I enjoyed this list of why the trains are having trouble running on time in Britain. I think you could use this list pretty much any time you wanted to diagnose the “why we’re late” syndrome.

• The Hardware, lousy maintainance, insufficent capital budgets
• Managerial failure to adapte rapidly and flexibly
• Failure to prioritize the high value work so it is delayed by low value work.
• Congestion, i.e. 10 pounds in the 5 pound bag.
• No margin for error

Of course we all know that the way to get the trains to run on time is hire Benito Mussolini. No wait – we all know that the way to get the trains to run on time is to let all knowing, but invisible, hand of the market fix it. No wait – we all know the way to get the trains to run on time is to impose some standards.