As an engineer myself working for them 20 years ago, we were certainly not well paid like the article said. Quite the contrary: I was still on University(had not finished the final project) and had to do most of the hard technical work myself for someone else to just overview the results and sign. My salary was miserable.

Once I had finished I could earn 3 to 4 times more on several places.

They were also extremely creative taking foreign systems, studying the patent and modifying it to pay zero to the creators of the patents. This was done with things like the aluminium beams for electricity delivery that I think was developed by Italians, or the tunnelling machines that had all the pieces replicated inhouse.

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Aerolfos 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sounds like Spain all right.

The article also makes a big deal out of country-level factors like the system of autonomous communities, governance, in-house expertise etc.

But all of those should apply to Malaga as well, which also built a metro in the 2000s. But that one became a city-wide joke for always being supposed to open "this year" and that continued for at least 5 years...

There was definitively none of the cheap or fast involved in that project, a relatively limited line to make travel to the airport more convenient which still couldn't deliver. Today it actually operates, but I think the rest of the network (it was supposed to be a "proper" metro system and not just isolated lines) is still vaporware. Haven't lived in Malaga in many years, though.

	▲	throw0101a 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> in-house expertise This is under-appreciated. > I believe that the U.S. suffers from a distinct lack of state capacity. We’ve outsourced many of our core government functions to nonprofits and consultants, resulting in cost bloat and the waste of taxpayer money. We’ve farmed out environmental regulation to the courts and to private citizens, resulting in paralysis for industry and infrastructure alike. And we’ve left ourselves critically vulnerable to threats like pandemics and — most importantly — war. > It’s time for us to bring back the bureaucrats. * https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-... Even if you do outsource some level of tasks, you still need in-house folks who know something so you don't get fleeced.

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rob74 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> the tunnelling machines that had all the pieces replicated inhouse

Wait... did you build your own tunnel boring machines? Or just spare parts for them?

	▲	chmod775 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		If you have the capability to manufacture heavy machinery, building it by copying an existing design is not rocket science. They're not crazy complicated and often built or adapted to a dig specific tunnel anyways. Now, operating a tunnel-boring machine, that's a different beast, but you'd have to do that either way. Probably should get outside help if your engineers and scientists haven't planned and dug a tunnel in their life.