Day: December 23, 2009

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Sometimes Old Technology Wins Out

The BBC reports that despite the heavy snow and service disruptions on Britain’s rail network, a brand new steam engine managed to operate and provide rides for about 100 passengers stranded by the weather.  The locomotive makes regular runs, and this happened to be the last one for the season on this tourist train.

For detailed information about this locomotive and its construction, visit the A1 Steam website.

In light of the TTC’s plans to convert the SRT to LRT, I won’t drag out plans for steam-hauled RT trains.

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How To Raise Fares 11% and Make Almost Nothing At All

At the recent TTC meeting, the Operating Budget for 2010 was up for review, not that there were many questions in the public session.  All of the heavy lifting took place, no doubt, in private session and in other discussions leading up to the final version.  (The information in the linked report does not exactly match the material presented at the meeting, and that presentation is not available online.)

I will review the budget and the sources of increased costs for 2010 in a separate article, but the fare increase deserves special mention.  TTC staff have a bad habit of stating almost everything relative to something else, and this makes reference to a zero base tricky.  Money shuffles around rather like a game of Three Card Monte, and only if you’re very good, can you find the lucky card. Continue reading →