Arriva Rail North DOO

[pemma]

Arrive 1 hour late on non-strike day? Optimistic.

Are you saying that the men on the Cheshire equivalent of the Clapham Omnibus had this level of detailed knowledge about disruption to rail services and their various causes ?

Optimistic? Two consecutive cancelled services on the Mid Cheshire on a weekday is extremely rare (unless you include the Greenbank only services which should have been added but were dropped due to Bolton wiring delays.) RMT have been on strike 3 days in the past week.

I have no idea what your second point is supposed to mean. Anyone with a brain cell knows when the disruption is and isn't down to RMT strikes.

 

[Loop & Link]

So a minimum of 9 years of guaranteed employment is an insecure job in your opinion?

I always avoid these threads now, as I get to irritated, however, seeing things like this irks me.

Yes, I do see it as that and let me explain:

I’m in my late 20’s, I will have to work until I’m 67. I want to work. I want to know that I can provide for my family, my children, my children’s children etc etc. So 9 years, no that wouldn’t be good for me. This “you should be lucky to have a job” mentality is scary, with comparisons to other jobs, zero-hours, fixed term contracts etc.

I’ve worked extremely hard to get where I am on the railway, put the extra hours in (unpaid at times, so I can train up on a job I really wanted)

And do you know what, my job is what gets me up at 04:00 in the morning, i’m not ashamed to say I’m passionate about my job, I’m good at it, I’ve had letters of praise off my managers and customers to back this up and got a perfect sickness/punctuality record.

I can progress in my role, and I want it to be secure and guaranteed, something that seems to be frowned upon on here.

Guess what and here’s the shocker, I’m an RMT member too (so to most on here, that means I should be shot) but i’ve never been on strike, but I watch what goes on with interest regarding the current disputes. I’m not traincrew but I look and think “Who’s next” is every job on the railway going to have this threat of insecurity?

Sorry, that’s it’s slightly off-topic, but disputes like this are something I care about, because I want to know as well, that I will continue to have a job, should the tide turn on other grades. But I expect most on here will probably turn on me with the usual, “you should count yourself lucky, other jobs don’t have your kind of job security, conditions etc” this mindset is getting really boring and tiresome now.

 

[pemma]

Wrong. That's your opinion. Don't speak for me or anyone else. It is about safety according to both Unions and I don't disagree with either of them.

I've asked John Tilley 3 times if the RMT will accept a fully trained guard on every service but with the driver in charge of both opening and closing the doors. Each time he's given a Theresa May style response - avoiding the question and talking about the RMT wanting to stop a threat by Northern to safety. He won't even say if he thinks driver closing is safe or not.

 

[pemma]

I always avoid these threads now, as I get to irritated, however, seeing things like this irks me.

Yes, I do see it as that and let me explain:

I’m in my late 20’s, I will have to work until I’m 67. I want to work. I want to know that I can provide for my family, my children, my children’s children etc etc. So 9 years, no that wouldn’t be good for me. This “you should be lucky to have a job” mentality is scary, with comparisons to other jobs, zero-hours, fixed term contracts etc.

I’ve worked extremely hard to get where I am on the railway, put the extra hours in (unpaid at times, so I can train up on a job I really wanted)

And do you know what, my job is what gets me up at 04:00 in the morning, i’m not ashamed to say I’m passionate about my job, I’m good at it, I’ve had letters of praise off my managers and customers to back this up.

Guess what and here’s the shocker, I’m an RMT member too (so to most on here, that means I should be shot) but i’ve never been on strike, but I watch what goes on with interest regarding the current disputes. I’m not traincrew but I look and think “Who’s next” is every job on the railway going to have this threat of insecurity?

Sorry, that’s it’s slightly off-topic, but disputes like this are something I care about, because I want to know as well, that I will continue to have a job, should the tide turn on other grades. But I expect most on here will probably turn on me with the usual, “you should count yourself lucky, other jobs don’t have your kind of job security, conditions etc” this mindset is getting really boring and tiresome now.

How do you expect a lifetime of guaranteed employment when the number of employees needs to go up and down to suit demand?

Lifelong employment isn't the same as lifelong employment in one role with one employer.

 

[B&I]

How do you expect a lifetime of guaranteed employment when the number of employees needs to go up and down to suit demand?

Lifelong employment isn't the same as lifelong employment in one role with one employer.

Optimistic? Two consecutive cancelled services on the Mid Cheshire on a weekday is extremely rare (unless you include the Greenbank only services which should have been added but were dropped due to Bolton wiring delays.) RMT have been on strike 3 days in the past week.

I have no idea what your second point is supposed to mean. Anyone with a brain cell knows when the disruption is and isn't down to RMT strikes.

Sounds like the mid-Cheshire line was extremely lucky during the recent meltdown then. On several days during it I took between 2 and 3 hours to travel between Manchester and Liverpool, which have a lot more trains between them than Northwich and Manchester.

Do you still maintain that you overheard 2 people on a mid-Cheshire line train who were specifically complaining about the effects of the strike on their own working lives, rather than about the effects of service disruption generally ? You're doing a bit of a 'Theresa May' yourself in response to that question.

 

[Bromley boy]

If a passenger looks for a definition of DCO anywhere there's one on the RSSB website - is the RSSB not a good source?

So no you can’t point to an official definition in other words - @Tomnick has beaten me to it with a good response to the rest of the post.

How do you expect a lifetime of guaranteed employment when the number of employees needs to go up and down to suit demand?

Lifelong employment isn't the same as lifelong employment in one role with one employer.

More rubbish!

Requiring guards to be present for trains to run, as the RMT hope to do, is by no means securing “lifelong employment”. In particular, this does not mean:

- that guards cannot lose their jobs due to under performance, incompetence etc.

- that guards cannot be made redundant in the event fewer trains run due to falling demand (just as drivers and guards have been made redundant from FOCs and TOCs in the past).

Why don’t you just admit it (something that is increasingly obvious to most of us) your vitriol against the unions and railstaff is because you envy their decent T’s and C’s and relatively secure employment?

 

[pemma]

Do you still maintain that you overheard 2 people on a mid-Cheshire line train who were specifically complaining about the effects of the strike on their own working lives, rather than about the effects of service disruption generally ? You're doing a bit of a 'Theresa May' yourself in response to that question.

What?

Talk to some of the people who use the train at Northwich station if you want to know what some GMB members think of the RMT strikes (probably best done not wearing TOC uniform.) Possible takeover deals at one business and the probable relocation of another means they do have more immediate concerns about their long term job futures.

Where did you get 'two people' and where did you get that 'I overheard' them from? I'm actually talking about a relative of mine and other people, including his work colleagues who are GMB members and work in Northwich for businesses which don't open up at 9am and close down at 5pm.

Sounds like the mid-Cheshire line was extremely lucky during the recent meltdown then. On several days during it I took between 2 and 3 hours to travel between Manchester and Liverpool, which have a lot more trains between them than Northwich and Manchester.

Or unlucky in another sense. The disruption should have affected routes where additional drivers had to learn the route or where the rolling stock was changing, as the Mid-Cheshire got it's extra services postponed it makes sense that it was not one the worse affected routes. It makes a lot of sense that Manchester to Liverpool was affected due to services transferring between Northern and TPE. However, I somehow doubt it's a bad as you suggest if you were going between Piccadilly/Oxford Rd and Lime Street given EMT provide an hourly service.

 

[pemma]

So no you can’t point to an official definition in other words - @Tomnick has beaten me to it with a good response to the rest of the post.

Well by the same reasoning there is no official definition of DOO - your rule book is an industry only publication so completely useless for passengers who are being told of the disputes being about 'driver only operation.'

More rubbish!

That post did not directly relate to the DOO dispute but related to the aspiration of some for life long employment. It's not rubbish, it's more logical than anything you've ever posted on this forum.

So I take it your idea of 'life long employment' means more people employed if demand goes up and people being paid to sit around doing nothing if demand goes down. :roll:

 

[Tomnick]

I've asked John Tilley 3 times if the RMT will accept a fully trained guard on every service but with the driver in charge of both opening and closing the doors. Each time he's given a Theresa May style response - avoiding the question and talking about the RMT wanting to stop a threat by Northern to safety. He won't even say if he thinks driver closing is safe or not.

What is "safe"...?

It's pretty clear to me that 'driver closing' carries more risk and is generally less desirable than conventional operation with a guard. The driver's view of proceedings via the monitors in the cab is more limited and less likely to see 'developing' risks such as a last-minute passenger running down the steps, there's a greater risk of distraction (SASSPAD and SOYSPAD and that), there's more potential for confusion if the guard isn't involved in dispatch but is (reasonably) expected to assist passengers on/off the train which may involve deploying ramps. If the 'compromise' involves a fully trained guard on every service, given the above, why not have them at least carry out the dispatch process? 'Driver opening' carries some risk too, e.g. the risk of a 'stop short' going un-noticed until it's too late or the risk of a wrong-side release, but I can at least see more benefit there, e.g. eliminating those few seconds of delay at every station whilst the guard finishes a transaction.

 

[Tomnick]

Well by the same reasoning there is no official definition of DOO - your rule book is an industry only publication so completely useless for passengers who are being told of the disputes being about 'driver only operation.'

The public can access the Rule Book online, albeit not with any amendments issued via the PON/WONs, so the definition isn't "useless" to the public - not that that'd make it any less "official".

 

[pemma]

What is "safe"...?

Nothing's 100% safe but the RMT seem to take the stance that driver+guard is safe and driver without guard is not.

 

[Tomnick]

Nothing's 100% safe but the RMT seem to take the stance that driver+guard is safe and driver without guard is not.

A rather simplistic view, and one that I disagree with - but then the general public largely seem to view safety as an absolute concept, so it's possibly understandable why they've gone down that road.

 

[OxtedSignaller]

I completely understand all the Dispatch risks associated with DOO but this can easily be mitigated by introducing dispatch staff at key high risk locations which is what happened on GTR and contrary to what the RMT say has increased staff at most locations meaning customers have more staff to assist them. I do believe the railway should be run for the customer and we are all guilty of neglecting this fact in this day and age a customer focused member of staff who is bringing a high level of revenue is more indispensable then a Guard hiding in the back cab like on SWR.

On GTR you now find a lot of fresh faced staff walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue for the company which is how it should be. A lot of the old Guards have packed the job in now which shows how much they cared.

 

[Robertj21a]

I completely understand all the Dispatch risks associated with DOO but this can easily be mitigated by introducing dispatch staff at key high risk locations which is what happened on GTR and contrary to what the RMT say has increased staff at most locations meaning customers have more staff to assist them. I do believe the railway should be run for the customer and we are all guilty of neglecting this fact in this day and age a customer focused member of staff who is bringing a high level of revenue is more indispensable then a Guard hiding in the back cab like on SWR.

On GTR you now find a lot of fresh faced staff walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue for the company which is how it should be. A lot of the old Guards have packed the job in now which shows how much they cared.

Thanks. A good, sensible, post.

 

[Tomnick]

I completely understand all the Dispatch risks associated with DOO but this can easily be mitigated by introducing dispatch staff at key high risk locations which is what happened on GTR and contrary to what the RMT say has increased staff at most locations meaning customers have more staff to assist them.

If you've got a "fully trained" guard on the train, though, it's daft to introduce those risks in the first place only to have to incur extra costs by mitigating against them at some locations (and living with the higher risk at others).

I do believe the railway should be run for the customer and we are all guilty of neglecting this fact in this day and age a customer focused member of staff who is bringing a high level of revenue is more indispensable then a Guard hiding in the back cab like on SWR.

I agree. Guards shouldn't be hiding in back cabs. There's no reason why a customer-focussed member of staff can't bring in a high level of revenue whilst also carrying out dispatch duties with suitable equipment provided along the length of the train.

On GTR you now find a lot of fresh faced staff walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue for the company which is how it should be. A lot of the old Guards have packed the job in now which shows how much they cared.

That suggests that the "problem" was with some of the staff, not the grade of Guard itself. I'm sure those fresh faced staff would still be happily walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue if they were safety-critical and had dispatch duties...

 

[XDM]

I completely understand all the Dispatch risks associated with DOO but this can easily be mitigated by introducing dispatch staff at key high risk locations which is what happened on GTR and contrary to what the RMT say has increased staff at most locations meaning customers have more staff to assist them. I do believe the railway should be run for the customer and we are all guilty of neglecting this fact in this day and age a customer focused member of staff who is bringing a high level of revenue is more indispensable then a Guard hiding in the back cab like on SWR.

On GTR you now find a lot of fresh faced staff walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue for the company which is how it should be. A lot of the old Guards have packed the job in now which shows how much they cared.

Yes. Good to read some sanity & commonsense rather than
the momentum inspired drivel that the RMT auto rebuttal unit pushes on these DOO threads.

Just travelled on two services today. Bournemouth to Winchester, 5 cars & Alton to Waterloo, 4 cars. Never saw or heard the guard on the Bournemouth service, same for the Alton service except for one garbled rushed announcement. "We are now arriving at Waterloo" as we stopped outside the terminal for three minutes. Those not in the know got up with their luggage & stood pointlessly for over 3 mins by the doors.
What is the purpose of these "guards" who inflate the railways' cost, add nothing & who are clearly in the job just for the ride. Please let's get DOO nationwide, incl Northern, Mersey, Anglia & SWR.

 

[B&I]

What?



Where did you get 'two people' and where did you get that 'I overheard' them from? I'm actually talking about a relative of mine and other people, including his work colleagues who are GMB members and work in Northwich for businesses which don't open up at 9am and close down at 5pm.



Or unlucky in another sense. The disruption should have affected routes where additional drivers had to learn the route or where the rolling stock was changing, as the Mid-Cheshire got it's extra services postponed it makes sense that it was not one the worse affected routes. It makes a lot of sense that Manchester to Liverpool was affected due to services transferring between Northern and TPE. However, I somehow doubt it's a bad as you suggest if you were going between Piccadilly/Oxford Rd and Lime Street given EMT provide an hourly service.

That's right, of course it wasn't that bad, I just imagined standing in Lime Street, Victoria and Piccadilly looking at the indicators showing virtually every train delayed or cancelled. Do you have any idea how bad the knock-on effects of the Northern-TPE joint meltdown were ?

Thanks for clarification re the men on the Northwich railbus. Not the most representative of samples, perhaps.

 

[Bromley boy]

Well by the same reasoning there is no official definition of DOO - your rule book is an industry only publication so completely useless for passengers who are being told of the disputes being about 'driver only operation.'

Hardly. The term “DOO” is derived directly from the NR rulebook (“DO” ie driver operated and dispatched). DCO is clearly further derived from this (but has never been used in any official sense, except perhaps in reference to SE Javelins, where it meant something very different). Yet you are happy for passengers to be told about DCO but not DOO?

You are refusing to acknowledge that it is misleading of the RSSB and GTR etc. to deliberately conflate operations on GTR and other TOCs with operations on SE Javelins by describing them as DCO rather than (more accurately) as DOO. Why? Because that doesn’t assist you in your anti union narrative. Your statement earlier than only the unions still talk about DOO has already been exposed as an utter sham as your beloved RSSB did so themselves up until very, very recently.

This is perfectly obvious to most posters on either side of the debate. For some reason you are unable or unwilling to accept it - blinded by your own bias perhaps?

That post did not directly relate to the DOO dispute but related to the aspiration of some for life long employment. It's not rubbish, it's more logical than anything you've ever posted on this forum.

The only person on here talking about “life long employment” is you. That is not what the RMT have asked for.

So I take it your idea of 'life long employment' means more people employed if demand goes up and people being paid to sit around doing nothing if demand goes down. :roll:

You’ve either misunderstood my posting or are deliberately misquoting me. What I actually wrote was (emphasis added):

Requiring guards to be present for trains to run, as the RMT hope to do, is by no means securing “lifelong employment”. In particular, this does not mean:

- that guards cannot lose their jobs due to under performance, incompetence etc.

- that guards cannot be made redundant in the event fewer trains run due to falling demand (just as drivers and guards have been made redundant from FOCs and TOCs in the past).

At times your posts are like a broken record:

- you blame the unions for everything, even things that have gone wrong in your own life;

- you’re slavishly uncritical of TOC propaganda and “the party line” trotted out by the government/affiliated agencies in the context of a long industrial dispute;

- you bash (particularly drivers’) wages, bash T’s and C’s, despite having never done a job on the railway yourself.

Tellingly you have also stated:

I'd like the offer of guaranteed full time work on the salary of a Northern guard until at least 2025, which is what the RMT don't think is good enough.

Which, in your own words, neatly sums up your motivations for taking the stance you do - nothing but plain old jealousy.

 

[Bromley boy]

I completely understand all the Dispatch risks associated with DOO but this can easily be mitigated by introducing dispatch staff at key high risk locations which is what happened on GTR and contrary to what the RMT say has increased staff at most locations meaning customers have more staff to assist them.

I would be careful with that - it rather depends on which bit of GTR. Many 700 locations (including the extremely busy TL core) have moved from CD/RA or bat and flag to in-cab monitor dispatch which the driver alone is responsible for.

How are the 700s dispatched at East Croydon and other Southern locations these days?

I do believe the railway should be run for the customer and we are all guilty of neglecting this fact in this day and age a customer focused member of staff who is bringing a high level of revenue is more indispensable then a Guard hiding in the back cab like on SWR.

I agree with you on this - I’m a DOO driver so have no particular skin in the game - but I fully agree that on board staff should maintain a visible presence and should be commercial.

I would favour commercial guards doing driver open guard close dispatch, the method which worked very efficiently on the southern until the recent dispute and insistence that it be dispensed with in favour of OBSs.

On GTR you now find a lot of fresh faced staff walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue for the company which is how it should be. A lot of the old Guards have packed the job in now which shows how much they cared.

That seems a little unfair. Remember many of these “fresh faced staff” were probably guards themselves up until recently.

 

[the sniper]

On GTR you now find a lot of fresh faced staff walking the trains chatting to customers and taking lots of revenue for the company which is how it should be. A lot of the old Guards have packed the job in now which shows how much they cared.

Do you know that to be true and how? How do you know who was a Guard, who was a new entrant? How many Guards left? How many left to be Guards elsewhere, actually showing how much they cared for being a Guard? This seems to be a wildly speculative comment.

 

[pemma]

@Bromley boy Numerous train crews have posted about wanting to retain their railway job until they retire and consequently not seeing 9 years of guaranteed employment as not good enough. I've simply asked those train crews how they see that possibly working, pointing out the reality that staff levels can't stay constant in any business. It's obvious you either can't read or just want to verbally attack non-rail staff who post on here. So how about we agree to ignore each other's posts going forward to make it better for the other users of the forum?

 

[Bromley boy]

I've simply asked those train crews how they see that possibly working, pointing out the reality that staff levels can't stay constant in any business.

But nobody has said that - as i say drivers and guards have been made redundant before. Union involvement is limited to trying Tom persuade other TOCs to look favourably on them.

It's obvious you either can't read or just want to verbally attack non-rail staff who post on here. So how about we agree to ignore each other's posts going forward to make it better for the other users of the forum?

That’s fine. I have made my point. I have no no wish to “verbally attack” anyone, but I will challenge statements that I feel are incorrect, misleading or have no basis in truth. That is the purpose of discussion after all.

 

[the sniper]

Numerous train crews have posted about wanting to retain their railway job until they retire and consequently not seeing 9 years of guaranteed employment as not good enough.

The Northern franchise ends in 6 years and 9 months and the (to be determined) status quo at most only has to be preserved 12 months beyond that.

Why would you choose to actively embrace this deterioration of job security? I know you care dearly about RMT members losing pay by striking, but put that aside. Why shouldn't they protest this change? Because wider society has been conditioned to accept that everyone should be disposable?

 

[Killingworth]

My previous post seems to have been too subtle and was deleted as off topic. 50-60 years ago all goods train had a guards van, even when vacuum braked. Steam locomotives required a driver and fireman. There were thousands of signal boxes, many of them requiring several men. Old locomotives were relegated to pulling less prestigious trains. The railway seemed to be dying.

In the early 1800s railways had grown from wagonways moving coal. Coal was the source of the engine's power and was the most important cargo carried. The Beeching era cut out masses of excess capacity, most of it quite rightly. There was a lot cut that we would like to have available today, including loops, crossovers, station buildings, shortened and removed platforms and trackbed sold for redevelopment. The cuts went far deeper than uneconomic branch lines.

Today rail travel has been enjoying a resurgence. Freight traffic not so much. Passenger numbers have doubled in the last 20 years, and in some places grown much more than that (quadrupled at my local station). The balance of traffic is constantly moving. More commuters work from home on some days and travel less often. On the other hand more travel and work on the train at the same time - if there's space. Even as a leisure traveller I don't look out of the window as much as I once did.

Managing change is the challenge. Start with operations being safe. Make the customer comfortable both on and off the train. Maximise revenue and passenger satisfaction. The same rules need flexibilty to cover 12 coach trains running every 5 minutes between manned stations into London and a single car Class 153 running from Barton-on-Humber to Cleethorpes across many level crossings between unmanned stations.

Rail is more than ever a service industry with more need for people on and around trains. The passenger train with half, or even full, carriage for the guard and masses of luggage and parcels has gone. The big manual brake wheel seen on heritage carriages now a memory. Full service dining cars may have gone but many staff are now employed on trolleys on ever more services.

So, as a passenger I'd like assurance that if there should be an incident in the middle of the country, maybe in a 3 mile long tunnel, procedures are there to deal with it. I'm not at all sure that one driver on their own could do that - but it seems in the south it works. Northern run through some long tunnels. I'm aware of a derailment in Totley Tunnel in 1971 which didn't become a disaster because nothing came the other way at the wriong time.

As am employee in a different industry for 40 years I saw vast changes, probably even greater than with railways. My union fought many a battle, but in the end the changes came and we moved on, the staff today oblivious to most of the past. Job for life was the expectation back then, but that idea went at least 25 years ago.

We need dialogue. Start with declarations. No changes will be made until agreement is reached, no more strikes for 6 months. If total agreement isn't reached in that time can we implement a partial settlement and lock that in, then give it a further 6 months.

Currently it's like the western front in 1914-18. Then one side had to win, but long term both sides really lost. Both sides must work together to build a better railway for passengers - ultimately a busier railway is the best protection for jobs and their security for more rail staff. But there have to be changes and they need to be agreed.

If that doesn't happen soon travellers will get used to making other arrangements every day.

 

[Dave1987]

How do you expect a lifetime of guaranteed employment when the number of employees needs to go up and down to suit demand?

Lifelong employment isn't the same as lifelong employment in one role with one employer.

Life long employment in the modern world is going from job to job every few years getting worse and worse pay for worse and worse terms & conditions......

 

[OxtedSignaller]

I would be careful with that - it rather depends on which bit of GTR. Many 700 locations (including the extremely busy TL core) have moved from CD/RA or bat and flag to in-cab monitor dispatch which the driver alone is responsible for.

How are the 700s dispatched at East Croydon and other Southern locations these days?



I agree with you on this - I’m a DOO driver so have no particular skin in the game - but I fully agree that on board staff should maintain a visible presence and should be commercial.

I would favour commercial guards doing driver open guard close dispatch, the method which worked very efficiently on the southern until the recent dispute and insistence that it be dispensed with in favour of OBSs.



That seems a little unfair. Remember many of these “fresh faced staff” were probably guards themselves up until recently.

South of the River they are dispatched at key staffed stations such as East Croydon by platform staff, anything North of the River including London Bridge and the core the dispatch is by the driver with platform staff assisting by blowing a whistle and making relevant announcements. Thameslink is an exception to everything they seem hell bent on running their own DOO railway through Southern terriority hence why I cannot personally wait until they are split away from Southern.

 

[Carlisle]

Do you have any idea how bad the knock-on effects of the Northern-TPE joint meltdown were ?

Have you ever offered constructive criticism of TPE for their part in this whole debacle or is it only northern that you seem to despise ?

 

[Robertj21a]

Life long employment in the modern world is going from job to job every few years getting worse and worse pay for worse and worse terms & conditions......

Why should that be ? - are these people with little ability, unable to drive themselves forward, lazy, or simply out of touch with modern practices in the real world ?

 

[Loop & Link]

The Northern franchise ends in 6 years and 9 months and the (to be determined) status quo at most only has to be preserved 12 months beyond that.

Why would you choose to actively embrace this deterioration of job security? I know you care dearly about RMT members losing pay by striking, but put that aside. Why shouldn't they protest this change? Because wider society has been conditioned to accept that everyone should be disposable?

It was myself earlier that posted about job security.

I was trying to explain that as someone in their late 20’s, who has worked hard to get where I am in the industry, someone who has a perfect sickness/punctuality record, and I am someone that’s want to progress in the industry, that a guarantee of 9 years employment wouldn’t be good enough for me.

As expected the usual suspect, jumped on it, because we have now reached a point in society, where wanting to be in work, have decent job security as part of your T&C’s is something that is derided and scoffed at by people on here.

My role, may change in the next 5-10 years, it won’t be the same job, but I am happy to adapt, as long as there is the job security for the future. I will most likely be applying for promotions within my grade in years to come, because this is the industry I’ve chosen to work to in, one I’m passionate and knowledgable about, and a role I’m good at.

Now to put all that hard work in over the years, and maybe 10-15 years time be in a role, where I’m suddenly ‘disposable’ would make me feel worthless.

But the opinion by one on here, is that I should expect that, because it’s good enough for some and is exactly what has happened to some, and as mentioned being passionate about your job and wanting to have a fulfilling, secure career, is something that faces derision. What a shame.

Anyway, slightly OT again, so sorry for that.

 

[Bromley boy]

South of the River they are dispatched at key staffed stations such as East Croydon by platform staff, anything North of the River including London Bridge and the core the dispatch is by the driver with platform staff assisting by blowing a whistle and making relevant announcements. Thameslink is an exception to everything they seem hell bent on running their own DOO railway through Southern terriority hence why I cannot personally wait until they are split away from Southern.

It will be interesting to see how long that continues - a case of “watch this space” I suspect.

(Apologies, this is way off topic for the northern thread!).