http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...ight-and-refused-to-let-passengers-get-off.do
Bob Crowe will be silent on this, he prefers staff to stay in cabs opening/closing doors, than for staff to be constantly patrolling the trains. But this wouldn't have happened on SPT, where the driver does the doors, avoiding delays, and there is another member of staff ensuring customer safety and checking tickets. Bob is opposed to this, perhaps some of his members are too worried about getting fit walking up and down the train checking tickets. I wonder if the guard in this case would have been opposed to checking tickets on the basis he'd not be able to have a drink. I think that some of the excuses used by Bob and others do not hold water.
These 'non-commercial' guards who just sit in back cabs, and doing the jobs that drivers do on other similar suburban lines, are not really the solution at all. Guards should be commercial, and for suburban routes the drivers should do the doors. I am opposed to one-man operation, but there is no point having a guard who just sits doing nothing between stops.
Well done to the driver for being alert, and avoiding a 'ding-ding and away' incident.A drunken train guard signalled his driver to go through a red light and refused to open the doors to let passengers off or on during a terrifying journey between Waterloo and Kingston.
Travellers hammered on the driver's door to alert him after the doors failed to open at Barnes but he thought the noise was caused by Friday night revellers and carried on.
Eventually at Mortlake he investigated, a commuter phoned police and officers were waiting when the train pulled into Wimbledon.
Patrick Coyne, 40, was found passed out and slumped over his controls. “This was not normal practice for safety reasons,” prosecutor Anne Crossfield told Westminster magistrates. It took a minute to rouse him and he was disorientated. He was sacked by South West Trains.
In his bag were two cans of Budweiser and he admitted decanting half a bottle of vodka into two water bottles. Coyne told officers: “I must stop drinking.”
Ms Crossfield said at one stage in the journey the train arrived at St Margarets and the defendant gave the driver two signals to proceed to the next station but the driver could see that there was a red signal. “The defendant, after realising what he had done, apologised to the driver,” she said.
Coyne, of Merton Park, pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of a person conveyed by railway due to being over the alcohol limit. He will be sentenced later, probably at crown court.
Bob Crowe will be silent on this, he prefers staff to stay in cabs opening/closing doors, than for staff to be constantly patrolling the trains. But this wouldn't have happened on SPT, where the driver does the doors, avoiding delays, and there is another member of staff ensuring customer safety and checking tickets. Bob is opposed to this, perhaps some of his members are too worried about getting fit walking up and down the train checking tickets. I wonder if the guard in this case would have been opposed to checking tickets on the basis he'd not be able to have a drink. I think that some of the excuses used by Bob and others do not hold water.
These 'non-commercial' guards who just sit in back cabs, and doing the jobs that drivers do on other similar suburban lines, are not really the solution at all. Guards should be commercial, and for suburban routes the drivers should do the doors. I am opposed to one-man operation, but there is no point having a guard who just sits doing nothing between stops.