Great British Railways: Rail staff travel

[brick60000]

I’m interested in the potential implications for Rail Staff Travel / PRIV. With RDG subsumed by GBR, will NR employees get priv, or could the scheme change significantly?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I’m interested in the potential implications for Rail Staff Travel / PRIV. With RDG subsumed by GBR, will NR employees get priv, or could the scheme change significantly?

Protected staff travel is governed by 1993 Railways Act so if they are intending to repeal this act need to watch what happens over staff travel all round.

 

[LAX54]

I’m interested in the potential implications for Rail Staff Travel / PRIV. With RDG subsumed by GBR, will NR employees get priv, or could the scheme change significantly?

Protected staff travel is governed by 1993 Railways Act so if they are intending to repeal this act need to watch what happens over staff travel all round.

Protected staff will stay as is, and I cannot see travel being extended to all staff, it would be too expensive, it's not only NR staff but FOC as well that would need it, be good if they do, but don't hold your breath !

 

[158801]

Has anyone heard what will happen with Great British Railways and Rail Staff Travel ?

Will current Network Rail staff get travel facilities ? Will TOC staff get nationwide free travel or will it be limited to your own concession only?

 

[Worldwide]

I’m interested in the potential implications for Rail Staff Travel / PRIV. With RDG subsumed by GBR, will NR employees get priv, or could the scheme change significantly?

Only parts of RDG are being subsumed. I have a feeling the scheme will change, normally you get free travel with the TOC you work for but if they saying all trains will have the same livery I’m not sure how it will work.

 

[6Gman]

Has anyone heard what will happen with Great British Railways and Rail Staff Travel ?

Will current Network Rail staff get travel facilities ? Will TOC staff get nationwide free travel or will it be limited to your own concession only?

I rather suspect nothing will change.

 

[HST43257]

Remember that TOCs aren’t changing in terms of companies and routes etc, just how they are run. (Please correct me if I’m wrong)

 

[Highlandspring]

No information has been forthcoming but I’d expect that nothing will change from a NR point of view. It’s entirely possible that in the process of repealing and replacing the Railways Act 1993 they’ll quietly ditch the section 135 protection for former BR safeguarded status staff.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Indeed with repealing the 1993 Railways Act there’s a fair chance it could actually get worse not better.

 

[greyman42]

No information has been forthcoming but I’d expect that nothing will change from a NR point of view. It’s entirely possible that in the process of repealing and replacing the Railways Act 1993 they’ll quietly ditch the section 135 protection for former BR safeguarded status staff.

How might this effect safeguarded staff?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

How might this effect safeguarded staff?

If the Railways Act 1993 in repealed they could do what they wanted with staff travel - safeguarded or not.

 

[Highlandspring]

How might this effect safeguarded staff?

They would cesse to be safeguarded and travel facilities could be withdrawn at will. The Railways Act 1993 will certainly be repealed so it remains to be seen whether section 135 will be transferred to whatever new Act replaces it.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Only parts of RDG are being subsumed. I have a feeling the scheme will change, normally you get free travel with the TOC you work for but if they saying all trains will have the same livery I’m not sure how it will work.

If you had a regional pass on BR that geographic limitation is retained even though the regions disappeared with privatisation. There's a map on the RSTL website that shows the routes available.
Might be relevant to how TOC passes are carried forward.

 

[mattdickinson]

If you had a regional pass on BR that geographic limitation is retained even though the regions disappeared with privatisation. There's a map on the RSTL website that shows the routes available.
Might be relevant to how TOC passes are carried forward.

Some routes around London are based on pre-1948 companies...

 

[matt_world2004]

Speculatively I would imagine network rail staff would get free duty travel when it becomes GBR it seems immensely counter intuitive for GBR staff to pay to ride on a GBR concessioned train to perform a task when GBR are taking the revenue risk

 

[Highlandspring]

Speculatively I would imagine network rail staff would get free duty travel when it becomes GBR it seems immensely counter intuitive for GBR staff to pay to ride on a GBR concessioned train to perform a task when GBR are taking the revenue risk

I would not be surprised in the least if the ‘infrastructure’ part of GBR (the current NR) is made to pay the ‘train‘ part (the current TOCs) for tickets for duty travel in exactly the same way as happens now. And of course Capita would get their cut too.

Leisure travel? Forget it. In fact I suspect we might see a loss of travel privileges for transferred former TOC staff if the rumours about everyone being forced to sign new contracts or be made redundant turns out to be true

 

[gooner14]

What I have read implies that the stations will be managed by GBR, I cannot see how you can remove the travel from (often low paid) platform staff who are currently employed by TOCs and expect to attract staff without paying more. Network Rail also employ a lot of staff involved in the running of trains, it's hard to see how staff doing very similar roles for the same company can have different travel facilities.
NR staff with protected travel would also be able to stop paying the benefit in kind tax on it.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

They would cesse to be safeguarded and travel facilities could be withdrawn at will. The Railways Act 1993 will certainly be repealed so it remains to be seen whether section 135 will be transferred to whatever new Act replaces it.

Probably but plenty of legislation remains in force with reduced provisions retained so its possible that section 135 amongst others are left in the act rather than burden new legislation with this. Hopefully the unions will be on this.

 

[Andrew1395]

If the Railways Act 1993 in repealed they could do what they wanted with staff travel - safeguarded or not.

The biggest impact of the 1993 act and privatisation, was to turn privilege travel, conditions changed at a whim by BRB management. For example removing first class travel from MS1 and 2 grades in the late 1980s or extending free mileage for residential travel to 40 miles for London based staff. To the travel benefits becoming a contractual entitlement. The facility rules were frozen and applied only to a subset of railway staff - The safeguarded group. Employers in the private sector had to honour the travel, unless they got their transferred staff to agree to drop them, through changes to their contracts of employment.

So travel benefits became aligned to an individual and related to the past employment history with BR. Not to a companies whole workforce. So in many railway businesses there will be individuals getting free leisure travel as safeguarded individuals, working as subordinates to line managers who get none.

This means repealing the act alone will have little impact on safeguarded staff. There can’t be that many in active service now. To remove or change safeguarded travel will require changes agreed by individuals to their contracts of employment.

 

[D365]

For NR staff, it’s not exactly like they have much to lose

(Well, specifically, those who joined long after privatisation)

 

[Trainer2]

Do NR staff get travel discounts?

 

[D365]

Do NR staff get travel discounts?

75% off a season ticket, but no travel perks other than that.

 

[Philip]

I think a fair deal would be to have 75% discount across the board for all railway employees (safeguarded and non-safeguarded), including previous NR employees and new GBR employees in the same department; discount available on all off peak tickets and anytime tickets.

Free travel to continue as current for TOC employees on their own services, with NR industry employees allowed free travel on all services in the region of their depot/place of work (region as in NW, West Midlands, London, Yorkshire and Humber, North East etc).

 

[The Planner]

75% off a season ticket, but no travel perks other than that.

Only up to a limit, its not 75% off a £8k season ticket for example.

 

[D365]

Only up to a limit, its not 75% off a £8k season ticket for example.

Oh goodness, so it’s not even that good!

Us non-TOC staff really do have a raw deal!

 

[Highlandspring]

75% off a season ticket, but no travel perks other than that.

Only up to a limit, its not 75% off a £8k season ticket for example.

It has caught a few people out over the years. The subsidy (discount) part is 75% *or* up to the first £2750 of the season, so if the season cost £1500 then the subsidy from NR towards the this would be £1125. The balance is made up by an interest free loan repaid through 10 pay periods. For an £8000 season the employee would pay £525 per pay period for a total repayment of £5250.

As a benefit it's only really useful to a subset of employees (typically office based staff) and it's not actually anything that a non-rail industry company couldn't do if they wanted to as it's arranged through Abellio Corporate Travel. Indeed the NR season ticket loan is not actually rail specific and is also usable for bus season tickets.

 

[Trainer2]

Only up to a limit, its not 75% off a £8k season ticket for example.

Interesting
It’s not very useful if you work night shifts, especially at weekends!

 

[Journeyman]

The simple fact of the matter is we just don't know, but I strongly suspect it's more likely that those at the top will lose out, rather than those at the bottom gaining anything.