Horse trams on the wrong track

[Kopek]

.....and now, the DoI and Longworth think drivers should be more patient or use the Buses!!!

Someone fined for doing 30 in the 20 zone! Endangering the cones perhaps?

[Kopek]

From a few years ago, if you take the reported number of passengers, ( if you believe them! ), number of return journeys, length of season....... the average is in single figures.

[Non-Believer]

26 minutes ago, woolley said:

"We are blessed with a working example of a Victorian tramway operating its original route"

"The cost: Modest. About equivalent to the lump sum paid to one retiring top civil servant without adding his ongoing pension. I know which I would rather my taxes support. It is right that general taxation rather than Douglas ratepayers support the cost"

"Anything I didn't cover?"

 

 

 

1. It's not gojng to be very original by the time they've finished. New route, new stables etc.

2. Cost. May well be "modest" as above, in your opinion. But that's just the operating loss to the taxpayer every year. With no sign of it being turned around. DBC were quite right to get it off the Douglas ratepayer's backs, at lower loss figures than they're making now. Unfortunately Bullshit Gawne spouted imaginary "better" operating figures that it has yet to meet and dumped the lot on the general taxpayer. Now we're spending X £M so we can carry on losing £0.5M every year.

I'm not anti-horsetrams, incidentally. I am anti-the current finance figures for them.

3. Anything you didn't cover? On your post, just which room you and Ian Longworth are getting tonight.....

[thesultanofsheight]

48 minutes ago, woolley said:

Oh dear. Horse trams again. Don't we have a lot of people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing? If the horse trams are all you have to complain about then there really isn't a lot wrong in your life.

They are iconic and unique to Douglas. They set Douglas apart from other places. Yes there are horse trams in museums, but there lies the difference. This is not a museum. We are blessed with a working example of a Victorian tramway operating its original route. It is precious.

New rails, non original layout after the Sefton, new stables, new tram sheds, new road. The only thing heritage left about them is the actual trams. They’re a bit like Triggers Broom with what’s left to be honest. Little heritage about what they’ve been turned into after the massive taxpayer “investment” to keep the head of chuff chuffs busy. 

[Andy Onchan]

9 hours ago, the stinking enigma said:

Then added that bus journeys were up 77% in 5 years. On paper the guy is a genius

Yes, rumour has it that he's going to stand for the Keys next time around. We need more geniuses (or should tbat be geneii?) in Tynwald. You can never have enough of those. A bit like lerts. 

[Gizo]

6 hours ago, P.K. said:

Because it's not their heritage.

This isn't rocket science.

What a load of fuckn cock 

[woolley]

24 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

 just which room you and Ian Longworth are getting tonight.....

Freakin' Jesus.

[kevster]

32 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

New rails, non original layout after the Sefton, new stables, new tram sheds, new road. The only thing heritage left about them is the actual trams. They’re a bit like Triggers Broom with what’s left to be honest. Little heritage about what they’ve been turned into after the massive taxpayer “investment” to keep the head of chuff chuffs busy. 

For those with a classical education, this is a modern reference to The Ship of Theseus as discussed by Plutarch

 

Anyway you might as well say that as they don’t use the same horses or drivers they are not original 

[On The Bus]

1 hour ago, woolley said:

Oh dear. Horse trams again. Don't we have a lot of people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing? If the horse trams are all you have to complain about then there really isn't a lot wrong in your life.

They are iconic and unique to Douglas. They set Douglas apart from other places. Yes there are horse trams in museums, but there lies the difference. This is not a museum. We are blessed with a working example of a Victorian tramway operating its original route. It is precious.

The cost: Modest. About equivalent to the lump sum paid to one retiring top civil servant without adding his ongoing pension. I know which I would rather my taxes support. It is right that general taxation rather than Douglas ratepayers support the cost.

Longworth and the Promenade: To be fair, there is a lot more work going on than just the tramway. I don't support everything that the man has done by a long chalk, but it's a bit rich to lay the entire Promenade works' disruption at his door. He did have a stupid idea to run only as far as the Villa Marina, but Tynwald voted that down. Yes, a single track with passing places may have sufficed. Yes, it might have been better to put it alongside the pavement on the seaward side, but Tynwald could not agree on any alternative. This is why we have the status quo - double track down the middle. A single track down the middle would have been a hazard with the trams squeezed by traffic taking liberties.

Five on a tram is peak: Really? I often see them full. I see them empty too of course, but it seems that some of you only ever see the latter. A bit of balance please!

Cruelty to animals: You're having a laugh. The horses are bred for the purpose and enjoy the work. They are not ill-treated, scared, stressed or anything else adverse. The occasional one has dropped dead at work. So has more than the occasional human. They work a short shift and are treated as well if not better than patients in the hospital!

Road congestion: Really? This is the Isle of Man. Where are you going that you are going to be so painfully held up, for what? Ten minutes maximum on a rare occasion? If it's such a big deal, set out ten minutes earlier. Apart from at the TT we don't really have congestion in the true meaning of the word on the Island, thank goodness, and when we do it tends to be grid lock caused by the TT. As Longworth says, it's the traffic that's the problem. I would ban traffic entirely from the Prom except for access to properties outside of TT time, and leave it to walkers, cyclists and the trams. Wouldn't that be pleasant without the infernal combustion engine? Get off your dead end, onto your hind legs and use them. Get some fresh air and stop bleating.

Anything I didn't cover?

 

 

 

We're not talking about intended cruelty. It's the fact of having a wild animal dragging 5 ton trams up and down the Promenade for the amusement of a few bearded anoraks. That sort of thing died out with performing animals in the circus. It's a Victorian freak show.

Also breathing in the exhaust fumes from the tens of thousands of cars and lorries that use the Prom each day is archaic at best! 

 

Then what do they do when they're not working? Cooped up in a tiny stables for 6 months of the year! 

[woolley]

13 minutes ago, On The Bus said:

We're not talking about intended cruelty. It's the fact of having a wild animal dragging 5 ton trams up and down the Promenade for the amusement of a few bearded anoraks. That sort of thing died out with performing animals in the circus. It's a Victorian freak show.

Also breathing in the exhaust fumes from the tens of thousands of cars and lorries that use the Prom each day is archaic at best! 

 

Then what do they do when they're not working? Cooped up in a tiny stables for 6 months of the year! 

But the trams have wheels and free running bearings. It's not like dragging a dead weight over rough ground! Nothing to do with bearded anoraks. People of all ages enjoy the horse trams. You convinced me re the fumes, though. We need to ban motor vehicles from the Prom.

[kevster]

33 minutes ago, On The Bus said:

Then what do they do when they're not working? Cooped up in a tiny stables for 6 months of the year! 

You don't know very much about how they are kept, do you? They are certainly not 'cooped up in tiny stables' when not on a working day

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Non-Believer said:

2. Cost. May well be "modest" as above, in your opinion. But that's just the operating loss to the taxpayer every year. With no sign of it being turned around. DBC were quite right to get it off the Douglas ratepayer's backs, at lower loss figures than they're making now. Unfortunately Bullshit Gawne spouted imaginary "better" operating figures that it has yet to meet and dumped the lot on the general taxpayer. Now we're spending X £M so we can carry on losing £0.5M every year.

Actually the Corpy only decided to get rid of them when the councillors refused to let them build expensive new stables.  Before then they were only too keen to use them as an excuse for splashing the cash just as the DoI are.  Only once they were stopped awarding contracts, they suddenly discover it was a terrible drain on the ratepayers and the operating deficit magically doubled overnight.  Judging by comments from Ashford, they had been loading overheads onto the operation, though I doubt they sacked any Corpy managers when they transferred the horse trams to the DoI.

The DoI claimed that they actually lost much less in the first year of operation, but as I pointed out above it's impossible to get honest figures out of them.  It's not completely implausible because even the DoI are better at running a transport operation than the Corpy (mind you so would the horses be).  It's also possible that they were better at collecting fares, though some of claimed increase in passengers could just be better recording of people with season tickets, passes and so on (the same thing probably applies to the increase in bus passengers over the last five years).

I suspect that the horse trams could be run at only a small loss or maybe break even if you kept it modest, encouraged volunteer input and so on.  But that would be against the whole ethos of the way things are done by the Manx Government at the moment.

[woolley]

41 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Actually the Corpy only decided to get rid of them when the councillors refused to let them build expensive new stables.  Before then they were only too keen to use them as an excuse for splashing the cash just as the DoI are.  Only once they were stopped awarding contracts, they suddenly discover it was a terrible drain on the ratepayers and the operating deficit magically doubled overnight.  Judging by comments from Ashford, they had been loading overheads onto the operation, though I doubt they sacked any Corpy managers when they transferred the horse trams to the DoI.

The DoI claimed that they actually lost much less in the first year of operation, but as I pointed out above it's impossible to get honest figures out of them.  It's not completely implausible because even the DoI are better at running a transport operation than the Corpy (mind you so would the horses be).  It's also possible that they were better at collecting fares, though some of claimed increase in passengers could just be better recording of people with season tickets, passes and so on (the same thing probably applies to the increase in bus passengers over the last five years).

I suspect that the horse trams could be run at only a small loss or maybe break even if you kept it modest, encouraged volunteer input and so on.  But that would be against the whole ethos of the way things are done by the Manx Government at the moment.

I can't argue with any of that, Roger, but the constant harping on about the cost bewilders me. It is buttons. Pocket money in the grand scheme.

[gettafa]

4 hours ago, woolley said:

Oh dear. Horse trams again. Don't we have a lot of people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing? If the horse trams are all you have to complain about then there really isn't a lot wrong in your life.

.

.

 

Anything I didn't cover?

Yes, why are twin tracks required? As I asked. 

At very, very, most a passing place somewhere midway. A single track would be ample and would resolve many of the traffic problems.

I'm not against the Horse Trams. I just cannot understand why the obvious opportunity to lay a single track wasn't taken.

I am happy to be enlightened, but if a civil servant tries to tell me it is to cater for peak times then they deserve to have their job and pension taken off them.

[Gizo]

47 minutes ago, woolley said:

I can't argue with any of that, Roger, but the constant harping on about the cost bewilders me. It is buttons. Pocket money in the grand scheme.

Are you happy to think in five years time they’d have spunked £25m on it? 

Im aware that things Government must provide which lose money year after year, libraries for example, but to waste this money on a Victorian plaything is ridiculous. If they lose 500k per year but had upto date modern tramway system across the prom all the way to Ramsey I’d happily accept this. But a Fuckn Horse, give me strength.