O L Leigh
Established Member
I’ll have to PM you tomorrow night when I’m back to my laptop. I can’t work out how to send a PM from the mobile site.
I’ll have to PM you tomorrow night when I’m back to my laptop. I can’t work out how to send a PM from the mobile site.
I’ll have to PM you tomorrow night when I’m back to my laptop. I can’t work out how to send a PM from the mobile site.
PMs are called Conversations on this forum software.Is that a PM though?
The usual way is to either forget the local door switch on power door stock and lock oneself out or to go and investigate a door fault, resolve it, get interlock and in both cases have the driver take off without the bells and leave you there. Happened plenty of times over the years. Easiest on slam crew door 150s where you get interlock as soon as the passenger doors are closed.
I've known the guard get left behined a few times on 150/1s across the years.The usual way is to either forget the local door switch on power door stock and lock oneself out or to go and investigate a door fault, resolve it, get interlock and in both cases have the driver take off without the bells and leave you there. Happened plenty of times over the years. Easiest on slam crew door 150s where you get interlock as soon as the passenger doors are closed.
I suppose that depends on precisely what the role of the guard is. Is the guard someone with a safety critical role to play during despatch or just someone to hold the punters hands? Besides, by definition a guard can only be in one place at a time. No matter where he/she is in the train there are passengers who won’t see them.
well this cuts to the essence of the problem. The RMT insists the guard has to despatch for safety, despite the ORR, foreign practice, and all the current DOO. But they use “second person for safety” ambiguously knowing that most passengers think “second person for safety” means someone walking up and down the train. So guard dispatching from a cab does not give passengers the safety they think they are getting by supporting the RMT message.
True. The passenger who wants a 2nd staff member on board is thinking about their own immediate concerns (seeking advice, personal safety etc) - who presses door buttons is utterly irrelevant, and of no real concern to them.
It would be interesting to know what proportion of passengers correctly know who is operating the doors.
They have no need to know, it's just another function on the railways, like signaller, ticket clerk, despatcher etc. It's only on a forum like this that anyone believes it should be a matter of interest for the average passenger.
Depends on if WMT gets the rolling stock fitted with intermediate/saloon door controls. (Class 196 and 730)But if they think the driver already does the doors (after all bus drivers do) then their wish for a second person on the train certainly isn’t for a guard stuck in a cab pushing door buttons.
TBF the shorter the trains the more likely people will have noticed that the guard is pushing door buttons (though not necessarily if the guard is in a cab at a door the passenger doesn’t go through), but I am constantly shocked by how little awareness the general public has of anything!!
If the WMT involves guards operating from all the passenger doors (ie whichever they happen to be near) then the passengers gain over DOO. If the guard works from a cab then the passenger (and taxpayer) are losing out to Luddism
Though if the WMT deal involves the guard out the door for the whole time doors are open then passengers (and ticket checking) loses all that time and the time the guard has to allow for getting to a door in time.
Is it too complicated to have a different procedure for staffed stations?
We are agreeing there - you were helping passengers, and the less time you spend working the doors the more you can help them. That is what passengers want from a second person IMOI worked a busy train a few days ago and there was serious service disruption. I didn't check a ticket all shift because I spent the whole time trying to work out how to get a diverse range of people to the places they wanted to be.
Fair point for unmanned stations - hence my query whether procedure could be different for staffed stations.
We are agreeing there - you were helping passengers, and the less time you spend working the doors the more you can help them. That is what passengers want from a second person IMO
PMs are called Conversations on this forum software.
well this cuts to the essence of the problem. The RMT insists the guard has to despatch for safety, despite the ORR, foreign practice, and all the current DOO. But they use “second person for safety” ambiguously knowing that most passengers think “second person for safety” means someone walking up and down the train. So guard dispatching from a cab does not give passengers the safety they think they are getting by supporting the RMT message.
Par for the course. In the last SWR strike ballot 40% of those eligible to vote didn't do so.It should be noted that in the first industrial action ballot there were 616 people eligible to vote, of which 484 votes were cast (78.6% turnout)
This time, assuming numbers are roughly the same, only 424 papers were returned, meaning one in three didn't vote on the deal at all.
Not quite so simple. When I operate from local doors, I know where the run-on points are on the platform, I can position myself strategically, see who is running for a train but a few seconds behind, and use route knowledge to decide whether I could allow these people on without causing delay to mine and other services. With driver close, it is time up, no one near the doors, close up, and those people can go figure and wait an hour for the next train.We are agreeing there - you were helping passengers, and the less time you spend working the doors the more you can help them. That is what passengers want from a second person IMO
Just one example where guard close does have its advantage in customer service.
I am generally in support of driver open guard close. I am not entirely convinced by the argument about performance improvements. There are some gains but the real extent of gains is much exaggerated, with some equally achievable by improvements and modifications to operating procedures. That said, some guards don't really help themselves or the cause but I won't go into further details on that as this latter point has been made repeatedly on the forum before.As an advantage over guard open it also means a transaction can be completed without delaying people getting off, which means less overall delay to the train. This being the case it is my favoured option and I'm generally happy with the result provided LNR do the work to fit intermediate panels. It does cost a little more time than full DOO (the time taken to close the local door plus "ding ding, ding ding" per station, basically - so about 15-20 seconds depending on the unit?) but as you say has benefits too. Whereas I can see few advantages of guard *release* where an ASDO system is fitted. (Where it isn't you have a slightly elevated risk of doors released off the platform compared to two sets of eyes).
The ballot result was out today, RMT members on WMT have voted to accept the revised deal which involves the new moethod of working whereby the Driver will open the doors but the guard will continue to do the rest of the dispatch procedure.
Of course there will be specifics around the new rolling stock when it arrives, and the modification of the current stock when it takes place, but the immediate action is done and dusted and normal service can resume!!
https://www.rmt.org.uk/about/ballot...ard--west-midlands-trains231219/?preview=true
Deal approved