Conductors and Ticket Examiners, whats the difference Scotrail

What exactly is the difference?

I know the conductors operate the doors but surely in this day and age the two jobs should be the same?

What warrents the higher salary? Do you think this grade will be abolished in the future?

discuss and enlighten me lol and no arguments lol

Rollwithit said:

What exactly is the difference?

I know the conductors operate the doors but surely in this day and age the two jobs should be the same?

What warrents the higher salary? Do you think this grade will be abolished in the future?

discuss and enlighten me lol and no arguments lol

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The length of training, duties carried out, responsibilities, and rules knowlege warrant the higher salary. Ticket examiners sell and check tickets and are purely for customer service , though of course safety is also everyones priority. They also recieve 3% commission on ticket sales, which a decent TE can make 3-500 quid extra a month with. Conductors do everything a TE does plus have some operational responsibilities such as despatching of the train, door operation, emergency protection of the train (if need be), preparation of train including safety checks, manual announcements, and other things which may be done less often , if at all, such as giving shunting hand signals, operating hand points etc. Safety duties come before commercial stuff, though good conductors balance out all duties well and efficiently and recieve 5% commission on ticket sales for their trouble. I have been a TE in the past and enjoyed it very much. Been a Conductor for some years now and enjoy that too. The grade may disappear in the future but we will see what happens. Perhaps there will be a "hybrid" grade of sorts

Yeah that explains it a bit more clearly

i still think the grade will be done away with or changed severely with the nationwide introduction of GSMR, the whole system is a bit antiquated with guards laying emergency protection, maybe for the west highlands but more central routes its simply not needed and DOO will probobably come in to operation, train managers and a more customer service based role seems to be the way its headed

A Train Manager is just another name for a Guard/Conductor and has all the same responsibilities as Carterusm described.

DXC said:

A Train Manager is just another name for a Guard/Conductor and has all the same responsibilities as Carterusm described.

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Don't forget Central Trains title of Senior Conductor as well.

Rollwithit said:

Yeah that explains it a bit more clearly

i still think the grade will be done away with or changed severely with the nationwide introduction of GSMR, the whole system is a bit antiquated with guards laying emergency protection, maybe for the west highlands but more central routes its simply not needed and DOO will probobably come in to operation, train managers and a more customer service based role seems to be the way its headed

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Conductors also operate the doors on trains and are responsible for the safe dispatch of the train from stations. So how will DOO work on those trains ?

notadriver said:

Conductors also operate the doors on trains and are responsible for the safe dispatch of the train from stations. So how will DOO work on those trains ?

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The driver gains control of the doors and stations are fitted with DOO equipment like mirrors or CCTV monitors.

To retro-fit existing non-DOO stock would cost a lot more than it would to keep conductors on the train - and I believe the longer distance services should always have a conductor on board. Anyway as you are a driver shouldn't you be against DOO?

notadriver said:

To retro-fit existing non-DOO stock would cost a lot more than it would to keep conductors on the train - and I believe the longer distance services should always have a conductor on board. Anyway as you are a driver shouldn't you be against DOO?

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I am against DOO. That doesnt mean I cant talk about how it will be implemented if/when it comes in. I work on DOO lines already and (sadly) I dont think it is a difficult thing to bring about, its just a case of deciding which lines to put it on first. Again, I'm not pro DOO at all. I am aware that the internet can give the impression that you are either massively in favour of something or massively against it when the truth usually is you are neither. I just think that DOO will happen on a lot of services worked by multiple units in the future.
It wont come in overnight, it might be ten years or more before it becomes widespread. I wouldnt worry too much about DOO if I was joining the railway as a guard/conductor this year.


Anyway, this is massively off topic. Back to the OP, I think the easiest way to think about the question is common to lots of works of life. Why does a teacher earn more than a teachers assistant? Why does a police officer earn more than an CSO? A lot of their day to day duties are very similar, but the difference is that one of the people is responsible for a lot more than the other. Its usually the stuff you are responsible and accountable for that differentiates what you get paid and a conductor is responsible for bailing the water out of the boat when things go horribly wrong.

Yew said:

Essensially the jobs are 90% the same, However guards/conductors operate the doors and know how to set detonators in an emergancy.

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Is that it then? Sorry, I must have forgotten what my duties are. And don't turn this into another DOO debate, we are not interested.

Well my reading of it, and after speaking to staff at the FSR open day, is that when GSMR goes live (the "trial" period is over) and nationwide, yes i was told its coming up the highland lines and down stranraer area in the not to distant future, that guards will just be glorified ticket examiners! And this was from an operations manager.

What about train despatch ?

they will still have dispatchers at the main stations, but i think (i even thought that it would be implemented when the 380s were fully introduced) smaller stations such as Ayr, Gourock, Weymess Bay etc the dispatch will be DO

Watch this space!!