Public Transport in your particular part of the region

[all new Phil]

I completely agree with everything you've just written.

[WillPS]

Cwathen, you are the epitomy of all that is wrong with our society. You clearly have the attitude that if you personally do not understand why something is needed then it must obviously be a waste of money.

Woah, woah, woah. I did realise that commenting on a rail strike was likely to 'stir strong views' and I was waiting for Alexia (whose views I will consider, since he does actually work within the industry) or you to come sweeping in with bitter resentment. I am big enough to take criticism. But your comments are offensive in the extreme.

You know nothing about me other than I'm a capitalist who sometimes posts strong views in an internet forum. You have no idea what contributions to society I make or what sacrifices for people I have made. That notwithstanding, you honestly believe that a strong-willed capitalist represents 'the epitomy of all that is wrong with our society'? If you actually believe that, you are either an idiot, or (what I believe is more likely) you are trying to impose your left wing idealist take on the world on everyone else, and branding anyone who doesn't share your view as an unenlightened fool. Essentially you are doing what you accuse me of, you just come from the other direction.

I am not pathetic enough to go crying to moderators for you to be banned or warned or have your posts deleted, but for that comment I would ask you to be big enough to accept you went too far and apologise.

I can apologise for using strong language, but I am very much of the opinion that our country has been ruined by people who can't see beyond the length of their own nose; which is a quality your posts particularly in this thread absolutely ooose. I despair of the populous, frankly.

You also clearly have a chip on your shoulder about how much you're paid - if it bothers you that much then fuck off and get a better job, honestly.

In my time I have been bothered by what I've been paid...so I did fuck off and get a better job. My point (not just in this post, but in others) is that having experienced the horrors of a retail work environment where staff are more or less expected to be married to a business in exchange for low wages and poor conditions, I don't see that the railway is such a bad place to work.

Good. You took stock of your position and did what you could to change things. Bravo.

Just because there was no union options for you doesn't mean that others shouldn't have the right to do things that way. Striking is an ancient working right and is just about the only tool which can be used to effect against a determined management.

I've done my time in retail too. If ever there was a workplace market that needed a decent union, retail is it. Unfortunately Usdaw have been both ineffectual in advertising membership *and* have allowed management to divide and conquer in their older shops, rendering them utterly useless. Believe me, nothing depresses me more than how utterly shat on retail staff are. The movement towards essentially "cutting middle management" (which actually means removing 'manager' from the relevant badge, then paying somebody 30p/hour above baserate) is appalling and that as a society we are allowing it to happen is to me reprehensible.

I hear the role of conductor/guard/train manager pays well, but you do have to do some pretty mental hours, deal with some pretty mental people and do some pretty dangerous things.

Which would be the whole point...they deal with all that shit so they are well paid in return. If they didn't have to do that, it would be hard to justify jobs like guards and station staff to be worth any more than minimum wage. What I don't understand, is that they (and I appreciate it's very easy to generalise 'they' - and I've been guilty of it myself, but then if you are willing to let a union speak for you than generalisations will occur) never seem to be happy. They are always appalled by everything ever proposed, they always need more money, everything's always a disgrace due to their management.

That is the nature of the beast. I think the RMT (both the union and it's membership) have at times been very happy with the outcomes of their action. It would do nobody any favours if the RMT put out anything other than "industrial action has been suspended/ceased".

I honestly believe the RMT and the TSSA would not be happy with anything less than every decision made by a TOC or Network Rail to be run by them first for approval.

In terms of the procurement of new trains? Well is that really such a big ask? This is the workplace for their membership, a good employer will work their employee in making their workplace as efficient, comfortable and safe as possible.

Do I have a right to moan about the 3rd proposed rail strike in barely over a month? Absolutely. I use the rail network extensively, I travel all over it for work (and I commute to work at that) and leisure. There are very few days in the year I don't make at least one train journey and I pay thousands of pounds a year doing so. Whether or not it is privatised, the railway is a public service in receipt of huge government subsidies provided by the taxpayer, as well as the public personally coughing up huge sums of money to use it. As such, we have a right to expect it to be available and not be constantly at risk of it being closed because the staff aren't happy or be told that certain things (such as sunday running) are only possible due to staff co-operation and others (such as boxing day services) can't happen due to a lack of staff willingness in the face of public demand. I have an honest belief that the railway exists for the benefit of those who use it, not those who work on it. Those who do work on it are suitably compensated by having a well paid job and if they aren't happy with that compensation they should go and work somewhere else rather than constantly try and battle with their employers - and if they did that I rather suspect they'd find that the railway wasn't so bad a place to work after all.

Take a few steps back. What has happened is that a question has been raised regarding door controls on new stock. FGW have not answered the question. They refuse.

Imagine you are now in that position - your employer is not telling you what they intend to do about one key aspect of your job going forward. What kind of feeling would that give you? Does it sound like the action of a company trying to build up goodwill with their staff?

Refusal to answer is probably the worst thing FGW could do in these circumstances. When Virgin ordered the Voyagers, they were upfront about the change and negotiated a settlement. The same happened when Midland Mainline introduced the Meridians. Even FGW themselves were able to sort this previously when they introduced the Adelantes first time round. By not answering the question, FGW are refusing to acknowledge their employees' concern.

This isn't an unsortable problem, it's a problem which (for a reason far from keeping good relations with staff) FGW are *refusing* to sort.

The RMT don't think that is at all acceptable. I don't think it is at all acceptable. FGW staff want to work, striking costs them all personally.

The Sunday working position is exactly the same. Several TOCs have already negotiated Sunday in to the working week successfully, but it's absolutely right that a negotiation takes place. Having Sundays off is a contractual perk - and sacrificing it is significant because it means giving up a guaranteed day to spend with family/kids/whatever. Giving it up also means that the option to work a 6th day is gone, and earning potential is lost.

In your idea of a utopian society which would be at odds with that, how do you think it should work?

Employers are up front and honest with their staff, and engage in their employment as a 2 way relationship rather than as a 1 way channel of tasks and cost savings. That is my hilarious dream for how the working relationship should always be.

First, Stagecoach, GoAhead, Serco, Keolis and Abellio make a ridiculous amount of money from the railways, and it's absolutely right that unions exist to push back against their inherent greed which would doubtless make 1000s of people unemployed and 1000s of trains less safe a place to be.

[Pete]

I've always felt the RMT's biggest problem is its Bob Crow style of dramatic firebrand announcements of how horrendous everything is. If they were actually more down to earth and said "actually, we have the following issues with the proposed changes [insert list here]" then people wouldn't get so wound up.

Of course they're in a bit of an EU position in that the awful press hates them no matter what they do, however the EU have their rebuttal site, as do NHS Choices, and the BBC Press Office have recently grown a set of balls. I've never seen an RMT plain fact check on social media. Have you?

[Alexia]

Cwathen makes an important point, even if he didn't realise it:

It would be hard to justify jobs like guards and station staff to be worth any more than minimum wage.

Which is entirely the point. Guards and train managers do a hell of a lot more than just opening doors and stamping tickets. But that's all the average knowitall joe sees, so that's all they think they do. As such there is a general perception amongst the public at large that they get paid for more than they're worth. Somehow that perception has entered the minds of railway management, so they are hell bent on stripping away layers of the job in order to justify paying the staff less. It won't affect this generation, as they are on contracts which stipulate their pay rates. However what's to stop the next generation of new intakes being given crappier contracts with less security and less money/perks? Combined with the inherent money saving of running electric trains over diesel, and the increased capacity allowing more ticket sales, why is there a need to save money other than to line the pockets of management and shareholders? Or to bail out other, less successful parts of the owning group?

As for catering, we've been told that we're now going to have to pull a trolley through the train rather than have a buffet carriage, so as to sell more product and allow passengers in parts of the train further away from the buffet car access to the facilities (apparently people don't like leaving their seats to walk through the train to the buffet car, despite me serving passengers from carriage A several times). They've also backed this up with some incredibly scientific research of counting empty coffee cups in Carriages A-C as opposed to D-F. My brilliant suggestion of moving the buffet car to carriage C and making 1stClass self-contained fell on confused, deaf ears. Of course, a trolley is all well and good on a 3 or 4 car train. But on Voyagers you're lucky if you see the trolley once an hour, and what happens if you board at a station and the trolley has just gone through that carriage? It'll also mean an end to freshly ground Lattes and Cappucinos, which is what ABC1s expect nowadays. It will also force unwanted early retirement on several older members of staff who are trolley-exempt due to strength or other health issues.

Add to this a general atmosphere of pernickityness amongst management whereby spot checks for the most inane things have been taking place, such as not having croissants in the display basket after 12pm (it's a BREAKFAST ITEM, DONT YOU KNOW!) whereby you get reported to the Standards Manager.

Overall it has been deemed necessary by myself and 1100 of my colleagues to lose 2 days pay this week. Trains will continue, driven as they are by members of ASLEF (who have been shamefully silent and non-committal on this issue, despite individual drivers coming up to us and saying THEY don't want the added responsibility of door control given the MerseyRail and Grimsby incidents. How can they concentrate on driving and monitoring the platform at the same time on InterCity IEP trains?) Trains will be manned by non-union staff, management, secretaries and other penpushers who have been given a 2-day crash course in train operation. Forget the strikers.... the company is wilfully putting passengers at risk by doing this.

[cwathen]

Just because there was no union options for you doesn't mean that others shouldn't have the right to do things that way. Striking is an ancient working right and is just about the only tool which can be used to effect against a determined management.

It isn't like a strike in a car factory though. If you strike when you work in a public service industry like transport, your actions are preventing people from going about their business, from attending their jobs, which might put their livelihoods at risk over something that has nothing to do with them. Someone has to defend the rights of the passengers to have a train service, it can't be allowed to be disrupted so readily. Strikes can't be allowed to become commonplace, and the more that happen/are proposed, the more there will be calls for restrictions on strikes in that industry (just like there are already changes in the pipeline which will make strikes harder). There will even be calls for public transport strikes to be made illegal altogether. As I said previously, I honestly believe the important people on the passenger railway are the passengers, not the staff. Without us, the railway wouldn't exist and strikes would be academic because nobody working on it would have a job.

Far from strengthening their position, constant rail strikes (or threats of them) over what many would consider spurious issues will do nothing other than play into the hands of those who want to prevent them from striking, and make it very hard to strike when they do have a serious issue on their hands, like mass job losses or cuts in pay. Personally, I think a more sensible strategy to keep union power would be to do anything but yell 'strike' any time the management pisses them off, in order that they manage to quietly hold on to all their rights to do so without anyone really noticing ready for a big strike when/if it becomes necessary over a really big issue. They clearly don't though, with 2 more strikes announced today.

Part of me is almost saying 'Keep 'em coming RMT. Give it a few years of this and you won't be allowed to strike'.

Which is entirely the point. Guards and train managers do a hell of a lot more than just opening doors and stamping tickets. But that's all the average knowitall joe sees, so that's all they think they do. As such there is a general perception amongst the public at large that they get paid for more than they're worth. Somehow that perception has entered the minds of railway management, so they are hell bent on stripping away layers of the job in order to justify paying the staff less.

AIUI, the fear is that if the drivers have control of the doors, then the company can essentially just plonk an ATE on the train and get rid of the guard? Whether or not that fear is justified, FGW have not said that's what they will do. Is it not a bit premature to call a strike on the basis of something you think might happen? But, a couple of things to consider:

1) You talk about the misconception that the guard does nothing other than check tickets and open doors. Yet taking the doors off the guard is the centrepiece of the strike action, as if he's being essentially made redundant by this act. Isn't that playing into their hands just a little bit by implying this act is so significant which might bring calls that the average guard on the average service actually doesn't do much more than check tickets and open doors?

2) Even if FGW do what you fear, they would only be able to do this on the new trains. But a significant number of services will still be operated by HSTs for the foreseeable future, and will continue to require a proper guard/train manager. I must confess to not knowing exactly how your diagrams work, but I would imagine it would be quite normal for something like a train manager to come into Paddington off a Bristol service and then work back a service to Plymouth? In the future these two services will be operated by different stock, and if they do as you fear then that versatility will be lost and it will become a logistical nightmare to make sure you have the right sort of guard in place to work a given train. I can ultimately see that resulting in more staff being needed and/or a need to get people in place much earlier before the start of a service and/or stay much later after the end of a service which will just cost the company more than retaining a proper guard for all services.

As for catering, we've been told that we're now going to have to pull a trolley through the train rather than have a buffet carriage, so as to sell more product and allow passengers in parts of the train further away from the buffet car access to the facilities (apparently people don't like leaving their seats to walk through the train to the buffet car, despite me serving passengers from carriage A several times). They've also backed this up with some incredibly scientific research of counting empty coffee cups in Carriages A-C as opposed to D-F. My brilliant suggestion of moving the buffet car to carriage C and making 1stClass self-contained fell on confused, deaf ears. Of course, a trolley is all well and good on a 3 or 4 car train. But on Voyagers you're lucky if you see the trolley once an hour, and what happens if you board at a station and the trolley has just gone through that carriage? It'll also mean an end to freshly ground Lattes and Cappucinos, which is what ABC1s expect nowadays. It will also force unwanted early retirement on several older members of staff who are trolley-exempt due to strength or other health issues.

On this one, I'm completely with you. I'd prefer a proper buffet car too. I was mortified when Crosscountry very quickly pulled the buffet out of the Voyagers and replaced it with a trolley (I note Virgin have kept it in theirs though). The range will drop and the service will slow. I was also surprised to hear FGW went down this route considering they've tried replacing buffets with trolleys before (remember when they reformed the PAD-BRI services as 7 carriages with no buffet when the HST's were refitted?) and then quickly backtracked on it. They've even over the past few years rolled out the microbuffet things to provide more standard class seating on trains whilst still retaining a buffet counter, which to me was a sign that they believed that was the way to do catering. However, ultimately I don't think the bulk of the travelling public will support strike action over proposed changes to on-train catering.

Trains will continue

Not quite business as usual though is it? Several branches are closed, and lines that are open are looking at somewhere between 25-50% of the regular timetable running. Add in FGW's total inability to timetable anything to connect properly at Newton Abbot, and my commute isn't looking too pretty.

individual drivers coming up to us and saying THEY don't want the added responsibility of door control given the MerseyRail and Grimsby incidents. How can they concentrate on driving and monitoring the platform at the same time on InterCity IEP trains?) Trains will be manned by non-union staff, management, secretaries and other penpushers who have been given a 2-day crash course in train operation. Forget the strikers.... the company is wilfully putting passengers at risk by doing this.

Something to put to you as the person in the know - I think FGW have a common practice which is a horrendous safety issue. Due to the stock used on the west, many trains are comprised of units working in multiple that have no end gangway connections. Planned busy services will sometimes carry an ATE as well as a guard, who will work in 1 unit each. But many services are operated by just a driver and guard on his own. At some points during the service, the guard will go to the front unit to check tickets. This leaves the rear unit totally unstaffed despite being physically cut off from the rest of the train.

You then end up with a train in motion where the guard can't access all the carriages. He has no way of monitoring what is going on in that unit, no way of seeing the rear of the train, and the passengers have no way of contacting any on-train staff other than pulling the handle and waiting for the train to stop and the guard to move back. In the event of an emergency which for some reason means the guard can't get out and back into the rear unit, those passengers have no staff member able to access them. I think this is an insanely dangerous practice and such trains should always carry an ATE or second guard so that there's always someone in each unit. If staffing levels make this impossible, then revenue protection has to take a back seat to safety and the guard must be required to stay in the rear unit. Would you agree? And if so, why is this not something you're prepared to strike over? It just seems that 'safety issues' always come up when strikes are announced (presumably as a way of garnering public support), but safety issues only become serious enough to strike over if they will mean job losses. Other safety issues don't seem to matter too much.

[Bail]

This is what my local busses look like

[WillPS]

Something to put to you as the person in the know - I think FGW have a common practice which is a horrendous safety issue. Due to the stock used on the west, many trains are comprised of units working in multiple that have no end gangway connections. Planned busy services will sometimes carry an ATE as well as a guard, who will work in 1 unit each. But many services are operated by just a driver and guard on his own. At some points during the service, the guard will go to the front unit to check tickets. This leaves the rear unit totally unstaffed despite being physically cut off from the rest of the train.

This is common practice across the former regional network; it happens daily on Northern and pretty much every TOC running Turbostars.

You then end up with a train in motion where the guard can't access all the carriages. He has no way of monitoring what is going on in that unit, no way of seeing the rear of the train, and the passengers have no way of contacting any on-train staff other than pulling the handle and waiting for the train to stop and the guard to move back. In the event of an emergency which for some reason means the guard can't get out and back into the rear unit, those passengers have no staff member able to access them. I think this is an insanely dangerous practice and such trains should always carry an ATE or second guard so that there's always someone in each unit. If staffing levels make this impossible, then revenue protection has to take a back seat to safety and the guard must be required to stay in the rear unit. Would you agree? And if so, why is this not something you're prepared to strike over? It just seems that 'safety issues' always come up when strikes are announced (presumably as a way of garnering public support), but safety issues only become serious enough to strike over if they will mean job losses. Other safety issues don't seem to matter too much.

Your attitude still stinks.

The answer is that of course it is not as safe, but every passenger train has plenty of emergency stop triggers and the guard will be able to safely move between units if one of those is pulled (which, by the way, wouldn't be possible unless the guards were trained to the level they are). I'm struggling to think of another sort of emergency where this might cause issues.

It's one thing objecting to changes (or rather, in this case, failure to elaborate upon changes), it's quite another to object strongly to 'grandfather rights' (which the railway is absolutely riddled with - for example, HSTs calling at short platforms).

[Pete]

The answer is that of course it is not as safe, but every passenger train has plenty of emergency stop triggers and the guard will be able to safely move between units if one of those is pulled (which, by the way, wouldn't be possible unless the guards were trained to the level they are). I'm struggling to think of another sort of emergency where this might cause issues.

It's one thing objecting to changes (or rather, in this case, failure to elaborate upon changes), it's quite another to object strongly to 'grandfather rights' (which the railway is absolutely riddled with - for example, HSTs calling at short platforms).

What grandfather right is this you refer to?

Also how would the guard get between the units if the emergency stop was pulled? Leave the train and re-board trackside?

[WillPS]

The answer is that of course it is not as safe, but every passenger train has plenty of emergency stop triggers and the guard will be able to safely move between units if one of those is pulled (which, by the way, wouldn't be possible unless the guards were trained to the level they are). I'm struggling to think of another sort of emergency where this might cause issues.

It's one thing objecting to changes (or rather, in this case, failure to elaborate upon changes), it's quite another to object strongly to 'grandfather rights' (which the railway is absolutely riddled with - for example, HSTs calling at short platforms).

What grandfather right is this you refer to?

That particular grandfather right allows HSTs to call at short platforms so long as the station has been regularly serviced by HSTs since some point in the 90s. Except for some of FGWs HSTs (where the grandfather right does not apply), HSTs do not have the ability for staff to select which doors would open - it's all or nothing. This means when an HST calls at Langley Mill (as it does 4 times every weekday) there is nothing to physically stop a member of the public opening a door which is not within the small platform.

I believe it's only a handful of stations on the Midland Main Line and those funny little stations the Highland Chieftain (sometimes?) calls at which are relevant.

Also how would the guard get between the units if the emergency stop was pulled? Leave the train and re-board trackside?

Yes.

[cwathen]

That particular grandfather right allows HSTs to call at short platforms so long as the station has been regularly serviced by HSTs since some point in the 90s. Except for some of FGWs HSTs (where the grandfather right does not apply), HSTs do not have the ability for staff to select which doors would open - it's all or nothing. This means when an HST calls at Langley Mill (as it does 4 times every weekday) there is nothing to physically stop a member of the public opening a door which is not within the small platform.

As far as I'm aware, all FGW HSTs have SDO fitted; whenever I've seen the guard's panel opened on any FGW HST, the door key switch has positions to open doors ahead/behind as well as local door and all doors to enable working from short platform. I board such an HST at Torre every morning where only the rear 4 carriages are unlocked (or the front 4 if the train is in reverse) and I see SDO in use at many stops all over Devon and Cornwall with short platforms to ensure that unplatformed doors are not unlocked. Indeed, in 2011, FGW sent an HST down the Exmouth branch to celebrate 150 years of the railway there. No stations on the branch could accommodate an HST but SDO was used to ensure that only platformed doors were opened. These panels also carry warranty expiry dates that ran out over 20 years ago, dating the installation of SDO back to the very early 90's which is when I'd imagine central door locking was first fitted to the trains (if you see older HST footage from before that time, there clearly was no central locking fitted at all as passengers would have the doors open before the train stopped moving).

I was not aware that any other more limited system was fitted to other HSTs, but doesn't that just raise another point that this is another huge safety issue which the workforce don't make an issue of? If BR Western Region (as was at the time) could fit SDO to their HSTs, then all HSTs can and should have SDO if they are required to stop at short platforms. TOC's operating in 2015 without it have no excuse if BR could do it in 1992. Why are the unions not holding the TOCs (or ROSCOs depending on who's liable) to account over this serious safety issue since safety is apparently the centrepiece of many of their arguments?

[WillPS]

FGW equipped their HSTs with SDO during their refurb at Bombardier; 2006-2008. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/artic ... es-hst-sdo

I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about but you are chatting shit.