Railtrack - Happy 10th Unbirthday

Telegrammed by Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...
How ironic that the 10th anniversary of one ill thought-out act of Government aggression should overshadow another.

Ten years ago today the government pressured Railtrack into assisted suicide.

Lest we forget, here are some of the players as Whitehall farce turned to Jacobean revenge tragedy:

Stephen Byers, John Robinson, Shriti Vadera, Steve Marshall, Sir Alastair Morton, Dan Corry, Andrew Adonis, David Rowlands, Sir Richard Mottram and not forgetting the cameo appearance in the final scene Tom Winsor.

What a stellar cast! And how mundane today's railway seems without them.

UPDATE: This from Banker76...

Absolutely spot on!

Today’s railway is mundane by comparison. No Southall. No Ladbroke Grove. No Hatfield. No bu88ering up the WCML modernisation (and Leeds station rebuilding).

How tame it all is...

UPDATE: This from Theydon Bois...

Here in Edinburgh we continue to bu88er up an otherwise perfectly good tram scheme to an extent rarely seen before in project management (excluding the the building of the Scottish Parliament, obviously).

Okay - it's not really Railtrack or the railway's fault, but still pretty impressive.

Oh, yes, and while I'm at it, I was very disappointed at the closure of the 'Who should chair NR?' vote.

I only got 'round to voting three times when it suddenly ended, leaving me with no social life at all.