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Roland Perry · January 8th 18, 10:13 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 09:49:27 on Mon, 8 Jan
2018, remarked:

mix of internally generated surplus and govt investment grant pays for new =
train fleets. I can't recall a train fleet being "flogged off" to pay for a=
new one. It was Caroline Pidgeon who remarked that the proposal was "craz=
y" (or some similar term).

And will almost certainly cost TfL more in the long run. Whoever buys the
trains won't be doing it for the good of mankind, they'll want a long term
profit. As ever short termism rules in british government.

What government wants is stability (whichever political party in power
we are talking about).

Thus, raising taxes to fund those trains could result in voters making a
change at the top, which tends to cause all sorts of costly consequences
reversing earlier policy decisions.

A long term lease (which is the opposite of short-term-ism actually)
does at least make things predictable.
--
Roland Perry