A great groan of relief emanated from the tram-sheds at the Red Cow Depot at the recent news that the Luas timetable is delayed by yet another year, and possibly two. Twenty-six vehicles sit there, each costing €1.1 million, and they've got used to their immobile habits in their snug quarters. Card games most nights, with a Chinese takeaway sometimes; and on Fridays, the Arrow she-locomotives from Hazelhatch drop in for a party, until they repair to their respective sidings and let their bogeys boo.
This project has been under way for nearly a decade. The actual go-ahead came nearly five years ago, about the same time as a project in Montpellier, and using the same trams. Montpellier's are now running. But Luas - which means speed in Irish; oh, choke with laughter - is nearly as far away from completion now as it was supposed to be when the project officially began in 1998.
Grand entrance
The first tram was delivered a year ago. It would have made sense for the Luas company to treat the vehicle's arrival with the same studied disregard that the Catholic Church has traditionally reserved for its happy legions of dog-collared pederasts.
But Luas apparently wasn't in the least concerned at the implications of importing an engine with no track for it to run on. So it loudly trumpeted the grand entrance of the Luas tram, which gave lots of press interviews, denied having affairs with either Angus Deyton or Ulrika Jonnson, pouted into the camera, drank lots of champagne and loudly announced that it was going to transform Dublin transport, before departing into costly obscurity at the Red Cow Inn.
Since then, another 25 trams have arrived and joined their friend at the Red Cow bar, where they lower pints and gaze out of the window watching the work on the line proceed with satisfactory slowness.
I presume these trams have all been paid for, or are being paid for, though of course, none of them is earning any money. And they won't, not for another two or even three years. Who knows, with the passage of rather more time, and the discovery of a few more apparently insuperable Luas problems, these vehicles may reach retirement age well before the tracks are complete.
Trams but no tracks; nor any prospect of tracks, or lines, nor routes to run. Does anyone else behave like this? In an expansionary moment, would Michael O'Leary puff on his fat cigar and order 40 Boeings, and have them delivered, and start paying for them, before he even had a runway for them to depart from? Maybe they'd share lodgings with the Luas locomotives out at the Red Cow roundabout, and join in the partying. Wham bam thank you tram. Are you Boeing or coming? Wow, both, I think.
But of course, nobody with shareholders to answer to, or with a real stake in the company concerned, would tie up capital in assets that were not only not earning money, but instead were costing a bucketload to keep, in maintenance and interest payments, even as they depreciated in value.
This is what Luas has been doing - erecting a ready-built vintage traction-engine theme park from scratch. Of course this would be absolutely fine if the engine-makers were paying for it. And maybe indeed they're demanding payment only when the trams are running, and in the meantime are willing to absorb the cost of manufacture so that their shareholders bear the brunt.
Note to accountant
If this is actually the case, a note to my accountant. Does this company also lend money? Let us borrow. Now. Lots. And a note to my pension fund. Invest in that company as enthusiastically as you would in a North Korean haute couturier.
However, I presume that Luas has not found the most loco locomotive-maker in the world. I presume also that we are paying or have paid for these engines. And will pay for the next 14 as they are brought at huge expense to the tramopolis beside the M50. Forty stationary trams staring at thousands of stationary cars: and the rancid reek in your nostrils is that of Government money being squandered.
Meanwhile down at the bottom of the M50, the Luas works have turned Ballinteer into a life-size re-enactment of the Siege of Sarajevo. Since they are unable to leave their homes, residents perch on their roofs waiting for air-dropped supplies of food. Cannibalism is reported in parts of Dundrum, elderly nuns being especially favoured (a) because of their surprisingly succulent, lamb-like texture, and (b) because supplies are still plentiful: but hurry, and get your order in for Christmas now.
Free recipes available from Superquinn. Do try the ragout of Little Sisters of the Poor: but you'll need a toothpick afterwards. All those tiny bones.
Southern suburbs
So pity those southern suburbs through which famished natives stalk furtive, scurrying wimple. The M50 is now decanting tens of thousands of extra vehicles a day there, without proper feeder-routes or - naturally enough, signposts - even as the Luas construction works, proceeding with the haste of a slug into a furnace, paralyses all traffic in all directions.
Back at the Red Cow, €50 million worth of trams depreciate in their warehouse, and will do so for years. To put that in some sort of perspective, the very first Boeing 747 flew in February 1969. The first commercial service by Pan-Am, with passengers, took off just 11 months later. How is that possible? Well, since they were using private money, they built the runways first. ... ...