The downside of this cost-saving strategy was that the train service could only be covered by goodwill. Whenever there was a spat between ASLEF and management - regardless of cause - the withdrawal of this goodwill became a stick with which unions could beat management.

Buridan is best-known to philosophers for the example of Buridan's Ass, starving to death between two equidistant and equally tempting bales of hay, …

If they ſhall faile, I with mine Enemies Will triumph o're my perſon, which I waigh not, Being of thoſe Vertues vacant.

The measures which resulted in the crushing of the mutiny within the Five Rivers, were unquestionably pukka. […] Pukka and kucha statesmanship are, indeed, two things which time rarely fails to detect, just as it tries the durability of a public building or a bridge.