Saviour for Adelaide Rail System Found

After years of neglect, failing infrastructure, unhappy drivers, late trains, derailments......, the Adelaide Metro has gone abroad to hire a new technical and operations director. As the Transport Minister said, "we have screwed it up so much, we doubt that this guy could make it any worse."

Thanks Mr Eugenides

Those pesky low clearance bridges

This story reminded me of some of the odd stuff and chaos of my trips to India for work.

From the BBC

Residents of the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) are wondering how long it will take to remove a disused Boeing 737 that has been abandoned in a busy road.

The decommissioned aircraft was being driven through the city at the weekend when the driver got lost and then abandoned the plane. The Boeing used to belong to the private company Air Sahara. Some locals are angry that no action is being taken to move the plane. Others say it is a tourist attraction.

It appears that after taking a wrong turn, the driver found himself facing a flyover that was too low for him to take the plane under.

The driver has not been seen since and no-one is assuming responsibility for the 737.

My client works for Rex Andrews here in Adelaide and they seem to do a good job of getting big stuff, like bridge spans, locomotives, wind turbines and the like to the job on time. Maybe there is a business for them in India.

This is a picture of one of their jobs where they had to take the prefabricated parts of wind turbines, shipped from Europe from Port Adelaide to site in Northern Victoria. This is the Main Street in Mount Gambier, one of the large towns in South Australia. I am still trying to work out how you get around the round about.

Update: I talked to the drivers yesterday as they waited for a bridge span, at the concrete factory in our neighbourhood. Apparently for the longer loads like the propellers, the rear steering is controlled from in the cab. The other, shorter ones, are controlled by a guy, who stands at the back and helps with those pesky turns. I told them about the Indian story and they thought that was unlikely to happen here in Australia, but that they had been in some difficult spots.