Can someone explain to me what is the issue with regard to staffing the 800s? Numerous other TOCs run pairs or even triples of non gangwayed units. Some have a driver and a guard, many are DOO, e.g. 12 car 365s out of King's Cross, 321s or 360s out of Liverpool Street. Given that all 800s have a driver and guard on board, why do they sometimes lock the rear set out of use?
The rear set locked out if use is as infrequent as trains stopping at Pilning: once a week if that.
Pre-training:
2xGuards
2xCustomer Hosts (4 if FC)
After training:
1xTM
2xCustomer Hosts (safety trains, 4FC)
and additionally
1xTicket Examiner
RMT however, do not like the fact that their isn’t a guard in the front of the train even though Customer Hosts would have been trained to deal with situations, mostly with 2 other additional members of staff to assist with them. Don’t know what the situation is now but RMT seem to think that GWR should hire more guards (lots) or lock out the rear 5 coaches.
Not quite.
The original intention was for 5+5 IETs to run with just a Guard - ostensibly in the Rear 5 coaches but working from the front 5 of operationally required (short platforms, etc). At the 11th hour the powers that be (be it the union, management, or more likely some combination of both) got cold feet to the idea; so wrote into the safety case for 5+5s a number of competencies that must be present on each set - Train Evacuation being the principal requirement, but there’s also some IET systems knowledge, First Aid and so on.
At the initial time this course was decided on; the RMT refused to allow Customer Hosts (whom the company had in mind) undertake the role, so the company trained up some Ticket Examiners to do it instead. This presented other issues as they were managed by the revenue team; not control; so it took a while to drum into both the Ticket Examiners and their management they were critical to operation of the services. There were also issues where certain services couldn’t be caught within any of their shifts.
RMT then rejected the creation of a whole new staff grade and offering to promote x% of customer hosts to the new grade; but eventually agreed to a new “skill” for all customer hosts to learn - Front Set Lead.
So all 5+5 IETs must have a Train Manager and a Front Set Lead - one in each half of the train. All other staffing presently remains “optional” but ideally it will be 1 Train Manager and 4 FSL-competent Customer Hosts; to enable the Train Manager to roam either portion of the train as necessary.
5 and 9 cars only need a Train Manager.
Only 5 car sets can operate DOO under present safety case - none have done so on scheduled passenger services yet, but there have been some DOO driver training runs which have run in passenger service specifically to give the drivers of using the DOO equipment “in anger” where most drivers currently learning it don’t have much (if any) recent experience of DOO operations. These drivers are always accompanied by a DOO competent DI.
