Recent content by g492p

According to this article Irish train drivers earn 31k. Yet Irish rail starting salaries for drivers begin at 45k. So I'm not sure how they have calculated this.

It certainly will be interesting to see. The new stock is coming with catering facilities, as well as panels to for the crew to operate the doors and control the on board environment ect. I think a driver, some sort of Train Manager and one or two catering hosts is almost certain. Indeed in the...

Newspapers always attack rail workers. This is nothing knew. In all my years in the industry I don’t remember ever reading a positive article about us.

No there is no mention of a specific wage scale for guard. It’s just the minimum salary when training is 24k. At least that’s how I read it.

Yep that one. It was going to be lot more dreadful before industrial action. We will see what’s offered next. There is always a degree of give on the Union side. Has been in the past and will be now. At the end of the day the union goes by what the members want. The member are willing to...

The strikes have already improved the offer made to us a great deal. We’re already being offered more money and less preconditions. Originally the RDG had a whole raft of terrible proposals that the union batted away through negotiation.

Most people I know want to be at the station around 10 - 15 minutes before hand. Very often I experience queues at station retailers. Once my train is called I would rather go to the platform and sit down rather then risk missing it. I’m definitely not alone in that. I’d also posit that just...

Interesting. When would the guard get time to pull the trolly through the train? Many local businesses do supply products to the train operators anyway. I don’t really see why on long distance IC trains we would want to see a reduction in catering. As stated on another thread, on some TOCs where...

Off the top of my head the Tokyo Subway and commuter lines have guards.

It depends on how far away passengers are. If they are far enough away then you can deem it safe to leave. I don’t think in this case there is any suggestion that what the guard did was unsafe. Also on holding the doors, how long are you going to hold them for? 2 minutes? 5 minutes? A delay like...

Pre pandemic was the last time they ran the trolly in standard class I believe.

I have to say for me, it can be a hard call to make. I’ve certainly been pulled upstairs before for marking a decision to hold my train, and been reminded that, had I departed on time, I would not have had any late runners close to my train. Indeed when I was a newly passed out guard years ago...

Looking at RTT, it looks like the train departed RT. It’s a difficult one. Unfortunately had the guard waited, he would likely have departed late and got a letter/email from performance asking for an explanation. At least at the TOCs I’ve worked at, holding a train like this requires...

Have you any evidence to back this up? Catering is very well used on my trains for many journeys under 2 hours so I’d be interested to see it. Indeed the buffet was very well used on the Bristol trains back in the days of FGW. Some people don’t arrive at the station in time to get provisions...

On the East coast staff do that too, generally in K or M. This is usually due to there not being enough staff seats on the train, rather than your “culture of laziness”.