RMT raises serious SWR safety breaches

[ComUtoR]

Our railway is superb.

My Sister, who travels the world, came back to the UK and we discussed our railway. She was telling me how great it is

Our safety record is impressive and with the recent incidents around the world it certainly puts our network into perspective. It was mentioned how railworkers tend to take safety very seriously and I am certainly guilty of that. I just want those standards maintained. I also want the procedures we have to be followed and shortcuts not being taken or procedures overlooked because of some arbitrary reason; such as a strike. I think, that is where the RMT are coming from. They just want a tight ship for all of us. Admitting that there are failings is a step on that path.

Please, nobody read into my posts as us running an unsafe railway. We all work bloody hard to keep it that way and fight for the ongoing high standards.

 

[Moonshot]

We have already had that. It was disastrously called Railtrack.
Longer term franchises already exist and they haven't worked either.
Conspiracy for you. The Petrochemical industry has lobbied to reduce the number of people travelling by rail.
Certainly numbers have reduced and rail strikes put the travelling public off and back onto the road network.

That really means what your definition of " havent worked " is. Passenger numbers are at an all time high.....and my salary in the private sector of TOCs has increased far more than it would have in the public sector. I daresay that there would have been a lot more strike action had drivers and guards been subject to the same public sector pay freeze if BR still existed today

 

[Moonshot]

Our railway is superb.

My Sister, who travels the world, came back to the UK and we discussed our railway. She was telling me how great it is

Our safety record is impressive and with the recent incidents around the world it certainly puts our network into perspective. It was mentioned how railworkers tend to take safety very seriously and I am certainly guilty of that. I just want those standards maintained. I also want the procedures we have to be followed and shortcuts not being taken or procedures overlooked because of some arbitrary reason; such as a strike. I think, that is where the RMT are coming from. They just want a tight ship for all of us. Admitting that there are failings is a step on that path.

Please, nobody read into my posts as us running an unsafe railway. We all work bloody hard to keep it that way and fight for the ongoing high standards.

We do indeed......and as far as I am concerned, nobody who works at the frontline goes into work with the intention of making an error.......but errors occassionally occur.....because we are not robots. From a drivers perspective , TPWS mitigates a potential error as an example.

 

[emil]

I mean regarding investment in rolling stock and stations. Some old trains are being rehashed when they should be cut up. Yes passengers numbers are higher but this is starting to drop in the London and South east regions. Investment of electrification projects have been put back or stopped.

 

[Moonshot]

I mean regarding investment in rolling stock and stations. Some old trains are being rehashed when they should be cut up. Yes passengers numbers are higher but this is starting to drop in the London and South east regions. Investment of electrification projects have been put back or stopped.

If pax numbers are dropping in London and the South East , I daresay there is a correlation between that and the amount of strike days in the last 18 month or so. Investment of electrification projects are detemined by the state , not the private sector. My own TOC has just refurbished a number of class 158 diesels.....these have a shelf life of around 40 years anyway and still have some life left in them......they look excellent as it happens ( like new ).

 

[furnessvale]

I mean regarding investment in rolling stock and stations. Some old trains are being rehashed when they should be cut up. Yes passengers numbers are higher but this is starting to drop in the London and South east regions. Investment of electrification projects have been put back or stopped.

I doubt the number of new carriages delivered and on order would have occurred within a nationalised railway. I am also 100% certain, as others have pointed out, that wage levels for drivers and guards would be where they are now under a nationalised railway.

 

[Dr Hoo]

RAIB, RSSB, CIRAS, HSE, ABC, 123 etc. Are all very insular and deal with issues very well but they are too targeted and too specific in their remit. The RAIB are notorious in making 'recommendations' I see people on this forum quite surprised that the TOCs then never have to change anything because they are just 'recommendations' RAIB also highlights where they have previously made recommendations but they were never acted upon. This again, serves to prove my point. Its very easy to make a recommendation rather than force the TOC to change their procedures or mandate against incidents re-occurring.

I'm not expecting 100% safety and neither am I expecting a 100% hard line but there has to be an admission that we are making a degree of compromise and allowing for flexibility in the rules and procedures that have already been laid out.

As I understood it the RAIB can 'only' investigate and issue recommendations. It is then for the ORR/HMRI to satisfy themselves that the recommendations have been applied (unless deemed to be already covered by existing procedures or not 'reasonably practicable', etc.). Recommendations do have to 'closed out' one way or another.

 

[Goldfish62]

Passenger numbers are at an all time high....

No they're not. They fell by 2.7% in Q1 2017-18 and that drop masks the even larger drop in the South East without even taking into account GTR. SWT fell by nearly 9% year-on-year.