"Too many railway workers are paid to do nothing"

[Squaddie]

From today's Independent.

The other railway scandal - there are too many workers who are paid to do nothing

It's been announced that train fares are to rise from next January by an average of 6.2 per cent. Some tickets are to rise by 11 per cent – many times the rate of inflation. The train companies now receive much more money from taxpayers than they did when they were owned by the state, and are still producing services which are late, overcrowded, far more expensive both to run and to use than European services, and which show no sign of improving. It is a disgrace.

The McNulty report into the state of railways, published last year, drew attention to their wastefulness and inefficiency. Sir Roy McNulty believed that annual savings of up to £1bn could be made through his recommendations. Certainly, the figures, which indicate a gap in efficiency of up to 40 per cent of expenditure between the UK and European services, is unreal.

There is an immense saving to be made, however, and it has to be faced, sooner or later. In my view, the railways are overstaffed to a huge degree. A third of employees could be sacked with no effect on services whatsoever.

I travel regularly on First Great Western trains down to Exeter from London, and from Exeter to Topsham. At Exeter Central, there are always four people standing at the ticket barriers. What are they doing? One of them seems to be explaining how to place your ticket in the machine. Another is offering to sell you tickets. The other two don't seem to be doing anything. Half a mile away, at Exeter St Davids, there are four more people standing at another set of ticket barriers. God knows why, or why a town the size of Exeter needs two fully staffed railway stations.... (more)

Full article here.

Maybe the author is using a bit of artistic licence, but there's little doubt that we need to get the cost of running the UK's rail network down to European levels. I have just travelled half the length of Spain for 20 euros, and bought a four-day pass for Swiss railways for about the cost of a single ticket from London to Manchester.

 

[SS4]

Sounds like a plot to turn public opinion even further against railway staff :roll:

This of course fits in with government policy

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I like this bit:

I travel regularly on First Great Western trains down to Exeter from London, and from Exeter to Topsham. At Exeter Central, there are always four people standing at the ticket barriers. What are they doing? One of them seems to be explaining how to place your ticket in the machine. Another is offering to sell you tickets. The other two don't seem to be doing anything. Half a mile away, at Exeter St Davids, there are four more people standing at another set of ticket barriers. God knows why, or why a town the size of Exeter needs two fully staffed railway stations.

 

[A-driver]

Load of ill informed rubbish-just states what he has seen. He admits he dosnt know what they are doing or what their jobs are so why write it in his newspaper column?

These people he looks to sack are paid about 20k a year. How about writing about the managers,many paid 6 figure salaries, whos jobs are duplicated company to company who really don't do much. Those who deal with really un-needed things like corporate branding (hmm,I think we should paint our trains blue and pink), delay attribution, marketing etc which the railway really would run perfectly well without. And then there are the shareholders and directors who would certainly not allow staff wage savings to be passed on to the passenger as they are after every penny they can get making a train drivers 45k a year small change.

Sadly journalists get away with printing this rubbish. Perhaps they should actually research what they are writing about for once?...

 

[Squaddie]

How about writing about the managers,many paid 6 figure salaries, whos jobs are duplicated company to company who really don't do much. Those who deal with really un-needed things like corporate branding (hmm,I think we should paint our trains blue and pink), delay attribution, marketing etc which the railway really would run perfectly well without.

Unfortunately, those positions tend not to be visible to the public (or journalists), whereas we've probably all seen the group of half-a-dozen uniformed gateline staff standing watching passengers passing through the (open) gates.

 

[Pen Mill]

From today's Independent.



Full article here.

Maybe the author is using a bit of artistic licence, but there's little doubt that we need to get the cost of running the UK's rail network down to European levels. I have just travelled half the length of Spain for 20 euros, and bought a four-day pass for Swiss railways for about the cost of a single ticket from London to Manchester.

Hang on I'll ask Bob Crow

 

[Ferret]

Unfortunately, those positions tend not to be visible to the public (or journalists), whereas we've probably all seen the group of half-a-dozen uniformed gateline staff standing watching passengers passing through the (open) gates.

Ironically, the staff that were standing at the barriers noted by this journalist will be the PACE-trained RPIs that other newspapers will doubtless be complaining about when they catch people with no tickets!

 

[rail-britain]

Half a mile away, at Exeter St Davids, there are four more people standing at another set of ticket barriers. God knows why, or why a town the size of Exeter needs two fully staffed railway stations.

Exeter St Davids needs to be staffed, for the number of passengers that use it
If there were no staff then it would probably be chaos

However, I do agree there are some stations currently manned which don't need to be (that was the whole point of the open station system)
Does Exeter Central really need to be staffed, given the number of services and passenger numbers?

This all pretty much points to the flaws that occured in franchising, quite often either with duplication or complete removal of services
As an example I know of one station where there are four TOC Managers, whereas under BR there just two Managers performing the same roles
I am quite sure there are other such instances at other stations

As for the instance where two people attended to repair a ticket machine
This was common under BR, so no real difference
One person would have the keys and order, the other would actually repair the machine
That is no different in other private companies, where there is a landlord and external repair provider

 

[Robsignals]

Ironically, the staff that were standing at the barriers noted by this journalist will be the PACE-trained RPIs that other newspapers will doubtless be complaining about when they catch people with no tickets!

At other times the same journalists are no doubt complaining about the amount of ticketless travel they see... How about we publish an article suggesting that Britain would be a much better place if there was a 50% cut in journalists...ah, we have no chance of getting any paper to print it.

 

[Yew]

They obviously dont know about how roscos work.

 

[Robsignals]

As for the instance where two people attended to repair a ticket machine
This was common under BR, so no real difference
One person would have the keys and order, the other would actually repair the machine
That is no different in other private companies, where there is a landlord and external repair provider

Isn't that a standard safeguard where cash or valuables are involved?

 

[HSTEd]

Why not just close Exeter Central entirely?

Would cut overheads even further than not manning it.

 

[50047]

They obviously dont know about how roscos work.

Do you?

 

[Ferret]

Do you? I work for one and I do

Can we fire you then?

 

[NSEFAN]

There is a lot of money wasted in the rail industry. Frontline staff are anything but a waste of money, and yet they are the first in line for the axe when cuts are announced.

The reason frontline staff get picked on in this way is because they are easier to get rid of than the lawyers and red tape which plague our fragmented rail industry. Until we have some politicians with some real guts to fix the real problem, the situation will only continue in the same old way.

 

[ainsworth74]

Why not just close Exeter Central entirely?

Because it's in fact better to get at the town centre than St David's is (going on what a local told me) also Central had usage figures of 1.6m in 2010/11 which isn't miles behind St David's (2.2m) so it's not as if it's a sleepy halt.

 

[bnm]

Also, Exeter is a city not a town and it has a third station, Exeter St Thomas. That is an unstaffed halt though. There's a fourth not named after the city - St James' Park. And a fifth - Polsloe Bridge. Oh, and a sixth - Digby and Sowton.

Why wasn't the ill-informed journo asking why Exeter has six stations? :roll:

 

[HSTEd]

Because it's in fact better to get at the town centre than St David's is (going on what a local told me) also Central had usage figures of 1.6m in 2010/11 which isn't miles behind St David's (2.2m) so it's not as if it's a sleepy halt.

Its flanked a few hundred metres away on both sides by other stations (St David's and the sleepy halt that is St. James' Park (SJP).

I am not too sure it would really have much of an effect on ridership if the station were closed, especially if trains which currently pass through SJP without stopping stopped there in-lieu.

And if they didn't screw it up you could build a supermarket on the existing station site with a culvert for hte twin tracks, just like that one that collapsed due to building mistakes on the Chiltern Main line.

 

[tbtc]

Of course there are examples of too many staff, often caused by privatisation requiring a duplication of roles (or inefficient use of staff, like those travelling long distances as passengers/ lodging overnight like the East Coast Inverness services).

The fact that each WCML bid cost close to £15,000,000 (i.e. £60,000,000 for the four bidders) shows how expensive the current arrangement is (since that was £60,000,000 that BR wouldn't have had to spend). Good news if you are a consultant I guess.

Plus all those staff who's role is to attribute delay minutes to other organisations, all the paperwork involved in pointing the finger somewhere to play the blame game.

As well as "created" jobs, there are also a number of roles which have become significantly higher paid over the years (a train driver's salary in some parts of the UK is what two or three bus drivers earn - this disparity wasn't quite so big at privatisation - or Virgin employing catering staff for knocking on £30,000 - good luck getting that in most restaurants).

There are also some things where the railway hasn't moved with technology (like automatic doors) because the Unions won't allow roles to be made redundant.

However one of the places that does need more staffing is the "on station" presence that this journalist is complaining about.

(and I'm sure there are plenty examples of "Spanish Practices" that we don't hear about, and nobody working at a TOC would admit to)

 

[Oswyntail]

Sounds like a plot to turn public opinion even further against railway staff :roll:

I doubt there is a plot. However, what this, and countless other "anti-railways" items have in common is a (quite reasonable) ignorance about what rail staff do. How many of us actually do know what is done by people in professions other than our own? So why do rail staff get it in the neck more than others, and why does the rail industry itself. The chief reason, IMHO, is not that there is a massive conspiracy, but that there is no one in the rail industry who seems remotely interested in actively pushing the positive side, or explaining what every little cog in the wheel is there for. ATOC are nowhere to be seen, other than to blame DfT for fare rises; the unions only ever seem to appear in public when they are pushing conflict with the employers or government. Both sides seem happy to let the general public stay ignorant and critical. They seem unaware that the true danger of bad PR (or no PR) is that they themselves will cease to exist.

This of course fits in with government policy

You just can't stop yourself, can you Please tell me which piece of actual, confirmed (as opposed to paranoiac) policy this fits in with.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

It may be paranoia but sometimes it certainly feels like government policy

 

[50047]

Can we fire you then?

Are you a journalist?

 

[starrymarkb]

However, I do agree there are some stations currently manned which don't need to be (that was the whole point of the open station system)
Does Exeter Central really need to be staffed, given the number of services and passenger numbers?

Third Busiest station in Devon with 1.6 million entries and exits. 3tph in each direction. Sees large crowds at peak times and Saturday afternoons. St Davids has 2.5million entries and exits (plus a large amount of interchange)

 

[Ferret]

Are you a journalist?

Haha! Thankfully not!

 

[starrymarkb]

Because it's in fact better to get at the town centre than St David's is (going on what a local told me) also Central had usage figures of 1.6m in 2010/11 which isn't miles behind St David's (2.2m) so it's not as if it's a sleepy halt.

From Central to the High Street is 5 mins level walk (shops start by the station). From St David's its about 25 mins mostly up a steep hill

 

[50047]

Haha! Thankfully not!

Splendid. Welcome to the real world
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

From Central to the High Street is 5 mins level walk (shops start by the station). From St David's its about 25 mins mostly up a steep hill

Are we really talking about closing railway stations to save a few bob guys? Wasn't it tried in the 60s or 70s? And now everyone wishes that they hadn't been.......:roll:

 

[starrymarkb]

Its flanked a few hundred metres away on both sides by other stations (St David's and the sleepy halt that is St. James' Park (SJP).

I am not too sure it would really have much of an effect on ridership if the station were closed, especially if trains which currently pass through SJP without stopping stopped there in-lieu.

And if they didn't screw it up you could build a supermarket on the existing station site with a culvert for hte twin tracks, just like that one that collapsed due to building mistakes on the Chiltern Main line.

It would have a huge effect. Road access to St James Park is difficult, through narrow residential streets especially on match days (and would you want be anywhere near when Exeter are plying Plymouth at home). Central is 5 mins from the College, 5 mins from the shops and pretty much any city centre office can be reached in about 10 mins on foot). St Davids is convenient for very little with a few houses and a Premier inn nearby.

 

[ainsworth74]

Its flanked a few hundred metres away on both sides by other stations (St David's and the sleepy halt that is St. James' Park (SJP).

Perhaps that's true but as the local mentioned Central is where you want to go to if you want to go shopping or the centre of Exeter (the clue's in the name ). So HSTEd I'd suggest closing Central is not an easy or sensible way of saving a bit of money.

 

[185]

According to Phillip Hensher, The Independent, Senior Idiot,

"A third of staff are paid to do nothing." - he refers to the staff at both Exeter Statons.

2 X 4 = 8. So there are only 24 staff on the UK railway.

OMG.

The real scandal is within Network Rail, where several people genuinely are paid to do nothing.

 

[burneside]

Because it's in fact better to get at the town centre than St David's is (going on what a local told me) also Central had usage figures of 1.6m in 2010/11 which isn't miles behind St David's (2.2m) so it's not as if it's a sleepy halt.

St David's is on the periphery of the city centre, Central is bang in middle by all the shops, from St David's it's also a tidy walk up a steep hill to get to the shopping area (it feels a bit more than the half mile Henscher states). Central is a busy station used by shoppers and city workers, and as it's just had an extensive renovation, I don't think it will be closed any time soon.