“I am sorry to announce”, says the station announcer, “That the electrified rail service from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads has been delayed by eight years. We apologise for spending billions of pounds on lowering the track to enable the installation of overhead wires and for treating you like idiots. The rail replacement bus will be with you shortly, unless you live in Bristol where we haven’t even found an operator to run the ludicrous “metrobust” project.”
You may have noticed that the Severn Tunnel, all four and a half miles of it, was closed for ages whilst the most expensive work of all was carried out and now nothing is going to happen at all. The thing that most shocked me was the resigned “Oh well” from the long-suffering passenger and taxpayer. No seething anger about being conned yet again at the failure of yet another major public transport project. They’ve ground us all down. Years of experience have taught us that political promises are worthless. It’s been proved yet again.
At what stage did the government know this was all going tits up? Did they find out halfway through but ploughed on regardless, or did they find out right at the end? Did government pull the plug or did the project simply run over-budget? It will probably come out in the wash but hardly anyone will bat an eye lid.
Luckily in Bristol, we still have the long-awaited Arena project, you know the one that’s been delayed until 2019 and soon will probably be axed altogether. And let’s not mention the metrobust fiascom like I already have.
Our trains to London are already 40 years old and who is to say they won’t be pumping out their diesel fumes for another 40 years after that? The authorities have declared that it is realistic to expect electrification will be completed by 2024. That’s code for we don’t have the first idea when it will happen, but by the time it does you’ll have forgotten all about it.
This is Britain where we build aircraft carriers without the planes to fly off them so don’t be surprised we’ve lowered the tracks to enable us to not install overhead wires. Let’s all look backwards together. You know it makes sense.
