Bob Crow - Rolling stock is "clapped out"

[John55]

From what I have read on the ASLEF site these safety procedures are more to do with protection arrangements for failed trains.

The issue is more to do with why they can just suspend rules and regs for the olympics-if we can operate safely over the summer with out the rules for protecting failed trains then can we not do away with the rules all the time? That seems to be the issue.

It is a last minute throwing away of rule book sections for the duration and I can fully see why the unions are against it unless it is a proper amendmant which will be in place for the future.

Is it just me or is anyone else surprised we can get to post 28 before any actual information is posted to begin to explain the comments referenced in the first post and everything else is complete speculation?

It would be good if anyone has better information as this would be an interesting topic as it will quite likely involve the balancing of risk caused by changing train recovery procedures and passenger safety at stations caused by overcrowding if the trains don't come.

There is nothing new in this as for many years Underground trains have worked to totally different procedures to the main line due to issues concerned with interruption to service and overcrowding at stations.
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Cheers for posting that, as I (and I suspect, quite a few others on here) did wonder what Bob Crow was waffling on about this time ....

Anyway, if he thinks current rolling stock is "clapped out", I'm glad he wasn't the GS of the RMT on the mid to late 80s when there was a lot of tired units, carriages and locos in daily use ....

In the late 80s what was particularly old and clapped out? There was nothing as old as the HSTs are today on the main lines and, the DMUs were all less than 25 years old and the EMUs may have looked ancient but most were relatively young to mid life.

 

[BestWestern]

I...It is like a month or more back from Wokingham to Guildford I was on a Class 165 that had an internal automatic door that was not working properly and had to be moved by hand so that you can get pass. I would have said that was more critical than the station LED display within the train or for that matter the Intercom.

The 'intercom' or PA system is considered a critical piece of safety equipment as it is used in an emergency to communicate with the passengers. Sadly the poor quality of the systems on some older stock seems to be overlooked. I would agree that an automatic door which is permanently closed is an obvious hazard, and should at least be secured open.

My first reaction to this press release was that it is nothing more than RMT scaremongering, no doubt also being used to apply further pressure to those companies with which the Union is in dispute over Olympic payments (currently SWT and a likely ballot at FGW I believe). If there are legitimate concerns over Rulebook changes then I would agree that is a worthy point to argue, but the initial statement over rolling stock is clearly bollox. Had the release stuck to detailing the actual issues at hand then it may have been better received, but as it is at the moment it has granted the RMT no credit at all.

 

[GB]

I understand and agree with the argument that if something can be done or changed for the Olympics then why not for the rest of the time but I'd also say that some procedures are rather odd slow and dated.

I was on a failed freight train last week where the driver brought the train to a stand on a branch line just before joining the mainline because of a significant lose of power and would not get above 20mph. We wanted to run the loco round and take the train back to the yard about 5 miles up the line.

We were told we couldn't do that as it was an unsignalled move (despite the fact that unsignalled moves are not all that uncommon) and we must declare ourselfs a failure before the thunderbird could even be dispatched. This we did and the driver went through the whole procedure of train protection and about an hour later the thunderbird had us on our way.

The upshot of this is that the thunderbird made the exact same move we wanted to do with our own loco but we also found out that there is a clause in some document somewhere that says you can't assist your own train with the same loco that has been declared a failure. The TDA was about 120 minutes with two cancellations where if we did it our way with the loco there wouldn't have been any passenger cancellations and delays would have been minimal.

Just because its not in the good book does not necessarily mean it is unsafe.

 

[jon0844]

Bob Crow may be taken seriously by RMT members, who he represents and probably gets excellent results for, but I don't think Mr Crow realises that whenever he goes to the media - neither the press or the general public are very likely to have much respect for him, or believe anything he has to say.

 

[A-driver]

I am not saying the what the RMT says is wrong at all-I am just saying that the ASLEF website gives a different view. I am pretty sure TOCs will be running all available stock and would imagen maintenance will suffer as a result. Obviously they still won't run stock which is dangerous but at a guess there will be a lot of minor defects out there in the autumn-toilets out, doors locked off, no HAVC, broken pasenger lights etc etc.

As far as the unions are concerned staff must still continue to act within the rules and keep safety as priority despite managements possible efforts to,put performance first. That is the jist of what the unions are saying.

 

[tbtc]

Bob Crow may be taken seriously by RMT members, who he represents and probably gets excellent results for, but I don't think Mr Crow realises that whenever he goes to the media - neither the press or the general public are very likely to have much respect for him, or believe anything he has to say.

He certainly has got excellent results for his members (at a time when many non-railway people have seen their real wages cut, their pension schemes closed, their job security destroyed).

However Mr Crow seems to think he's a "personality" (e.g. HIGNFY) which doesn't help things.

 

[Wolfie]

In the late 80s what was particularly old and clapped out? There was nothing as old as the HSTs are today on the main lines and, the DMUs were all less than 25 years old and the EMUs may have looked ancient but most were relatively young to mid life.

The EPBs for one.....many of which were built on even older underpinnings!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_415
http://www.kentrail.org.uk/Class 415.htm
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_416

 

[John55]

The EPBs for one.....many of which were built on even older underpinnings!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_415
http://www.kentrail.org.uk/Class 415.htm

In the late 1980s the EPBs were between 30 - 35 years old no older than the PEP based units currently running.

 

[Wolfie]

In the late 1980s the EPBs were between 30 - 35 years old no older than the PEP based units currently running.

True BUT the PEPs were not based on running gear from stock 20 years older (the 1934-36 SR 2-NOL provided the underframes for the 2EPB 416/1s) and they certainly do not have compartments which were implicated in at least one murder, rapes, assaults etc etc
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Oh, and let's not even get started on the crash-resistance of MK1 or earlier designs......

 

[HSTEd]

True BUT the PEPs were not based on running gear from stock 20 years older (the 1934-36 SR 2-NOL provided the underframes for the 2EPB 416/1s) and they certainly do not have compartments which were implicated in at least one murder, rapes, assaults etc etc
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Oh, and let's not even get started on the crash-resistance of MK1 or earlier designs......

The Mark 1 derived railway vehicles were declared safe by the Hidden Report in 1988.
The reason they are now considered "unsafe" is the same reason that Mark 3s and 4s will be declared unsafe in about twenty years time, because of moving goalposts.

Compartments don't cause murders or whatever, it is just as likely that these rapes or murders would just take place on the street if the train had not had compartments. And a lack of compartments doesn't help you if there is no-one in the entire coach which is not an unforeseeable circumstance at night.

 

[GB]

The Mark 1 derived railway vehicles were declared safe by the Hidden Report in 1988.
The reason they are now considered "unsafe" is the same reason that Mark 3s and 4s will be declared unsafe in about twenty years time, because of moving goalposts.

Safety standards move on, weaknesses are usually identified after accidents and things are improved...that is the nature of the beast. Nothing to do with moving goal posts.

Do you really want to be riding around in Mk1 stock as apposed to Mk3 or even Mk2?

 

[David]

In the late 80s what was particularly old and clapped out? There was nothing as old as the HSTs are today on the main lines and, the DMUs were all less than 25 years old and the EMUs may have looked ancient but most were relatively young to mid life.

First off, I never said old and clapped out when talking about stock in the mid 80s. Nice attempt at trying to distort what I actually said though. :roll:

Secondly, using 1985 (using this year for all comparisons) and using Wikipedia* as a reference, the newest first gen DMUs in use then were 25 years old. Other classes of DMUs were 27-29 years old at that time. So they are a bit older than the "less than 25 years old in the late 80s" as you claim.

Next, looking at locos, class 20s and 31s were first built in 1957, while the 25s, 37s and 47s production lines started between 1960 and 1962.

AC EMUs now. The 310s were the newest at only 22 years old, with most of the others being built between 1957 and 1961, so between 24 and 28 years old in 1985. However the 307s were 32 years old, as they first entered service in 1953. So not young to mid life as you state, but mid life to getting on a fair bit. (I've deliberately not mention classes 311-315 as these were all under 20 years of age using my reference point).

Classes 411-418 were all approaching 30 years of age, and even the 421s and 423s had been in service for 18-21 years in 1985. Again, a bit more than the young to mid-life that you state.

* Yes, I know not everything on there is 100% accurate.

 

[John55]

First off, I never said old and clapped out when talking about stock in the mid 80s. Nice attempt at trying to distort what I actually said though. :roll:

Secondly, using 1985 (using this year for all comparisons) and using Wikipedia* as a reference, the newest first gen DMUs in use then were 25 years old. Other classes of DMUs were 27-29 years old at that time. So they are a bit older than the "less than 25 years old in the late 80s" as you claim.

Next, looking at locos, class 20s and 31s were first built in 1957, while the 25s, 37s and 47s production lines started between 1960 and 1962.

AC EMUs now. The 310s were the newest at only 22 years old, with most of the others being built between 1957 and 1961, so between 24 and 28 years old in 1985. However the 307s were 32 years old, as they first entered service in 1953. So not young to mid life as you state, but mid life to getting on a fair bit. (I've deliberately not mention classes 311-315 as these were all under 20 years of age using my reference point).

Classes 411-418 were all approaching 30 years of age, and even the 421s and 423s had been in service for 18-21 years in 1985. Again, a bit more than the young to mid-life that you state.

* Yes, I know not everything on there is 100% accurate.

You are quite right you didn’t say old and clapped out what you said was;
“Anyway, if he thinks current rolling stock is "clapped out", I'm glad he wasn't the GS of the RMT on the mid to late 80s when there was a lot of tired units, carriages and locos in daily use ....”
and I took the point on by saying “In the late 80s what was particularly old and clapped out?”

Anyway here are a few points to explain my thinking. I took your “mid to late 80s” to be 1987 and at that time there was very little rolling stock over 30 years old on the network. The major exceptions were the 4-EPBs built between 1952 and 1957 but almost everything else on the Southern was less than 30 years old, which I would regard as mid life for an EMU.

The AC electric EMUs were all less than 30 years old with the exception of the class 307s which were being replaced.

The young to mid life corresponds to the range of all EMUs from the 319s (new in 1987) to 2 HAPs (introduced from 1957).

The last really old mainline trains had gone the year before with the withdrawal of the last of the 1938 Wirral stock (Class 503).

I am clearly not able to calculate the age of DMUs were I have lost at least 5 years which does weaken my point. However by 1987 the 150s and 140s were delivered and the 155 & 156s were starting to arrive.

On the loco front only the Class 20 (not all), 31(rebuilt later) and 26s were left which were built before 1960 and the number of Mk 1s, which were built up to 1963, in mainline service was running down fast.