were doing – can you imagine what the 1960s chief engineer would have thought of Boris The Oaf and Mad Ken… love the way the media are so polite and respectful. And quite rightly.

And not one Hi-Vis jacket in sight – plenty smoking too… even underground (but then the blitz was a recent memory, so a little Woodbine or Capstan Navy Cut in awkward places was utterly nothing). I wish todays’ crowds who have to endure the underground in all its human crap-ness could appreciate the thought and ingenuity behind the system – and the respect given to those who overcame huge engineering challenges – now long forgotten.

From berg london
Halcrow

I bid you goodbye

Robert Robinson – another stalwart of UK culture trivialised when here, missed when gone, replaced by no-one. This Fry and Laurie sketch says it all about the man with the dreadful comb-over and erudition like 100% proof liquor – colourless yet utterly intoxicating.

congregation of vapours

I’ve retired my piece on the London riots – this says it so much better.
As usual best watched full screen.

Telling piece on the “broom” nonsense

OK… now this is how you manipulate the truth

fleet street – shit creek

The long-acknowledged coarsening of british culture by the news of the world and its associated papers/competitors-in-flatulence, like the daily mail, should not, I hope, turn into a witch-hunt of “it was him/her Chief Constable, honest, I’m an upstanding MP who only welcomed them into my own home because I felt sorry for them, and anyway we can still fire you / make you resign even though you’re a brother freemason,” allegedly said Boris.

The essence of justice is “he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone” – UK politicians are in a very rocky place ironically, being positioned to question NI – they will throw those stones and they aren’t without sin, perhaps not individually but without doubt collectively, same as NI executives.

Hugely ironic – like foxes questioning foxes on who killed the chickens. Me M’Lud? Oh no, I simply ask the questions, my culpability-via-association in all this is – uh – academic (wipes mouth of blood and gristle).

But we are also collectively guilty perhaps of naivety to the reality of politics… both those who have always mistrusted Murdoch, alongside those who have allied with him in all awareness, in this vicarious torturing now of the hated Corporation… this sense of revenge, with smell of scapegoat to hand.

So there needs to be care taken. Let’s hope these right honourable elected first citizens haven’t forgotten the trouble over Dr David Kelly – let’s hope… there are no casualties in this round of media-political truth-averse farces, all of which will blow over soon enough anyway with snouts-in-troughs in Farmer Cameron’s field of Symbiotics… until the next shit-fan.

postscript
Suddenly, 30 years later, the Daily Torygraph get it. (Although, as a Maxwell Murdoch Barclay Bros paper, a bit of schadenfreude is in evidence…)

Jon Stewart there… what are the chances of that happening… (er, not, in the UK).