Freeze Their Assets

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

When the snow fell on Wednesday morning, 90 points on the Central line failed, resulting in total chaos on the service.

The reason? Metronet, knowing there were freezing temperatures, had decided not to de-ice the points that night in order to save money. This money-saving measure ended up costing it £40,000 in fines to TfL. Obviously, that £40,000 could have been better spent on the upkeep of the lines - but the Infracos sometimes calculate that the fines are cheaper than doing the work.

It's clear where Metronet's priorities lie: they would rather run the risk of being fined for cutting corners in their pursuit of profit - at the expense of passengers and staff - than invest in the upkeep of the railway.

The fines are suppposed to force the Infracos to imporve their performance. However, Metronet is being fined so regularly for delays to the service, that it is cutting even more corners to squeeze out what profit it can.

The answer to all this? Strong union organisation amongest both Infraco workers and contractors. And ultimately, the reintegration of all engineering work into a publicly-owned London Underground.

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