by GeoffPlumb » Thu May 14, 2015 9:50 pm
Is anyone able to explain the meaning of "Over The Points" in the May 2015 RO? Perhaps it should be titled "Hitting The Buffers"?
Having attempted to read it several times, I have no real clue as to what this article is trying to tell us - it would appear to be something to do with the effect of the general election on the railway network. The initial paragraph seems to be completely unnecessary as the author tells us that he does not intend to bore us with such inanities, so why write it? Especially as it contains such words as "inevitibly" and includes a statement "one of the closest fought elections of since the 1970's".
The article could simply begin at the next paragraph "Whatever the result of the general election..." and perhaps make some sort of sense, as it just seems to be telling us that things will be uncertain for the railways whichever party wins the election.
The next paragraph mentions "wholesale re-nationalistrion [sic] and goes on to say "However in Scotland, with the longer term possibility of independence on the agenda, rail nationalistion [sic] may once again raise its head particularly given the alredy [sic] developing more integrated operational structure may see it emerge." Pardon?
A few lines down and we have this gem: "the 'concession' model, with day to day responsibility for strategic, tactical and service quality objectives effectively shared by both the private operator and the sponsoring public authority, has major potential for delivering a more regionally user responsive model for managing the rail network - just compare the recent Transport Focus passenger."
This sort of gobbledygook may pass muster with the business fraternity these days, but is utterly incomprehensible to many people in the "normal" world.
I realise that some of the above is simply as a result of "typos" in composing the piece and these are all too easy to happen, I also realise that I will be asked to volunteer to help "proof read" articles to avoid these sort of errors. However, I already devote more than the time I have available as Chairman of the Watford Branch.
As articles such as this appear on the front page of the RO, the impression they must give to non-members, new members and existing members doesn't bear thinking about - if the first few paragraphs of the journal are unreadable, difficult to understand and full of grammatical errors, why should anyone believe that things later on in the issue will be any more accurate?
Regards,
Geoff Plumb
Chairman, Watford Branch.
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