Home On Hungary THE COMBINO TRAMS HAVE STOPPED

THE COMBINO TRAMS HAVE STOPPED

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2006-09-18_11:00:00

It will nearly be a comedy which characterizes the Combino tram, the new sights of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = „urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” /??>Budapest. When I typed „The Combino trams have stopped” in the browse on the Internet, there were more than seventy matches! And it cost more than forty milliard!  

This is not the reason that this word occurs to me day by day! All of my writings are my private opinion as you can see on my front-page, and errors expected, but now I confirm that the feeling composed in this writing is only a feeling, opinion and not the result of pragmatism. 

I often go by a new tram, and see the leading character of the daily news while I am driving in the city. My fate willed it so that I could see the realization of more than hundred development project through from the beginnings. I have been trained for long years that I could state the time and expense necessary for the realization of a development quite precisely, even though the ideas significantly differed from the projects till then. A cabaret, played and seen many times on television when I was a little boy, returns to me while I am watching the Combino trams. The main point of the cabaret was that the wife bought an expensive armchair, which was taken to pieces in the middle of the night by the husband, who became deranged what costs so much in this armchair?! I am watching the Combino trams that “What costs nine hundred million forints per tram?” and why it was worth spending additional five milliard to rebuild the boulevard which was renewed a few years ago.             

 I was counting! Nine hundred million forints, with which even 350 passengers can travel at the same time according to the ads. Starting from the fact that five persons can travel comfortably in a car with air-condition and listening to music, then 70 cars would be needed for carrying 350 passengers in the most comfortable circumstances. It would be 13 million per car in case of 900 million forints. Therefore, outstanding Lexus cars even in the luxury category can be ensured for the passengers of the BKV. There is something really wrong here. What does it mean that the air-conditioning cost further milliards. Namely about one hundred million forint per tram.          

 One hundred million for air-conditioning the tram of 120 square meters, when the ventilation system is part of the standard version, so the one million would be for the device producing the cold air. I can make miracles happen, if the development of an air-conditioning system of a flat equivalent to the air space of a tram, including the devices and having the highest technical level, does not exceed three million forints. Of course not, if the system is provided by the Siemens, and the BKV is the customer on our money and the City Hall is the one who makes the decision and rearranges the money. Looking at the new miracle of the Siemens development, somehow I feel that this can not cost more than two hundred million forints, namely about fifth part of the purchase price even with that realization which needs the possible highest money wasting!

Not that hurts the most that according to my feeling we have been cheated out of about thirty milliard, but that is missing what we could do with these milliard, and with those milliard which have been spent with similar efficiency in our name year by year. How beautiful our town, our country would be if the money, which we pay off, was spent on us! It has been missing very much! This is a big responsibility, whose sense is missing from the majority of our decision makers! 

Meanwhile, we know from the news that the new trams of the “Combino” vehicles are still in production in the Viennese factory of Siemens Transportation Systems for the Budapest Transport Ltd. (BKV) which is having more than sixty milliard debt!

I am still waiting for the news that it will turn out in this place or abroad, at the BKV or at the Siemens or at the City Hall that an incredible professional nihility and/or bribery, corruption surrounded the “Combino” business causing a loss of milliards for us!

Grand Ph.D János Palotás