Er, hang on a tick...!!!
So you are saying train drivers are hustled?
Sometimes, yes.
Either way lorry drivers break the rules or train drivers do for their bosses. Either way both should not. It's down to the driver that is what I am saying. Buck stops with them. Not the bosses.
Yes, I agree. If you feel I've said otherwise perhaps you'd be kind enough to quote me.
Just as a reminder, you and I were talking about leaving a station with the wrong lights on the front of the train, not the incident referred to by the OP. I am not trying to shift the blame but explain why, very occasionally, this sort of thing happens.
But we are getting away from the point here. No one in charge of a train should be reading a newspaper or be showing the wrong lights. Is that too much to ask? To follow the rules? Sorry.
It's that simple.
I believe I may have been talking to the door again.
You're making a rather sizeable leap there, my friend. At no point are we talking about disregard for the rules. The chap reading the paper is a different matter (which I am by degrees coming onto), but missing something in your normal cab routine because you're in a hurry is an entirely different matter.
At face value you're right. In an ideal world the driver would never be put under pressure so that things like this don't happen. We get it drilled into us throughout our training that we should never rush in order that nothing gets missed. Run through your normal cab routine and make sure you're comfortable before you drive away. But the reality is completely different. We get hustled down platforms, TRS'ed even before we reach the cab (just
how do they know the train is ready to start...?), seem to get the "Close Doors" indication on the count of ten after we're seen entering the train, submit reports to account for the delay and then having to put up with endless notices and briefs about the importance of departing on-time. These two pressures are cannot be reconciled. When you're pressed for time you cannot do anything right. If you rush through your drill in order to speed up dispatch you run the risk of missing something, but if you stick to your routine you are likely to cause further delay.
And you would expect to get a job on the railways now saying that?
Oh, how little you know.
Do you think a driver sets out to have a SPAD or station overrun? There may be causes and reasons, but often times the underlying cause is that it was a mistake. What we do everyday of our working lives is to try and work in ways to ensure that such mistakes don't happen, to identify risky behaviours and situations, to be aware of lifestyle influences and to be on our guard against slipping up. It's called "Human Factors", and it has a large part in ensuring that the railways are safe. They may not necessarily be able to explain it to you very well, but every person who works as a driver, guard, signaller or in any other safety-critical grade is an expert on such matters.
Surely a driver doing something dangerous, when in charge of hundreds of people, isn't expected to be let off because everyone in the railway 'sticks together'?
This is a matter for FGW who will be able to ascertain information that we cannot. If this photo actually shows what it purports to, then the driver has been a very silly boy. The rules are very clear on such matters, as are each company's driving policies, and it is an unwise driver to ignore them.
I wouldn't like to think that there is some sort of "vigilante-ism" going on in order to oust staff because a person cannot always be 100% certain what they have seen. But in a case like this one where there appears to be clear photographic evidence of wrongdoing it then falls to the conscience of the person witnessing this event to decide whether or not to report it and I wouldn't like to dissuade anyone from making a direct approach to a person's employer. However, I've always been a staunch opponent of "trial by media" and, by extension, "trial by forum". As I said above, these matters are rightly dealt with under a company's disciplinary process.
I don't believe that this is "closing ranks" but simply an appeal to allow due process to follow it's course.
O L Leigh
I know you mean that mate,having been there yourself
