One of the joys of working on the railway is the lack of brown nosing and sucking up,
Wry smile at this!
To be fair, I can't fully work out if you're being ironic or not, however certainly where I am there's very much more than a small dose of brown nosing and sucking up.
We had the person who took a load of company-branded cups from the depot and gifted them to the BTP, it being no coincidence that the gentleman concerned was going for promotion at the time, and gently suggesting that the BTP "put a word in" to management. This little stunt went spectacularly wrong when a senior manager coincidentally visited the depot and went to make a cup of tea, and wanted to know where all the branded cups had gone, and was on the verge of calling the BTP to investigate! That would certainly have been an interesting one.
Then we had the brand newby driver who was known for taking every opportunity to get face in company magazine. She managed to wangle assisting with the movement of a defective train, which was sufficiently defective that the move had to be partially unbraked and had not one but three separate defects meaning this was way beyond what is covered in training. Suffice to say she *didn't* end up in the magazine, after having to be prevented from making a few rather major errors along the way.
On the subject of guards intervening, I tend to agree that in practice it's probably not the best thing to do. However, never forget the 1975 Moorgate collision where had the guard been on top of his game there was an opportunity to foresee what was going to happen and take preventative action. I'm sure I remember there's been one or two mishaps on the mainline over the years, the Eltham Well Hall derailment spring to mind where I think in that instance the guard did attempt to attract the driver's attention but it was too little too late.