Guard 'ignored red light and refused to let passengers off'

[yorkie]

Yet another Anti Guard, Anti Bob CROW and anti RMT rant from Yorkie.

Not anti-guard. I am against having non-commercial guards who do nothing between operating doors (which the driver can do anyway).

What Yorkie should do is understand that the union also takes a dim view of drinking whilst on duty, and whilst this individual may have been represented by the union, there would be nothing the representative could do other then tell the person that he may get criminal proceedings as well.

As for the PATROLLING the train perhaps he would like to come and join me on PATROLLING the 08.29 London Overground service from Stratford to Clapham Junction, where passengers are happy if they can get on it, pity those that have to wait on the platform because there is no space. Oh not just doing in a comfy pair of moccasins but i nice pair of heavy duty safety shoes with Steel toe cap and all.

If you are saying that train is overcrowded, then of course you can't be expected to walk through. That's different.

Going back to the article i see it has been reported in sensationalist way with plenty of exaggerated claims and inaccuracies you would have thought it was comming from the Mail.................... Oh it has come from the Mails stable though

AS SWT driver as said i also have no sympathey for people under the influence whilst at work and that includes everyone.

coming. Sympathy.

With regard Carter USM comments on the Paisley Gilmour Street accident, both Driver and Guard were responsible for that. The Guard for giving the ready to start signal and the driver for moving the train after receiving the signal from the Guard against a red aspect. Not sure if alcohol was involved though. However i wasnt on the railways then and i think that it was after this accident that clear instructions were brought out regarding the bell /buzzer code. Such that it i have seen Guards sacked for giving two on the bell at a red signal.

This could be seen as anti-guard! The guard was not 'responsible' for checking the signals, therefore he was not 'responsible' for the crash! The rules were changed due to this, and other, incidents.

 

[CarterUSM]

I was just about to re-iterate the point about the rules being changed afterwards. Though I believe I did say that in my earlier post.

 

[313103]

That is a problem on London Overground, technically the train could run DOO without any problems, the Conductors operational role is near non existent, there revenue role is NIL, so it could be argued that there is no need to have us on the trains. So we do Nothing apart from closing the doors and as you say 'something the driver could do' we also we do not do revenue as the all LO services are in a PF area. The only role we have now is patrolling, walking up and down the train.

This has been met with both positive and negative publicity from the passengers. On the positive side some passengers like having a member of staff around to answer questions and have a moan to especially when the service is disrupted. On the other hand some passengers have questioned the validity of having a member on board who most of the time is doing next to nothing 'apart from trying to look pretty, something i could never achieve' and when the train is heavy loaded but not to the degree that your leaving passengers on the platform the passengers see it that your taking there space.

From a staff perspective i have no real problems working with passengers or inside the train passenger area, the only gripe i have is the repetitive announcements on board 'including changing for that team near West Brompton', and the bad habits that passengers have, coughing and sneezing in the open, playing loud music on MP3 players that are loud even through their own headphones, talking loudly on mobile phones etc etc. I put up with it as it keeps me in employment.

However Yorkie what is your opinion on Conductors on trains who do no revenue, and very little operational role? Do they serve a purpose? Should the company dispense with Conductors like that?

 

[87015]

However Yorkie what is your opinion on Conductors on trains who do no revenue, and very little operational role? Do they serve a purpose? Should the company dispense with Conductors like that?

I'm not saying "yes, go and find yourself another job" but it is an interesting argument:

Why shouldn't they? There has been no bleeting on forums about backroom staff getting the boot in the name of cost cutting where they are probably desirable, but non-essential or there workload can be shifted onto someone else with a resultant decline in quality, what makes traincrew so much more important?

 

[Old Timer]

Going back to the article i see it has been reported in sensationalist way with plenty of exaggerated claims and inaccuracies you would have thought it was comming from the Mail.................... Oh it has come from the Mails stable thoughl.

I would be interested to understand what is "sensationalist" about the short report that was written as to me it appears to be factual, quoting most of it from the Court proceedings.

 

[yorkie]

However Yorkie what is your opinion on Conductors on trains who do no revenue, and very little operational role? Do they serve a purpose? Should the company dispense with Conductors like that?

I don't like to see trains without any guard/conductor/revenue staff, I think that it is better if you are allowed to do revenue duties.

I put up with it as it keeps me in employment.

Some people have to put up with worse. Every job has a downside.

 

[313103]

I'm not saying "yes, go and find yourself another job" but it is an interesting argument:

Why shouldn't they? There has been no bleeting on forums about backroom staff getting the boot in the name of cost cutting where they are probably desirable, but non-essential or there workload can be shifted onto someone else with a resultant decline in quality, what makes traincrew so much more important?

Triancrew are not that important in a business world, no one is in all honesty. You could run train services with no one except maybe one or two staff at a control centre a la DLR, or have Automatic Train Operation a la London Underground Victoria line. Neither of these lines require any member of traincrew. The technology is there and has been been there for some time for the trains to operate without traincrew.

I was not bleeting either, if the company want to dispense with my services who am i to argue? The only thing that would not be good was the burden i would have on the welfare state, No A Levels, No O Levels, No GCE or CSE, only speak one language, No trade (been on the railways since i was 16), don't drive. So i would be sponging off the state.

 

[HSTfan!!!]

The same way the dispatcher doesn't stop the train where the guard is near the front or where the guard can't see the dispatcher

lol shhh you! the likelyhood of needing to stop a unit is pretty low, I can only say I've had to do it once and the vast majority of the time he/she is at the back though, tis a bit of a strange one. I certainly can't imagine how dangerous a driver being in charge of cdl on a HST for example would be.

 

[yorkie]

Triancrew are not that important in a business world, no one is in all honesty. You could run train services with no one except maybe one or two staff at a control centre a la DLR, or have Automatic Train Operation a la London Underground Victoria line. Neither of these lines require any member of traincrew. The technology is there and has been been there for some time for the trains to operate without traincrew.

Depends how you define 'require'. Traincrew are required on both the Victoria line and the DLR.

I was not bleeting either, if the company want to dispense with my services who am i to argue? The only thing that would not be good was the burden i would have on the welfare state, No A Levels, No O Levels, No GCE or CSE, only speak one language, No trade (been on the railways since i was 16), don't drive. So i would be sponging off the state.

You don't need any of those things for a cleaning job!

I'd tell all the spongers to get cleaning, there's jobs out there that companies simply can't fill, yet people claiming benefits just around the corner. The benefits system is broken, quite frankly.

But that's a different issue!

But no, I wouldn't want to see someone like you lose your job, not at all. It's a shame the job has been marginalised in the way that it has. You should be allowed to check tickets IMO.

 

[boing_uk]

What, may I ask, is the problem with DOO?

If all the facilities are in place to make it possible for a driver to see every door and ensure the doors are not obstructed, why is it such an issue?

 

[313103]

What, may I ask, is the problem with DOO?

If all the facilities are in place to make it possible for a driver to see every door and ensure the doors are not obstructed, why is it such an issue?

Who said there is a problem with it? and are we discussing DOO within this thread?

What i also said is that you dont need Drivers either.

 

[yorkie]

We'll need drivers for at least the next few decades I'm pretty sure

As for DOO, the problem is... money! But Bob and friends don't like to admit it!

 

[boing_uk]

Who said there is a problem with it? and are we discussing DOO within this thread?

What i also said is that you dont need Drivers either.

Alright love, calm down.

DOO was mentioned in passing further up the thread and has been in other threads and there seems to be an institutional reluctance to accept it and was just trying to understand why.

And it was a question more aimed at the drivers on the forum.

 

[CarterUSM]

DOO isn't just about the driver being able to see all the doors are clear and being safe to depart. It's about having another safety critical member of staff on the train to assist and protect the train, passengers and the line in the event of an accident such as a collision, derailment, fire or driver incapacity. Let the driver DRIVE! Anyway, in the spirit of the point of this whole thread, i'd imagine the said guard above is looking at a custodial sentence at one of the windsor group hotels.

 

[313103]

And it was a question more aimed at the drivers on the forum.

Why would it be a question aimed at Drivers? surely the only people who will be affected by DOO would the traincrew other then Driver.

Drivers will be for the foreseeable future in a safe job, i havent seen any driver made redundant, yet i have seen thousands people in other grades go. With a possibilty of a few thousand more to come, including my own...........maybe.

 

[Fincra5]

Sorry this may have been answered ealier but even on a Driver & Guard operation doesn't the driver actually release the doors and the then the guard shuts them?

Seems to be the case on Southern.

If the above is true for SWT then how would the guard not let passengers off?

 

[Skip 10]

DOO isn't just about the driver being able to see all the doors are clear and being safe to depart. It's about having another safety critical member of staff on the train to assist and protect the train, passengers and the line in the event of an accident such as a collision, derailment, fire or driver incapacity. Let the driver DRIVE! Anyway, in the spirit of the point of this whole thread, i'd imagine the said guard above is looking at a custodial sentence at one of the windsor group hotels.

Beat me to it there, Driver drives, Guard is there for train safety, to assist with passenger enquiries, then revenue.

 

[O L Leigh]

What, may I ask, is the problem with DOO?

If all the facilities are in place to make it possible for a driver to see every door and ensure the doors are not obstructed, why is it such an issue?

Because it's not just about seeing all the doors down the side of your train. If push comes to shove, I could see myself away from a curved platform with an 8 car train by opening up one of the middle cabs and operating the doors from there.

What it doesn't permit is the safe operation of the train in the event of an emergency. Sure DOO has been safe enough so far, but we've been lucky. The true safety of DOO has not been tested in all the years that it has been permitted, and that is due simply to the overall safety standards of the industry as a whole.

However, I, probably more than anyone else, am painfully aware of the consequences of a well aimed brick and what that might mean if said brick happens to incapacitate the driver of a DOO service. With no-one else on-board to take on the safety role of driver or guard, the train itself, the people travelling on it and the infrastructure the train stands on is reliant on the actions of other parties not necessarily aware of the situation and which lines may or may not be obstructed (e.g. a remote signaller several miles away in a comfortably furnished and heated IECC).

While a guard is PTS competent and assessed as being "safety critical", all drivers and guards hope and pray that the day never arrives when the talents of the guard are needed. It may just be built-in redundancy, but that redundancy is there for a reason. Even if the statistical likelihood of a driver becoming incapacitated is small, it does not rule out the possibility that it will happen. Just from the top of my head I can think of one incident where just such a combination of factors came together and created a situation where the "safety critical" role of the guard could have been crucial.

I am, of course, referring to the collision between a Cl158 and a footbridge at Barrow-Upon-Soar that happened almost exactly two years ago. Those of you who remember this collision may recall that the driver was badly injured and trapped in the cab after a colliding with a footbridge that had been dislodged by a road vehicle. As it happened the signaller already knew of the problem, but had the train been the first vehicle on the scene and the driver killed there would have only been the guard to prevent another train joining the fun. Had this been a DOO service, the signaller would consequently have received no warning of the incident or the danger that it posed to train services.

O L Leigh

 

[royaloak]

Sorry this may have been answered ealier but even on a Driver & Guard operation doesn't the driver actually release the doors and the then the guard shuts them?

Seems to be the case on Southern.

If the above is true for SWT then how would the guard not let passengers off?

On SWT the guard has total control of the doors, the driver drives and the guard deals with the punters and problems.
On DOO what happens if a pas-comm is pulled? The train stops, the driver goes back (possibly 8 coaches) and re-sets it, walks back (those same 8 coaches) to the front and carries on. Now how long does that take, bearing in mind that delay minutes are KING!
Now with a guard on board, the driver kicks over, guard goes back and re-sets, all the time the train keeps going, Zero delays and everyone is a winner except the scrote who thought it would be funny to delay the train and got bowled over

 

[Failed Unit]

Wrote lots of good stuff.

O L Leigh

Good to see another point of view.

Most of the recent high profile accidents recently have caused major damage to the infrastructure that the signaller would know pretty quickly something is amis. I am thinking of the Ladbroke grove, Southall, Potters Bar incidents.

In the case of the accident a few years ago a airs Gill? (Settle and Carlisle line). A 156 hit a landslide and derailed so part of the train was not clear of the other line (I assume in this case the gaurd would protect the front of the train if the driver was stuck as the rear wouldn't have cleared the section so a red signal should prevent someone from running into the rear). Unfortunately protection couldn't be carried out quick enough to prevent a train coming the other direction from hitting the 156. I guess this exactly the kind of incident that people have safety concerns about as the drive could quite easily be stuck in the cab but as far as the signaller is concerned the train could have just broken down so have no reason to stop anything coming the other way. If I recall the train was in a radio dead spot.

Going off topic a little, if a freight train has say 20 wagons and the rear 4 detach and get left on the track, would the signaller know that these wagons are not in the section. My understanding is that they would still activate the circuit to show the section as occupied. I know it is an unlike situation as the loss of break pressure would bring the train to a halt, but wasn't this kind of thing the reason freight trains had gaurds years ago?

 

[Tomnick]

Going off topic a little, if a freight train has say 20 wagons and the rear 4 detach and get left on the track, would the signaller know that these wagons are not in the section. My understanding is that they would still activate the circuit to show the section as occupied. I know it is an unlike situation as the loss of break pressure would bring the train to a halt, but wasn't this kind of thing the reason freight trains had gaurds years ago?

In the middle of an absolute block section (as Ais Gill is, unless anything's changed with the introduction of IB signals), the only thing that would protect the rear portion of a divided train is the signalman's integrity in checking that the train is leaving the section complete with a tail lamp. There's been a few accidents where the lack of a tail lamp hasn't been observed (one just south of Weekday Cross on the GC in Nottingham stands out as an example), and the signalman's given 'out of section' as normal and taken the following train in.

 

[boing_uk]

I am, of course, referring to the collision between a Cl158 and a footbridge at Barrow-Upon-Soar that happened almost exactly two years ago. Those of you who remember this collision may recall that the driver was badly injured and trapped in the cab after a colliding with a footbridge that had been dislodged by a road vehicle. As it happened the signaller already knew of the problem, but had the train been the first vehicle on the scene and the driver killed there would have only been the guard to prevent another train joining the fun. Had this been a DOO service, the signaller would consequently have received no warning of the incident or the danger that it posed to train services.

Err, hang about... the guard was hospitalised... it was the COSS with the HGV on site who called the signaller.

So, okay, ignoring that particular incident... we have a DOO train where the driver is incapacitated either by a brick through the windscreen or a derailment and lets assume that there are no other rail staff on board and the train comes to a stand.

How long is it that the train is allowed to stand before something is regarded as being "amiss"?

Please, do not misunderstand where I am coming from... I am simply trying to understand whether DOO is as unsafe as it is made out to be or whether on the balance of probablilities and consequences its just a perceived danger.

 

[Pumbaa]

Sorry this may have been answered ealier but even on a Driver & Guard operation doesn't the driver actually release the doors and the then the guard shuts them?

Seems to be the case on Southern.

If the above is true for SWT then how would the guard not let passengers off?

Not so. Southern rely on GPS. The doors are automatically opened if the GPS system is satisfied that the train is in the station. The guard then takes control to close them.

Overrides are situated in the cab, driver can look down the train using the DOO cameras bodyside. Also used when operating in Metro mode in S London.

 

[jon0844]

Do trains have a similar system to that of the Victoria Line (and others?) that can allow a controller to contact the driver, and if there's no response, speak to passengers?

 

[Metroland]

Yes.

Unfortunately it is the usual sabre rattling by the RMT, who exist entirely in a bubble, playing out the safety card to get a much money as possible (It's funny how they and ASLEF objected to single manning of High speed trains, before the privatised companies crossed their palms with silver).

As far as I'm concerned this is no better than profiteering companies (to use their words) and in the end it's the Taxpayer who has to cough up.

This game works while it's affordable. Unfortunately, all the signs are, come the general election when the cuts start, it won't be. Get ready for very big cuts, rumoured at 30% plus in the transport budget alone. Rail has already priced itself out of a good deal of re-openings and expansion schemes, which means less jobs.

Be interesting for some RMT member to explain what the obsession is with shareholders and profits. Has nobody explained to them, the reason investors (that could be any member of the public, including them, as well a large scale investors that hold pension schemes) buy shares is to get some sort of return, thus in exchange for giving companies capital to build their business. And if they knew anything about investors, they would know you can go to any AGM and pose questions straight to directors, how ever many shares you own. Surprisingly enough, most shareholders do not want companies to run an unsafe operation, because accidents cost a lot of money both in reputation and straight financial returns.

So if I have £1000, why would I want to invest in rail, considering that every five minutes there seems to be a strike over some bogus safety issue among other things?

If I am a taxpayer, why would I want my money invested in rail if I cannot rely on the service or don't use it?

These are the questions the RMT never seem to want to answer, relying on rail has a right to exist, and passengers and taxpayers will pay at any cost.

I'm not especially left, nor especially right wing, but it never fails to amaze me how these things seem to get politicised like some 1970s class struggle, when the world moved on long ago. I'm not posting because I'm anti-union, pro capitalist or anything else. But I do see an impeding financial squeeze, and I don't think people in any sector quite realise what is going to hit them, least of all on the railways.

 

[CarterUSM]

It's not about getting as much money as possible metroland. There will be no job losses and no reduction in my pay whatsoever. It's about not removing a safety critical member of staff from a current service. End of.

 

[yorkie]

Beat me to it there, Driver drives, Guard is there for train safety, to assist with passenger enquiries, then revenue.

On SWT inner suburbans the non-commercial guard is there to press buttons and read a newspaper (or worse, as this story demonstrates). They don't tend to venture out of the back cabs. A proper guard assists passengers and does revenue, as you say.

 

[Metroland]

It's not about getting as much money as possible metroland. There will be no job losses and no reduction in my pay whatsoever. It's about not removing a safety critical member of staff from a current service. End of.

So, hypothetically, say there is a 30% cut in the DfT budget, how do you propose rail subsidy is decreased by over £2bn? Pay cuts, reduction in service, reduction in network, no new trains, productivity?

Like it or not, it is about money, or lack of as you will find out.

 

[CarterUSM]

Incidently, do the services with non commercial guards on SWT also have a ticket inspector/TE/ATE or just anybody checking and selling tickets?

 

[yorkie]

Incidently, do the services with non commercial guards on SWT also have a ticket inspector/TE/ATE or just anybody checking and selling tickets?

Nope. Once a blue moon RPIs may get on. Consequently the trains are less safe for passengers to be on. Oh well, at least the guard can read his paper and be paid a reasonable wage to do so, so at least Bob's happy.