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Tony Braxton-Smith at Great Southern Railway


Richard
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I decided this wasn't quite newsworthy for the main site, but it's interesting nonetheless. Tony Braxton-Smith, Dreamworld's CEO from August 2000 til April 2004 was recently announced as the replacement executive officer for Adelaide-based transport company Great Southern Railway. They operate the Adelaide-Darwin trainline among others. The company's owned by Serco Asia Pacific, whom Tony will be a director for. His responsibilities will include operating their Australian operations, such as their trains and numerous city bus contracts, and their transport call centre contracts (TransInfo in Brisbane among others)

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To be fair, Dreamworld for as long as I can remember has had efficiency problems. I always gathered that through his time there, Tony Braxton-Smith was well aware of the situation. Compare Tower of Terror today to what it was with the elevators a few years ago, I think it's far more efficient as it is and the queue certainly feels like it moves faster if nothing else. Giant Drop has also been recently improved. Nick Central was also designed to make things operate as smoothly as possible. I don't see Reptar as being any more or less efficient than most coasters I've ridden. He was also interested in adding a second train to Cyclone (which I'll grant has a terrible station and overall efficiency problems designed into it, presumably as a result of its shoestring budget - remember that Cyclone was almost a spur of the moment addition to Dreamworld). Let's put it this way. Tony Braxton-Smith fixed everything but capacity and efficiency. That leaves Stephen Gregg with one thing to fix. We can't go wrong now. willsy - we're talking about Dreamworld now, so I figure it can stay. :)

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I'd put it another way: He was able to maintain the efficiency while reducing staffing to more realistic levels. GD when it opened had 5 operators, ToT about the same. The numbers have dropped, and the efficiency is pretty much the same. I think I would have a different opinion of Tony if Cyclone's second train was added during his tenure. Maybe I'm to harsh on him, after all, in his time there Koala Country became the AWE, as well freshening up Country Fair, and merging Kennyland and Village Green to create Nick Central. Not a bad effort, I'm sure he'll do well at Great Southern Railway. Just hope they don't call on his theme park experience to design a station. :D (and before it starts, I'm not suggesting he personally designed Cyclone's station)

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  • 1 month later...

GD needed 5 staff when it opened. On opening day there was a 3+ hour wait. TOT was similar. Having extra staff may not necessarily improve efficiency, (because there is a maximum point at which extra staff add no benefit - the law of "diminishing returns"), but if all those staff are doing is chatting to waiting guests, at least the uests have something to do. Credtitng Tony Braxton-Smith with reducing staff in the operations department is nonsense. These reductions were made at the appropriate times. It's kind of ironic that changes made to the Human Resources section , for example, under Tony's stewardship are now being reversed to some degree now that he is gone. There is no doubt in my mind that Tony fulfilled the aims the board of directors gave him. And good on him for that. It's brutal justice that those that live by the sword, or in Tony's case ruled by it, met thier end in similar fashion.

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