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Post by zanygame on Dec 10, 2023 19:23:23 GMT
I wouldn't mind privatisation so much if it had to compete. But truth is our railway lines are handed out to different companies by government with virtually no competition between them. Same is true of water companies. Completion was banned. See the half price MTR bid for HS2. Hi BVT and welcome. Can you expand a bit for me please (And did you mean "Competition" rather than "completion" |
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Post by BvL on Dec 10, 2023 19:42:07 GMT
Completion was banned. See the half price MTR bid for HS2. Hi BVT and welcome. Can you expand a bit for me please (And did you mean "Competition" rather than "completion" Yes I did. I'm on foreign computers which have a mind of their own. The Hong Kong MTR firm gave a formal bid to do it for half the price with faster trains, so cheaper and faster. They are a huge firm which are very experienced in high speed rail, and as you know, China has built 10s of thousands of km of it. The UK government was never going to accept such a deal because of political reasons. They had already chucked CGN out of Hinckley Point. It's a shame because MTR has a superb punctuality record. In fact I was watching a video of the Shanghai underground and you had the time the train was supposed to arrive, and at that exact second was the time it stopped at. You see their systems are all computerised. Another feature I liked was that on the line maps in the train was a picture of the train and its carriages with a percentage occupancy displayed for each carriage, so you could find the least crowded part of the train. It's just the kind of thing the Chinese like, so I'd expect the MTR trains would have these kind of features. Japanese trains are similarly equipped with all sorts of gadgets. |
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Post by zanygame on Dec 10, 2023 21:07:23 GMT
Hi BVT and welcome. Can you expand a bit for me please (And did you mean "Competition" rather than "completion" Yes I did. I'm on foreign computers which have a mind of their own. The Hong Kong MTR firm gave a formal bid to do it for half the price with faster trains, so cheaper and faster. They are a huge firm which are very experienced in high speed rail, and as you know, China has built 10s of thousands of km of it. The UK government was never going to accept such a deal because of political reasons. They had already chucked CGN out of Hinckley Point. It's a shame because MTR has a superb punctuality record. In fact I was watching a video of the Shanghai underground and you had the time the train was supposed to arrive, and at that exact second was the time it stopped at. You see their systems are all computerised. Another feature I liked was that on the line maps in the train was a picture of the train and its carriages with a percentage occupancy displayed for each carriage, so you could find the least crowded part of the train. It's just the kind of thing the Chinese like, so I'd expect the MTR trains would have these kind of features. Japanese trains are similarly equipped with all sorts of gadgets. Wow, I didn't know that MTR had quoted for HS2. Do you know the reasons the government gave for refusing the bid ( I assume they got to bid? ) I like the idea of knowing how crowded each carriage is. |
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Post by BvL on Dec 11, 2023 0:09:33 GMT
Yes I did. I'm on foreign computers which have a mind of their own. The Hong Kong MTR firm gave a formal bid to do it for half the price with faster trains, so cheaper and faster. They are a huge firm which are very experienced in high speed rail, and as you know, China has built 10s of thousands of km of it. The UK government was never going to accept such a deal because of political reasons. They had already chucked CGN out of Hinckley Point. It's a shame because MTR has a superb punctuality record. In fact I was watching a video of the Shanghai underground and you had the time the train was supposed to arrive, and at that exact second was the time it stopped at. You see their systems are all computerised. Another feature I liked was that on the line maps in the train was a picture of the train and its carriages with a percentage occupancy displayed for each carriage, so you could find the least crowded part of the train. It's just the kind of thing the Chinese like, so I'd expect the MTR trains would have these kind of features. Japanese trains are similarly equipped with all sorts of gadgets. Wow, I didn't know that MTR had quoted for HS2. Do you know the reasons the government gave for refusing the bid ( I assume they got to bid? ) I like the idea of knowing how crowded each carriage is. The reasons were not reported. I think it was one of those things that MTR probably knew it was a bit of a longshot, but put the offer in anyway, and told them basically that it was not a problem and kind of like give us a call if you are interested. Chances are the reason was that any deal had to be "security-approved", as in ask the Americans and then just ignore. You see they would be total outrage if they allowed them to go ahead. Every bloody campaigner would be on the streets shouting British jobs. The thing is in more grateful counties, the leader has a talk with the Chinse and gets set up with a contactor where the deal is very simple. It's we will build you this by this date and you will pay us this amount. Then it goes on to say, we will use all Chinese upper management, all Chinese technical engineers, but we will agree to employ a certain percentage of local workers, mainly the construction variety. They really like the idea of leave it all in our hands and we will promise to deliver. What tends to happen is they seek to build ahead of the deadline and they will work with the contracting people if any problems crop up. The way we seem to go wrong is we have two many people managing it and they all tug in different directions, where in other countries, once they give the green light they let them get on with it and they rarely have cause to complain as the Chinese bend over backwards to do the best job, and that is what sells the next contract. I'd guess we would get some special features chucked in for free as well in gratitude for the work. It's the way Chinese diplomacy works. Leave the customer smiling. |
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