Official report with lots of new photos -
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/36955/82_edinburgh_tram_project-update
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Tram latest
(2185 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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2.1.4
24 trams have been delivered to the tram depot, with the remainder anticipated to be delivered by the end of December 2012. All options are being explored to dispose of the surplus trams.Could they not count how many they needed? Did they over order incase some got lost in transit? No doubt they will be disposed of at a loss or will end up paying someone to take them off their hands.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Well they ordered enough for all the routes they didn't build.
Been trying to sell the surplus for at least two years.
No-one wants them - at any price.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
John R T Carson (@JohnRTCarson)
22/10/2012 23:11
@LAHinds @brianjaffa Hi Lesley the budget is a work of fiction, Project management up by £120m in a year, street work 1/2 cost of off road!!"
Well known anti-tram man, who may or may not be right.
Posted 12 years ago # -
You have to love how they are claiming the tram is "on time and on budget". Do they really think there is anyone left who is actually fooled by this?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"You have to love how they are claiming the tram is "on time and on budget"."
It's all relative...
"
Ms Bruce said the whole project remains in line with a revised budget of £776m set by the council a year ago when the Scottish Government agreed to take control of the scheme.The previous cost had been £545m, with the council making up the remainder on top of the Scottish Government’s grant of £500m, which MSPs approved shortly after the SNP came to power at Holyrood in 2007.
With Alex Salmond’s administration refusing to stump up any additional funding, the council is having to borrow millions of pounds over the next 30 years to make up the massive funding shortfall, with the final bill expected to top £1 billion when the costs of repaying the loan are included.
"
Posted 12 years ago # -
Well yes but you can't just keep moving the goalposts yet still claim to be within SPL rules.
Posted 12 years ago # -
On the positive side, each day along the Broomhouse path is a new adventure. You never know where a new diversion is going to take you next.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I see they've stuck in a 'subject to weather' clause at 2.3.4.
£776 million includes a £34 million contigency fund which they've already spent £15 million of. How does that work?
Posted 12 years ago # -
It sounds like we can safely assume that the trams will not actually make a net profit until about 2045.
To put that into context, Zephrame Cochrane first tests the warp drive in 2063.
Posted 12 years ago # -
On a related note, does anyone know what the plan is for the cycle path route at the Bankhead/South Gyle Access junction? The old line of the path is now under the tram bridge and I really hope they don't persist with the crappy, awkward dog-leg to the crossing that you have to use now.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Already -
"
Morning Briefing: Tram chiefs fear winter could bring delays and rises in costs"
Full story -
Posted 12 years ago # -
Oh dear.
Don't worry, they are still on tine and on budget to run from the airport to Gogar by 3063 at a cost of £3.5 bazillion.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Hah!
Hahahaha!
Eeh....
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
Morning Briefing: Tram chiefs fear winter could bring delays and rises in costs"
!
Nicely written contract. Bad weather (in Scotland!) means higher costs. Doh.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I don't think there's any doubt that whoever was acting for the council in this agreement, right from the start, did a really really poor job. I've dealt with plenty procurement contracts in my time, and it really does seem like some very very basic checks and controls have been missed off completely!
Posted 12 years ago # -
No-one wants them - at any price
I believe they have over-specified them so that it would cost more to modify them to suit other operator's fleet requirements than would be saved by buying them nealy new second hand.
does anyone know what the plan is for the cycle path route at the Bankhead/South Gyle Access junction?
Well the only way it can go is dogleg around the embankment. New pavements will need built parallel to Bankhead Road on each side of the junction. The crossing used to be much further up than it currently is, shortening the dogleg somewhat. You can still see the studs from it on the road. No idea what the official plan is, they randomly replaced some of the old dropped kerb with non-dropped a few months back, despite the fact it will all have to be torn up anyway when they rebuild the pavements.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@WC I can't honestly believe that a commercial lawyer could get a set of contracts for a project this size so wrong. Rather, the trambles smacks of a client rushing into signing contracts in the face of warnings about risks ("Oh, don't worry about the utilities risk - we've got loads of plans that show where they all are...") in order to hit arbitrarily imposed political or budgetary deadlines.
Posted 12 years ago # -
On a serious note... I see only one spot where they appear to have put grass down around and between the tracks. The rest appears to be concerite or rail type stones. Its such a shame they didn't look at a few more other tram projects in europe where they have laid grass / turff between the tracks, masking it from the eye unless you get up close. On the Saughton stretch I guess they'll be putting up large fencing??
Posted 12 years ago # -
@DaveC the grass inbetween the tracks is apparently for noise-absorbtion reasons rather than pure aesthetics. I guess the people of Saughton and Broomhouse are not deemded to require as much noise proofing as those in the offices at Edinburgh Park?
Posted 12 years ago # -
@arellcat - sorry to go off topic, not like me, but in that Star Trek Film - Zephrame Cochrane (the farmer from babe and the shocking turn up in LA Confidential plus man under stairs in six feet under) invents the warp drive, then it turns out the Star Trek crew came back from the future and helped him invent it, how does that work, like a kind of pulled up by your own bootstraps recursive loop?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Presumably the stone chippings are there to help drainage? After all it can be quite wet in Scotland.
They'd best get some turf/grass seed on all these earth embankments mind, or they'll get washed away in the next heavy rain...
Posted 12 years ago # -
I noticed this evening that they have indeed begun the reconstruction of the pavement at Bankhead / South Gyle Access, parallel to the embankment. It's got as far as digging out the area and laying a bed of hardcore.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Promo video released for ‘on-track’ Edinburgh Trams"
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
Edinburgh Reporter (@EdinReporter)
25/10/2012 12:30
Cllr Hinds says she is determined to ensure that the trams and buses will be integrated smoothly.... #edincouncil"
That's all right then.
You'd think - as they should be running by now - that they'd have worked out which bus routes would stop running or be re-routed (esp away from Princes Street), but - no...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Do you think there's a Dutch version of Have I Got News for You on which they wet themselves with hilarity at how much of a meal we're making of this?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Had a quick look at the Russell Road multiple switchback this evening. It's coming along quite nicely with the same faux stone treatment as most of the elevated sections.
Those are some tight corners, though.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Oh yes, I keep meaning to post that the bit of the Russell Road access that I can see from the train appears to have been cleared, so you can see the tarmac again.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Gembo: how does that work, like a kind of pulled up by your own bootstraps recursive loop?
Greg Egan, head-frying author, wrote about a prescience system where people could basically text message their past selves once per day. Limited bandwidth, y'see.
One of the upshots was that the freak accident rate dropped dramatically as soon as the thing was invented, but not because people were reading messages from their future selves saying things like 'careful on that ladder when you're changing the bulb in the spare bedroom' - those kind of accidents became logically impossible because they'd be warned about, so they just stopped happening.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Interesting on the tram video to see how the tracks run, heading east from Haymarket.
And it will be very interesting to see the levels of parking/loading restrictions and enforcement here, compared to the QBC.
Posted 12 years ago #
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