"Too many railway workers are paid to do nothing"

[RPI]

I knew one station manager on £30k a year

Thats less than an FGW train manager or RPI!

 

[AndrewP]

I am a management consultant specialising in efficiency and have been responsible for many proects which have resulted in jobs being lost. My politics are also right of centre.

Now that is out of the way I must condemn this article for being ill informed and not based on substance.

Whenever you are doing an organisation design you need to consider the tasks needed and build an organisaion round them and not base it on the fact you see people who appear to be doing nothing (they may be observing, a response team or have a role where there are peaks and troughs in workflow). What you invariably find is that some roles are overstaffed and others understaffed and invariably the people on the ground know the answers but are not always able to get their views known - for many reasons.

There seems to be a trend in journalism to get (or make) facts to suit a view point and not let the truth get in the way. The worst for this is the BBC which seems to function as Mr Bean (Ed Milliband)'s press office and if you are left or right of that you are wrong.

 

[Beveridges]

Thats less than an FGW train manager or RPI!

For doing a hell of a lot less! Also he wasn't getting up at 03, 04 or 0500 in the morning for an early turn. You can't compare the two roles. Not a bad wage for doing next to nothing productive. I'd rather be on 30k with an easy job than £50k with a hard one.

 

[jon0844]

Actually all the national papers have been firing a large proportion of their journalists and other production staff over the last few years, due to falling circulation, advertising revenue, etc. Sadly this hasn't improved the journalistic quality of those remaining.

I've seen plenty of bad journalism, but the way many journalists are being treated, it's hardly any different to how you'd imagine running a railway with much fewer people. The journalists that have kept their jobs are probably paid less and now made to work far, far harder and have now lost the extra 'protection' afforded by a sub editor to pick out glaring mistakes or fact check. Chances are even the headlines are now thought of by the same person.

Even TV news has been hit hard, with ITN sending out some reporters with a HD camera and tripod to do reports on their own, rather than having a separate camera or sound man.

 

[HH]

The fact that each WCML bid cost close to £15,000,000 (i.e. £60,000,000 for the four bidders)

I know that one cost less than £5m and that included internal time. Don't judge the costs on what Virgin claim to have spent.
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No, the problem with today's railway is that there are too many managers who are paid £70k+ a year! Why have 2 managers doing 1 task when you can have 1 manager doing that task.

Actually there are very dew managers being paid £70k+ a year. While staff pay is relatively high against similar jobs outside the railway, only Operations Managers (ignoring NR OFC) are paid at a level you might expect to see elsewhere, aside from fast food chains.
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The whole railway system costs a bomb, and it boils down to **** poor management. This was evident under BR, as it is today.

Largely the same managers and they're generally poor because the rate of pay isn't high enough. I started outside rail and was paid more (in Real terms) at 25 than the majority of TOC managers are paid today.
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However it is far, far worse in today's confused system, as every company requires it's own squadrons of management, back office staff, and general army of pen-pushers doing the same as their comrades in the next company's offices next door.

I shall not pull my punches here. This is complete bollox. There are far less managers in TOCs than there were under BR. Still too many, but it has been moving the right way for 15 years.

Where it's still effectively nationalised, ie NR, they are still as "fat" as ever.
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Why? People often read all sorts of newspapers to gain perspective on current affairs! And yes, that does mean reading the Daily Mail at times!

The only perspective you get from reading the Daily Mail is to see what idiots are reading.
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Well I seem to remember that the railways were run by private companies until 1947 which is rather less than 150 years ago

Please don't try to introduce facts into a ranting thread...
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This debate could go on forever but actually the answer is the existance of shareholders. And incidentally I know several railway managers. All have come through the grades and not one is earning anywhere near 70k and they are as fed up as everyone else with the mess that the industry they loved has become. Their only goal is retire and good luck to all of them

Now some more facts. Take this as a final warning.
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Of course there are examples of too many staff, often caused by privatisation requiring a duplication of roles

This is the big current myth. There is very little duplication of roles between companies in truth. If there are 3 people doing the job in TOC A, and 3 doing it in TOC B, then 5-6 would be doing it if they were joined together. But joining together doesn't always mean better. When companies get too big they introduce inefficiencies. That's why they usually split themselves up into Areas or Divisions.

 

[Xavi]

Well they could second two of the four at Exeter at plonk them at Filton AbbeyWood......they'd recoup their salary costs before 8.30a.m, trust me.

Exactly, Exeter Central is used by about 1 million more passengers per year than Filton Abbey Wood, but I'm sure Filton would warrant similar staff.

The guy who wrote the newspaper article wouldn't go very far in business, revenue collection at Central has soared since the station was gated - the gate staff have paid for themselves many times over and will continue to do so.

 

[EM2]

There is very little duplication of roles between companies in truth. If there are 3 people doing the job in TOC A, and 3 doing it in TOC B, then 5-6 would be doing it if they were joined together. But joining together doesn't always mean better. When companies get too big they introduce inefficiencies. That's why they usually split themselves up into Areas or Divisions.

But if there are roles that are not required when only one company is operating, such as Delay Attribution, then isn't that duplication?

 

[GB]

Load of ill informed rubbish-just states what he has seen. He admits he dosnt know what they are doing or what their jobs are so why write it in his newspaper column?

These people he looks to sack are paid about 20k a year. How about writing about the managers,many paid 6 figure salaries, whos jobs are duplicated company to company who really don't do much. Those who deal with really un-needed things like corporate branding (hmm,I think we should paint our trains blue and pink), delay attribution, marketing etc which the railway really would run perfectly well without. And then there are the shareholders and directors who would certainly not allow staff wage savings to be passed on to the passenger as they are after every penny they can get making a train drivers 45k a year small change.

Sadly journalists get away with printing this rubbish. Perhaps they should actually research what they are writing about for once?...

While I cant speak for all the roles you listed a good TDA clerk can be worth his weight in gold and will usually save his company more money than his yearly wage. I'd also imagine marketing is pretty important for any business.

 

[EM2]

I'd also imagine marketing is pretty important for any business.

Indeed it is, but when there's one company, not a dozen, nowhere near as much manpower will be needed.
I'm broadly in favour of nationalisation, but I'm certain it would lead to job losses and that makes me uncomfortable.

 

[jon0844]

There are lots of roles that are extremely important and often underpaid.

Take a hotel cleaner. Paid peanuts but if rooms were dirty, you'd not stay there.

People on platforms provide security, information, reassurance or revenue protection (or all of the above) so don't always have to be seen doing anything.

 

[RPI]

Exactly, Exeter Central is used by about 1 million more passengers per year than Filton Abbey Wood, but I'm sure Filton would warrant similar staff.

The guy who wrote the newspaper article wouldn't go very far in business, revenue collection at Central has soared since the station was gated - the gate staff have paid for themselves many times over and will continue to do so.

Filton Abbeywood has a manual ticket check every M-F morning from about 0700-1000! with 4 staff usually when i go through.

 

[HH]

But if there are roles that are not required when only one company is operating, such as Delay Attribution, then isn't that duplication?

Delay attribution is a necessary task regardless of whether you are split into separate companies or not. The point of delay attribution is to understand what is causing the delay so you can get it fixed. Why do you think PPM has been steadily improving? Now probably some jobs could be cut in this area, but there has to be some people doing this job if you want to see real performance improvements. I've had to point this out to the great and good, because they all fell in love with McNulty.

 

[Toots]

Delay attribution is a parasite within the industry.I've heard all the arguments of how they are there to help understand delay and quite frankly it's utter rubbish.It is simply a way of establishing blame and a means of fuelling the money merry-go-round that blights our railway.It does nothing to alter delays caused by the mis use of the railway such as cable theft,in fact it detracts from it, because funds that could be used to improve the situation are being channeled into employing so many people on trying to pin the blame and who is going to get the money!!.
As for understanding,the people who work in an area know exactly what has caused the delay,so understanding the problem isn't an issue,it is simply we have to blame someone before we can do anything about it and that is where delay attribution comes in.

 

[carriageline]

Delay attribution is a parasite within the industry.I've heard all the arguments of how they are there to help understand delay and quite frankly it's utter rubbish.It is simply a way of establishing blame and a means of fuelling the money merry-go-round that blights our railway.It does nothing to alter delays caused by the mis use of the railway such as cable theft,in fact it detracts from it, because funds that could be used to improve the situation are being channeled into employing so many people on trying to pin the blame and who is going to get the money!!.
As for understanding,the people who work in an area know exactly what has caused the delay,so understanding the problem isn't an issue,it is simply we have to blame someone before we can do anything about it and that is where delay attribution comes in.

But, say there is a repeating problem somewhere, possibly with a timetable, a specific train, or a signaller. Then the appropriate company can do something to stop that problem arising. Of course, whether they do that is another matter!

 

[Butts]

Just to add a little balance there was a piece in The Independent on Sunday bemoaning the fact Virgin had lost the WCML franchise to First.

It mentioned the fact reduced staffing could result in an inferior service.

 

[Flamingo]

Digressing slightly into delay attribution and it's advantages, or rather an example of what happens without it, I know someone who lives in Dublin (state owned, company owns tracks as well, no fragmentation, positive railway Nirvana). Their fast train home is constantly delayed as a stopping service is put out ahead of it pretty much every evening. If there were consequences, then this situation would'nt occur, or at least not 4 evenings out of 5 for the past six years (according to them).

 

[BestWestern]

I know that one cost less than £5m and that included internal time. Don't judge the costs on what Virgin claim to have spent.

That is still an eye watering sum of money, and still demonstrates all that is wrong with the 'money no object' attitude which adds so much to the costs of our railway. The same mentality is also responsible for TOCs who receive the dreaded 'revenue support' top-ups intentionally collecting as little farebox revenue as possible to avoid returning any cash. Who cares, the taxpayer ultimately props it all up :roll:

I shall not pull my punches here. This is complete bollox. There are far less managers in TOCs than there were under BR. Still too many, but it has been moving the right way for 15 years.

This is the big current myth. There is very little duplication of roles between companies in truth. If there are 3 people doing the job in TOC A, and 3 doing it in TOC B, then 5-6 would be doing it if they were joined together. But joining together doesn't always mean better. When companies get too big they introduce inefficiencies. That's why they usually split themselves up into Areas or Divisions.

This, to quote yourself, is also "complete bollox". Of course there is duplication between companies, as most of those companies have a need for the same roles to carry out the same functions within their respective organisations. Five or six people doing the job 'joined together' means one team, with one manager, working for one company in one building. Two teams of three for two different firms means duplication of everything save for those staff themselves. This starts at the bottom of each TOC and goes right through to the top. How many TOCs now serve the former Network Southeast area for example? Southeastern, Southern, SWT, FCC, bits of FGW, etc etc... How much do each of these firms' Managing Directors take home each year? How many head offices do they lease and fill with staff at massive expense? How can this be better than one unified southern region, operated to modern business efficiency methods? Things are improving with fewer franchises covering larger areas, but there continues to be far too much waste. Yes BR was inefficient, but if the powers that be had concentrated on slimming down the fat within that operation, rather then hacking it to pieces and flogging it all to the highest bidder, we'd be in a better position. Privatisation, at least to the current design, doesn't work. Most agree.

 

[Toots]

But, say there is a repeating problem somewhere, possibly with a timetable, a specific train, or a signaller. Then the appropriate company can do something to stop that problem arising. Of course, whether they do that is another matter!

The fact still remains you don't need a huge department costing vast amounts of money to deal with any of these problems,the problems will be flagged up anyway,delay can be attributed and rectified without the financial money go round and blame maze that is created by said financial penalties.The same goes for Flamingo's point in Ireland,there is either a logical explanation for the stopper to be put in front of the express or it is poor timetabling,but the timetable would exist in that form irregardless of TDA,so in whatever form the problem lies the answer is simple dialogue not a system whereby money is leached out of the industry for no constructive purpose.
These posts aren't really going off topic,because I believe that rescources are being wasted by companies obtaining money from each other when in fact they should be used to halt the rise in fare evading passengers which increases costs for everyone.

 

[Oswyntail]

....the problems will be flagged up anyway,delay can be attributed and rectified without the financial money go round and blame maze that is created by said financial penalties..

Of course, unless you have people whose job (or part of whose job) is defined as being doing this, who will do the flagging up, attributing and rectifying?

used to halt the rise in fare evading passengers which increases costs for everyone.

Something of a Yeti, that one. No one, by definition, is in a position to count fare-evading passengers, and so cannot say that the number is rising. What we can, possibly, say, is that more passengers are being caught without having paid a fare, but this is more than likely due to the extra vigilance of our guards and RPIs. Of course, if we have no one whose job it is to devise methods of counting fare-evaders....

 

[Toots]

These things are flagged up by someone from TDA ringing up and asking what happened,this could just as easily be done by Control (which it frequently is) or by a Manager (which it always is!).Apparently there is going to be a big push for managers,Control to share the same buildings,a success in the South West apparently so there should be better dialogue in future in any case.
As you say more people are being caught evading the fare so it is only on that basis I am summising that fare evading is on the increase,but of course fare paying passenger travel is a problem whatever my view and we have a paradox that newspapers are complaining about the very staff who are catching/deterring these people.

 

[A-driver]

Sorry but realistically TDA does not highlight where problems are or at least nothing is done about it. There are trains which I know of that are never ever ever on time and every time I and others I know have worked them they have had please explain forms through from TDA and have written the same thing on them. This has been the same for many time table changes and nothing is done about it.

TDA is about one thing-money. Shifting the blame elsewhere and even within companies shifting the blame around departments.

 

[The Planner]

Sorry but realistically TDA does not highlight where problems are or at least nothing is done about it. There are trains which I know of that are never ever ever on time and every time I and others I know have worked them they have had please explain forms through from TDA and have written the same thing on them. This has been the same for many time table changes and nothing is done about it. .

Depends if anything can be done about it and if the TOC allows us to do it.

 

[neilmc]

Well, when I compare the railways of today with the railways of my youth it is clear that lots of railway workers are paid to do nothing. Look at any town railway station in the 1950s and you would see a host of men working for the railway - a stationmaster, overseeing a host of porters and clerks; busy sidings with shunters and guards, a loco depot employing drivers, firemen, cleaners, fitters, boilermen, a manned signal box every few hundred yards, a lot of complex permanent way which needed local gangs to oversee, the railway would have been a large local employer in almost any town ... move on fifty years and you will probably see no more than two or three people around the station, all the sidings, depots, signalboxes have gone as have nearly all the jobs. But, hey, look here are some people still employed - not by the railway but by a security firm, people who know or care nothing about railways and who might have alternative gainful employment as nightclub bouncers, standing at the barriers in a block to try to catch some hapless commuter who boarded his driver-only train from a station with no ticket office and a broken machine. Let's see what we can screw him for, guys!

Meanwhile people who MIGHT be railway workers are indeed paid to do nothing, in the dole queue.

This is your fine railway of the 21st century which some Conservatives seem to think is overmanned and is STILL mysteriously losing money.

 

[12CSVT]

The only perspective you get from reading the Daily Mail is to see what idiots are reading.

And what idiot journalists at the Daily Wail have been writing.

 

[D841 Roebuck]

Well, when I compare the railways of today with the railways of my youth it is clear that lots of railway workers are paid to do nothing. Look at any town railway station in the 1950s and you would see a host of men working for the railway - a stationmaster, overseeing a host of porters and clerks; busy sidings with shunters and guards, a loco depot employing drivers, firemen, cleaners, fitters, boilermen, a manned signal box every few hundred yards, a lot of complex permanent way which needed local gangs to oversee, the railway would have been a large local employer in almost any town ... move on fifty years and you will probably see no more than two or three people around the station, all the sidings, depots, signalboxes have gone as have nearly all the jobs. But, hey, look here are some people still employed - not by the railway but by a security firm, people who know or care nothing about railways and who might have alternative gainful employment as nightclub bouncers, standing at the barriers in a block to try to catch some hapless commuter who boarded his driver-only train from a station with no ticket office and a broken machine. Let's see what we can screw him for, guys!

Meanwhile people who MIGHT be railway workers are indeed paid to do nothing, in the dole queue.

This is your fine railway of the 21st century which some Conservatives seem to think is overmanned and is STILL mysteriously losing money.

Nail/Head.


Its a matter of pride. Or rather ordinary people not being allowed to have any.

 

[Flamingo]

Well, when I compare the railways of today with the railways of my youth it is clear that lots of railway workers are paid to do nothing. Look at any town railway station in the 1950s and you would see a host of men working for the railway - a stationmaster, overseeing a host of porters and clerks; busy sidings with shunters and guards, a loco depot employing drivers, firemen, cleaners, fitters, boilermen, a manned signal box every few hundred yards, a lot of complex permanent way which needed local gangs to oversee, the railway would have been a large local employer in almost any town ... move on fifty years and you will probably see no more than two or three people around the station, all the sidings, depots, signalboxes have gone as have nearly all the jobs. But, hey, look here are some people still employed - not by the railway but by a security firm, people who know or care nothing about railways and who might have alternative gainful employment as nightclub bouncers, standing at the barriers in a block to try to catch some hapless commuter who boarded his driver-only train from a station with no ticket office and a broken machine. Let's see what we can screw him for, guys!

Meanwhile people who MIGHT be railway workers are indeed paid to do nothing, in the dole queue.

This is your fine railway of the 21st century which some Conservatives seem to think is overmanned and is STILL mysteriously losing money.

Funny, a lot of the stories I hear from old-timers are about staff having to work 16 hour shifts to make a decent wage, endemic theft and embezzlement by staff of all grades, laziness, drunkenness and fiddles galore, short-cuts that were dangerous but a blind eye was turned unill something went wrong, and above all, conditions for staff being nothing short of horrendous.

But these might just be mess-room stories to make us feel better as we all do such a crap job.

 

[dk1]

Funny, a lot of the stories I hear from old-timers are about staff having to work 16 hour shifts to make a decent wage, endemic theft and embezzlement by staff of all grades, laziness, drunkenness and fiddles galore, short-cuts that were dangerous but a blind eye was turned unill something went wrong, and above all, conditions for staff being nothing short of horrendous.

But these might just be mess-room stories to make us feel better as we all do such a crap job.

Happy days

 

[Greenback]

Funny, a lot of the stories I hear from old-timers are about staff having to work 16 hour shifts to make a decent wage, endemic theft and embezzlement by staff of all grades, laziness, drunkenness and fiddles galore, short-cuts that were dangerous but a blind eye was turned unill something went wrong, and above all, conditions for staff being nothing short of horrendous.

But these might just be mess-room stories to make us feel better as we all do such a crap job.

Sounds very much like a couple of places where I used to work...

 

[Flamingo]

Sounds very much like a couple of places where I used to work...

You worked at Reading?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Funny, a lot of the stories I hear from old-timers are about staff having to work 16 hour shifts to make a decent wage, endemic theft and embezzlement by staff of all grades, laziness, drunkenness and fiddles galore, short-cuts that were dangerous but a blind eye was turned unill something went wrong, and above all, conditions for staff being nothing short of horrendous.

All rings true to me . . . . and more. (though it wasn't just the railways that, er, "enjoyed" such a lax, hazardous, poorly paid and inefficient culture in the post war decades).