Stupid NSW Government - Epping to Chatswood Railway

Unfortunately I live in NSW, and have to put up with an incompetent NSW State Government. One of their most recent stuff-ups has been the Epping to Chatswood Railway line.

Despite being in the pipeline since the 1920's, the government has struggled with the whole concept of building this line. It came to an interesting climax in December 2008, with this report from the Daily Telgraph.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22883898-5001021,00.html

A quote from the article is this...

"TRANPORT Minister John Watkins and RailCorp chief Vince Graham have confirmed that one in 12 CityRail trains have been banned from using the Epping to Chatswood tunnel because of a design bungle.

It also appears that the 12.5 kilometre tunnel was designed and was well underway to being built years before the problem was known.

The Daily Telegraph exclusively revealed the design bungle, which was initially met with denials from authorities.

However Mr Graham today admitted the Tangara trains - around eight per cent of the CityRail fleet - could not be used on the tunnel because the 4km incline from under the Lane Cove river would cause the train's traction motor to burn out too quickly"

You have to laugh. The track is too steep for the Tangaras. Not a hard concept. Major blunders like this will continue as long as we have a system of having ministers WITH NO experience in their portfolios.

What a stupid system we have. It would make sense, to say, have the Health Minister, be a professional hospital administrator, doctor, or even a trained nurse. How about someone with a business degree... but no, we have someone with ZERO experience in the health field heading up the hospitals. Same for nearly every portfolio.

And we wonder why NSW is nearly broke, with hospital and transport systems in a utter mess.