[ASLEF pickets the flexi-roster system The Tories have…]
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-02-23Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 8 →
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ASLEF pickets the flexi-roster system The Tories have blocked every attempt to rejuvenate BR. They are even selling-off the new technological innovations developed by BR Engineering Workshops!
Take the following example. A few years ago BRE Ltd, at the Technical Centre in Derby, developed the radical concept of "crossbraced bogies" ". This is the mechanism that puts the tilt into the Advanced Passenger Train. But instead of this being developed and put into mass production in places like Horwich and Shildon, the Tories forced BRE to farm production out to the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company.
This undermines the longterm future of the workshops and guarantees that any profits obtained from this project will end up not in public funds but in the coffers of private financiers.
The virus of 'denationalisation is now spreading to the BR wagon fleet. BR executives state quite openly that up 1o 40% of the total UK rail freight stock will be in