Southern Doo Dispute

[radamfi]

Talking about ticket examiners, if they did replace guards on board train services, who is to say they wouldn't also be allegedly lazy as well? Is there any inherent reason why a TE is more likely to check tickets and be visible than the guard? Maybe on rural services with request stops the Driver should sell tickets as well. After all bus drivers do that?

I commute on the Brighton Line a lot on both Southern and FCC so I get to see both Southern guards and FCC ticket inspectors. I rarely get my ticket checked on Southern and if they do check it, the ticket usually gets only a passing glance and is very rarely marked.

I mostly see FCC ticket inspectors in the morning but almost never in the PM peak or evening. But if they are there they are normally walking up and down the train continuously, swapping between the two 319s in the case of 8 car trains.

I would expect ticket inspectors to be walking more as checking tickets is their only job whereas guards are still doing their job even if they are sitting in the cab as they can be called out to an incident at any time.

Southern are currently rolling out barriers to a lot more stations so I would expect Southern guards to make even fewer appearances in future.