If you underfund the national network, remove or abandon a majority of rail lines, sell off the remaining cherry-picked assets at a discount, and then boast about improving numbers, well it's hard to see that as a legitimate comparison. In many ways the UK's rail renaissance is uniquely influenced by being in close proximity to several pro-rail countries with large numbers of pro-rail citizens. In much of the world privatization of rail infrastructure has resulted in perpetual reductions in passenger services and amenities, up to and including total abandonment as happened just south of here in Mexico.
I think it's also fair to point out how extreme the situation in Mexico was in many respects, too. Mexico only lost passenger service after many decades of failing to keep up service (they were still running pre-WWII heavyweight cars into the 1990s from what I can tell, some pics make it look like there were ex-Twentieth Century Limited cars running in Copper Canyon in the same era, and a lot of their stuff wasn't kept up too well). Looking at the state of things in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it doesn't seem that the loss of passenger trains there was a dramatic collapse so much as it was the culmination of a long period of mismanagement. I'm also seriously not sure how much of Mexico's system had survived into the 1990s (I know there was quite a bit left in the 80s from what Jim has said, but the pics I've seen from the early-to-mid 90s generally look pretty pathetic by comparison).
This seems odd to me. Religious chauvinist parties, like fascist parties, generally are PRO-investment in infrastructure, at least once they get into power. Our Republican Party is an outlier because it's run by "smash-and-grab" corporate looter types, not by religious types. The religious types usually like to build giant monuments to their own ego, and rail lines are a great example of that.
Ed, UK just got visa on arrival effective June 2015. So afterall, you may be able to forgo the queue at the Indian High Commission.It seems to me that the election of the BJP, backed by big business and wealthy media interests, makes for an ideal time to "sell-off", "privatise", or otherwise "create" opportunities for private investors to get their hands on public assets?
I am hopefull that the Indian railways won't change too much, anyway.
You Americans are lucky now, you can apply for a "visa on arrival" to India... Us Brits have to visit a visa office in person to apply...
Dunno why, it is the opposite of tourist friendly and makes holes in India's high tech I.T. claims . (Probably getting their own back on us for the colonial years!)
Never mind, I will be in the queue with my passport later in the year!
Ed.
They don't want to be challenged by outsiders in their turf.
I don't know much about the BJP but I have an Indian co-worker who defends them quite a bit. I don't know how objective he is but from what he says they actually sound quite reasonable. I don't know why the media love to paint them as out-of-control fascists, when in reality they're probably just progressive conservatives with religious roots.
