[Wyvern]

Sorry I should have made myself clearer. I quoted Robin Gisby of Network Rail as an example of the distortions that are being touted about.

The link I gave to Death by Health and Safety would , I hope, give an unbiassed discussion of the maintenance issues.

For the signallers I understand there are three issues:

The new method of T3 (absolute) that you are writing about.

THe imposition of rosters when they are normally a matter of local negotiation,

PTR&R (Promotion, Transfer, Redundancy and Resettlement) where it suggested thar people are being made redundant unfairly.

[Metroland]

To get £50,000 you couldn't work three days a week - those would be 12 hour shifts in any case. You would have to be the very top grade and work 72 hours a week. 6 days of 12 hour shifts on a continuous basis. Been there and done that with 2 hours travelling at either end because I couldn't afford to live any closer. I had to demote myself because I was getting 4 hours sleep a night, and just couldn't keep awake. This was a great shame as it took years to get to that post.

One role, was £20,000 per annum, the responsibility was 400 trains a shift along with the associated punctuality and legal responsible for the safety of most of the running lines of an entire county. This is slightly more than a clerks job typing letters in an office. Which I also had to do, as well as rosters, updating IT systems, the 200 associated phone calls - many of which were safety critical during a shift.

That particular location had no breaks for an 8 or 12 hour shift and was so busy, you were lucky to get a drink let alone anything else.

I saw so many near misses, near disasters, was involved in disasters indirectly giving evidence, legal wrangles, suicides, idiots at level crossing that were hit by trains, near misses, watched people get fired for momentary lapses in concentration, watched managers gun for people, others promoted because they told tales or were bullies. None of the above were my mistakes, but its the sort of job you end up at inquiries on a regular basis because of idiot actions of your colleagues in other jobs and the same job, members of the public, the police and various officials. I would not return to that job even for 6 figures.

If anyone wants to play trains, stick to simulators, model railways and preserved railways, trust me its far more fun. Signallers are some of the hardest working and underrated people on the planet, and no doubt we'll witness many daily mail comments over the next few days in newspapers showing people's complete and utter ignorance - it's 'just pressing buttons'.

I'm in IT now for much the same money and was the best move I ever made.

[Geezertronic]

Originally Posted by Metroland

I'm in IT now for much the same money and was the best move I ever made.

Going off topic a bit, I'm in IT and would do anything to get out, but financially it does not make sense to do so.

[Hampshire Unit]

Thanks Metroland and trust me it really has not changed
But Please remember this dispute is about SAFTEY and NOT pay.

[Metroland]

Well yep, its not about pay. I just wanted to add the Daily Mail and Sun quote on pay, is factually incorrect, and just wanted to put that right.

I don't think any job is a panacea, but I do have total admiration for those in intensive safety critical roles: Drivers, signallers, pilots, air traffic control, electrical controllers, people in charge of major industrial plants and so on and so forth. Jobs that cost a few quid if you make a mistake to my mind are far more desirable than those that anyone can have lapses and make the headline news because you've killed or injured someone. Those that spend weeks mulling over the rights of wrongs of these things, are incredibly lucky and very often just don't get it.

Whereas I think the worst thing I ever did was run through a set of points, I'd frankly I'd rather not open myself up to the Russian roulette for being involved in something more serious.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is with some of these jobs you will get involved in things: Yes train disasters are rare, but incidents are not - this is the same is most transport or quite a few other safety related occupations.

My conscience is the most important thing to me I'm afraid, so I'll pass.

[Wyvern]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Unit

Thanks Metroland and trust me it really has not changed
But Please remember this dispute is about SAFTEY and NOT pay.

The trouble is its easier for the Press to dumb it down to a pay issue.

[Metroland]

THERE are fresh hopes of resolving the disputes which threaten Easter train services, following the news that talks between Network Rail and the RMT are moving to the conciliation service ACAS.

One dispute involves 13,000 maintenance workers, who are protesting at the loss of 1,500 jobs, and other could lead to action by 6,000 signallers in a separate argument over flexible rostering. The RMT has announced that its strike ballot of signallers resulted in a majority of 54% in favour of walking out.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow maintains the real issue is safety. He said: “Nobody should be under any illusions about just how determined RMT members are to win our fight against Network Rail’s cuts programme and to stop the reckless gamble with rail safety.”

However, Mr Crow’s claims have been dismissed by Network Rail chief executive Iain Coucher.

Mr Coucher told Railnews: “Does anyone really believe that I and the rest of the Network Rail Board would allow safety be compromised? Of course not. And even if we tried, the Office of Rail Regulation is monitoring us very closely, and it is right that it should do so. It is true that the ORR had some concerns about our new maintenance plans, but we are bottoming those out.

“Network Rail must become more efficient. People want a better, larger and more cost-effective railway. And a railway that is safe. We don’t compromise on that, and we won't. But the RMT is demanding indefinite guarantees of no redundancies – ever. That’s not a promise I can make, committing us for decades to come. No company could that.”

Mr Coucher added that of the 1,500 job losses, 400 have already gone through natural wastage, and a further 1,000 have volunteered to go. “So that leaves just 100 jobs to be discussed. We are doing everything we can to find alternative work for people who are displaced, but sometimes we can't reach agreement, perhaps because they are not willing to travel further to work each day. But I have told the RMT there will be no compulsory redundancies this year.

“These strikes would serve no purpose. We can find a resolution to both disputes through discussion. But the RMT has been reluctant. It wanted to get a favourable strike ballot first, before sitting down to talk. It's the way it works.”

The RMT has said its Executive will make a decision about industrial action on Thursday, which would be just in time to give the required seven days’ notice of any strikes over the Easter weekend.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/gener...work-rail.html

[jonmorris0844]

Originally Posted by Metroland

no doubt we'll witness many daily mail comments over the next few days in newspapers showing people's complete and utter ignorance - it's 'just pressing buttons'.

Well, I guess that might be true to a degree; so just tell them what happens if you press the WRONG buttons! Perhaps they'll listen then.

If signallers were thought of in the same way as an air traffic controller, which it must be rather similar to, then I wonder if they would feel any different then?

[Wyvern]

Well that's Network Rail's view.

What about the union?

http://www.rmt.org.uk/Shared_ASP_Fil...iljobscuts.pdf

Clearly accidents which affect passengers will generate bad headlines but what about the trackside workers?

http://www.deathbyhealthandsafety.co.../findings.html

[Metroland]

Originally Posted by jonmorris0844

Well, I guess that might be true to a degree; so just tell them what happens if you press the WRONG buttons! Perhaps they'll listen then.

If signallers were thought of in the same way as an air traffic controller, which it must be rather similar to, then I wonder if they would feel any different then?

I blame those 60s films where they made a point of telling people it was all done at the press of a button. Any idiot can press buttons, even the regulating isn't so hard once you get to know the timetable and location - for those that want to have a go try something like simsig. Though in real life, each delay can cost up to £100 per minute, per train, then there is knock on delay as the train you delayed hits everything else en-route.

What is rather more tricky, and what people don't realise is most of the job is about communication and managing incidents - which you only get a very small taste of in simsig. There is no interlocking with engineering work, failures, single line working and so on. You really don't want to be running something that carries as much as an Airbus and weighs as much into a 2000 ton freight train. You really don't want to be running track workers over, or giving people permission to use level crossings or go on the line and run them down. And its very. very easy and incidents happen all the time at busy locations. You will be report writing at least a couple of times a year, and hear about other people's incidents on a continuous basis on the grapevine, in team briefs, in newsletters, and retraining exercises: Irregular engineering work issues, signalling irregularities, SPADs, near misses, points run through, wrong routing, serious regulation issues, poor paperwork, badly managed incidents which cost the company a lot of money (train failures, major infrastructure failures, suicides, weather related), level crossing mishaps the list is endless.

So I do 100% understand why people get infuriated about safety. And there is plenty of disagreement, all the time (and we've seen a bit of this forum of this publically) what constitutes as safe. You can quickly find yourself at an inquiry (these go on all the time internally) and fighting for your job.

It's not saying I support the strike, because even now, I don't know what the new working exactly entails, its nigh on impossible to comment. So how Daily Mail readers and who never even go on trains can comment, I have no idea.

[jonmorris0844]

Daily Mail readers can comment on anything!

[33056]

Quote from my instructor in signalling school (25 years ago).

"I could teach a 12 year old to work a signalbox, it's how you deal with the rest of the job (ie. incidents, possessions, failures) that is the hard bit".

These days, you have things like sim-sig that anybody can have a dabble with; more than once I have met people who are good at sim-sig and think that signalling must be easy. Trouble with these simulators is that they don't take into account what can happen when you have a couple of failures, trains standing everywhere and all the phones ringing - let alone the un-social hours. You can always switch a game off, it is not possible to walk out in the middle of a shift or not go to work on, say, Saturday afternoon because you would rather be out with the family / down the pub / at the big match.

[turbo mick]

Ive heard if the strikes go ahead they are intending to put signalling managers in the boxes,do you think thats safe any train has a safety issue or error by a manager.

They are talking about skeleton service 7am-7pm then shut down


cheers

[jonmorris0844]

Rather than go for an all-out strike, why not allow the operation of an emergency timetable (like the snow timetable) only. It will still be an inconvenience to people, but not total carnage, and the industry can't sit back and say 'Oh, this isn't so bad'.

On the ECML, for example, make every FCC service run all-stations along the slow lines and the others on the fast. There are a few points that would need to be used, along the Welwyn stretch for one, but generally speaking it would be quite easy to operate.

Why get managers to step in and do it when you could do it and refuse to do anything more. I think you could get the same result as going out on strike completely.

[royaloak]

Originally Posted by turbo mick

Ive heard if the strikes go ahead they are intending to put signalling managers in the boxes,do you think thats safe any train has a safety issue or error by a manager.

Everything will be brushed under the carpet, the delays will be coded OZ so wont come back on the managers trying to be signallers.