Article: Consultant hired to get trains on track

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Consultant hired to get trains on track

Consultant hired to get trains on track
CLAY LUCAS
April 2, 2010

IN AN admission it is struggling to run Melbourne's trains well, Metro has hired a state government transport consultant to act as its second-in-charge.

Just four months after taking over from Connex, Metro has hired Simon Lane, a consultant who has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from the Department of Transport over the past two years.

Mr Lane is the former head of Sydney's rail system. He was sacked by the New South Wales government after the 2000 Olympics because of ongoing problems with that city's trains.

It is understood Mr Lane was hired by Metro yesterday after senior government transport bureaucrats made it clear they were nervous about the operator's ability to run the city's trains in the lead-up to the state election on November 27.

Since replacing Connex, Metro has failed to meet performance targets. In recent weeks, many passengers have complained to The Age about late trains causing severe overcrowding on rush-hour services.

Metro chief executive Andrew Lezala yesterday told staff that until November's election, Melbourne's trains would be a focus of media attention. In a memo sent to Metro managers yesterday, Mr Lezala conceded the operator's performance was ''not good enough'', and that it had hired Mr Lane to become the company's executive operating officer, sidelining the incumbent operating officer.

But Mr Lane will stay on with the rail operator only until November's state election.

Over the past two years the Department of Transport has employed Mr Lane as a consultant. Most recently, he has been paid an estimated $2000 a day to advise the government on a tunnel it is considering building under Footscray as part of its $4.3 billion regional rail link. (rumoured to now be $5 billion).

[longboi]

Surely they could have someone from MTR come and take a look rather than some guy who left CityRail in a mess it is still trying to fix.

[johnnigh]

You have to remember that it is a standard principle of managment that at the highest levels the only candidates to be short listed are those who have been sacked from their last gig. Examples: Sol Trujillo (sacked 3 times before Telstra), Mike Kaiser, sacked once after the vote rigging, failed as Morris Iemma's chief of staff, failed as Anna's chief of staff (ie, he oversaw her fall from most to least popular Q'land premier), and every Vice Chancellor of minor universities in Australia  And don't forget all those business CEOs who get their bonuses when the company sprays its equity into the sewer.

[#Metro]

Isn't the guy who is heading the Cross River Rail the one that used to head TransLink?