LRT: City Issues Non-Denial Denial On Bad Axles

This is an emailed response to questions posed by The Bulldog concerning an ATU executive statement on the hundreds of LRT bad axles at the Belfast Yards maintenance facility.

This from city media relations:

“One of the purposes of the Belfast Road Maintenance and Storage Facility is for storage of spare parts that are required for routine or preventative maintenance. With a current active fleet size of 45 trains running on 450 axles, it is reasonable that there would be a sufficient number of axles available to replace existing as well as a temporary stockpile of used axles waiting for disposal. The number of spare parts varies on several factors, including the number of light rail vehicles in service and future or completed work. It is the responsibility of our maintainer to manage the storage of parts, should further data collection be needed.”

Attributed to Richard Holder, Director, Engineering Services

This is what you call in journalism a non-denial denial.

Journalists usually get these when they are correct.

Holder does not deny the existence of hundreds of bad train axles in a corner at Belfast Road yard. He just says this is a parts storage facility so it has new and used parts.

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“A temporary stockpile of used axles …” Holder says. More like hundreds of used axles, according to the ATU union executive. So we have learned from Holder that there’s a temporary stockpile of used axles. Not a number, not an estimate but a “sufficient number” of used axles. Not hundreds, just sufficient. So one wonders how the stockpile of used axles is “temporary”. If temporary, have some bad ones already been taken out of Belfast for disposal? But there’s hundreds still left? Or is that the tally from 2019 when the rail line kicked off? But is there hundreds? No answer.

You see this is why government people like email as a way to respond to questions. First, they don’t have to answer the question, which is what you see above, and there are no follow-up questions on the purposely vague statement. This isn’t good for public information or democracy, for that matter.

And what does “attributed to …” mean? Did Holden say that? Did media relations say that? Why don’t we say what Holden said rather than couching it into “attributed”? A weasel word to be sure. Did he say it or not?

So here’s what I take from the Holden non-denial denial. If he had said the ATU executive is wrong about the hundreds of bad axles, that would have created doubt about the axle pile. But he didn’t. He’s not denying what the ATU said. He talks around it.

Had there not been a pile of bad axles, no doubt the city would have complained about the accuracy of the letter and the post in The Bulldog. Instead Holden talked around it.

Also it took two days to get a response. That tells you a lot of things such as Holden is busy. But it also tells you that these words were very carefully chosen so as to neither confirm nor deny the existence of the hundreds of bad axles. Thus, a non-denial denial.

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And that leaves the spectre of axles and the like so bad that hundreds of them have had to be removed.

Furthermore if you need more information, you should talk to the maintainer, not Holden. Hope Mr. Maintainer has broad shoulders.

This has been said but it is worth repeating in this situation. Open government is good, honest government.

This response to the ATU letter is not good, honest government. Instead it is putting the best light on a horrible situation.

Rather like calling hell tepid.

What’s wrong with just telling us the truth? After all, city hall is our government, not Holden’s, not media relations’, not the maintainers’.

We’re the shareholders. We demand full and complete disclosure of what has occurred. Gaming the answer only raises more suspicions. It also harms the legitimacy of municipal government.

Ken Gray

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