Under the bridge

These photos show the underside of two railway bridges in Concord - places rarely visited by normal human beings, if the smell is anything to go by.  Apart from the obvious graffiti, quite a bit of garbage has been dumped here, and when I paid a visit, it was a little rank.  I was half expecting to trip over a decomposing corpse (been watching too much CSI if you ask me).  

There appears to be some contention as to who is responsible for taking care of various bits of these bridges.  RailCorp is obviously responsible for the trestles and the tracks, but the finger seems to get pointed at the local Councils when it comes to taking care of the underbits.  Being a bridge that crosses a council boundary, if both sides of the bridge are defaced, it means dealing with Canada Bay Council, Ryde Council and RailCorp.

The horror, the horror.....

To make matters worse, not everyone working for these organisations understands the protocols or agreements that are in place to handle who does what (I'm assuming that such protocols have been documented, and are not the result of a handshake over by lunch between two long-departed managers).  If you report it to RailCorp, they tell you to call the Council.  When you report it to Council, they point the finger at RailCorp.  

I can't imagine how bad it must be when you have a bridge that carries both rail and road traffic - bringing in the RTA as well would just add to the nightmare.  Things would get even worse if the bridge was used to carry both a water pipeline and a gas pipeline and a high tension power line...... dealing with the red tape and bickering between organisations would be a job for life.

As it is, I've reported this to Council, and hope they can make some sense of it.  What's the bet they agree to paint over the concrete bit on the left (the abutment) but leave the darker grey metal bit (the trestle) on the right to RailCorp.

And people say government is efficient...........