"Shocking increase in passengers being attacked on Britain's trains"

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In respect of the staff who are at stations or on trains, what specialised training do they receive in order that they can deal with the type of behaviour mentioned in the first posting on this thread?

There may be cases where there will be a number of miscreants in a group to deal with. What is the union recommended course of action that these staff are expected to follow in such cases where they are clearly outnumbered by those intent upon troublemaking.

I made this posting in a direct response to the comments made by a certain personage on the very first posting on the thread that made reference to the lessening of railway staff, so not being a member of rail staff, I asked these two questions to obtain knowledge of what currently employed staff do in situations that shall we say are "fraught".

I still await an answer to these two questions.

 

[DarloRich]

Paul - why does it matter what the union say? They don't offer the staff training the employer does that and sets the policy. But you must know that.........

 

[3141]

It would be interesting to have detailed figures about assaults on Chiltern since their trains south of Banbury have been DOO for twenty years. If we could compare the rate of incidents on their trains with the rate on some comparable services with a guard, we might gain some factual evidence on the subject.

In some cases the presence of another member of staff on a train may help deter those likely to assault someone, but guards aren't police officers, and their ability to intervene is limited. Some guards do spend their time in the rear cab, for reasons that may be understandable in certain conditions.

Of course people like Mick Cash use a report like this for their own purposes.

 

[yorkie]

Paul - why does it matter what the union say?

If only the journalist had the same view

As for what the Union say, rather like my union, it's a load of rather extreme, yet predictable, views that doesn't stand up to scrutiny and we'd all be best without hearing! Well that's my opinion anyway :P
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Of course people like Mick Cash use a report like this for their own purposes.

Absolutely!

 

[DarloRich]

If only the journalist had the same view

As for what the Union say, rather like my union, it's a load of rather extreme, yet predictable, views that doesn't stand up to scrutiny and we'd all be best without hearing!

as i said the journo knows they will get a quote and a decent one. It is easy for them to complete their copy. Would you prefer only to hear form ATOC or the Conservatives?

Oddly whilst i am sure you are right, my union is nothing like that.
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Absolutely!

The same as every politician offered a platform? Are people so naive? The point of the article, despite what some on here would like to suggest, is not what Mick Cash has to say ( that is a quote to offer colour and context the same as the BTP quote) BUT that the level of crime on the railways may have gone up

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

BUT that the level of crime on the railways may have gone up

A couple of reasons were put forward in the very first posting on this thread as to why that MAY that have been the case on the railways, but looking at the bigger picture and in all other facets of British society today, if all the cumulative reasons cited over the last ten years by the judiciary, Probation Officers, Prison Officers, Victim Support Groups, Social Workers, Head Teachers, etc, the list of all these reasons would be far too long to incorporate in this thread.

 

[HH]

Is there any evidence to link the crimes with areas that have seen reduced staffing? Didn't think so.

Numbers of railway staff have increased substantially since privatisation.

I also note the article states: “This is the first increase in the rate since 2008-09".

Finally, there are at least two reasons why you should take such numbers with a bushel of salt:

1. Fairly small (and possibly one-off) increases can simply be down to the workings of chance

2. Changes can also be down to external factors, such as increased reporting by members of the public, different categorisation by the police, etc.

Basically it's a non-story.

 

[DarloRich]

A couple of reasons were put forward in the very first posting on this thread as to why that MAY that have been the case on the railways, but looking at the bigger picture and in all other facets of British society today, if all the cumulative reasons cited over the last ten years by the judiciary, Probation Officers, Prison Officers, Victim Support Groups, Social Workers, Head Teachers, etc, the list of all these reasons would be far too long to incorporate in this thread.

Agreed - it isn't a problem to tackle in isolation. Although despite what the media seem to suggest crime doesn't fell perceptually higher ( in general or on the railway) to me.

 

[TDK]

The root cause of an increase in assaults is down to DOO? I wouldn't switch jobs to criminology anytime soon.

Reasons for an increase in crime are manifold and complex. One type of railway operation explaining the increase across the board? I think not.

It's easy to spout opinion but without detailed analysis and statistically robust evidence it means nothing.

Read the post properly and then criticise please. Your post mirrors my comments :roll::roll:

 

[bnm]

Read the post properly and then criticise please. Your post mirrors my comments :roll::roll:

Huh?

You said "If for instance there are more assaults on trains where there is DOO then yes it is down to the lack of a guard on the trains that is the root cause to the increase."

I'm questioning your conclusion that if there's been an increase of assaults on DOO trains, the lack of a guard is the root cause of that increase.

 

[Carlisle]

Huh?

You said "If for instance there are more assaults on trains where there is DOO then yes it is down to the lack of a guard on the trains that is the root cause to the increase."

I'm questioning your conclusion that if there's been an increase of assaults on DOO trains, the lack of a guard is the root cause of that increase.

The report is referring to happenings over the last decade. During that period there's barely been any increase in either the number of totally unmanned stations or completely DOO trains so Its hard to see either of those being a major factor in its findings

 

[ANorthernGuard]

I find it quite shocking that the Macc/Stoke line is by far the worst locally for anti-social behaviour since it is one which has many stations in the most affluent towns and villages in the North-West. Now worried about my family in Congleton who live near the station, is this in fact a Cheshire No-Go Area? Tory thugs buying champagne and using the bottles as deadly weapons? Or is this the only Northern line where local yobs can afford to use the train?

Most of the troublemakers get off at Cheadle Hulme, Poynton and Macclesfield with a few at Congleton (but not many). I have no idea why its so Anti Social but I dread working the late ones on a Fri/Sat Night.

 

[Starmill]

Most of the troublemakers get off at Cheadle Hulme, Poynton and Macclesfield with a few at Congleton (but not many). I have no idea why its so Anti Social but I dread working the late ones on a Fri/Sat Night.

You get a lot of unsavoury types on all 4 of those routes south out of Manchester in the evenings I find. Was on the last train from Macc to Manchester the other Saturday (having come from Birmingham) - it was all quiet until we got there, and then there was the invasion of the drunks!

They don't seem as bad as some of my fare-evading, scummy neighbours though :roll:

 

[the sniper]

It would be interesting to see some professional analysis of the numbers to see what difference there is between urban areas with DOO/unmanned stations and a more traditionally staffed urban TOC, like Merseyrail. Personally I have no doubt that having a visual deterrent makes a difference. That's not a railway specific thing, it's just common sense that visual deterrents help in some way or another to prevent some crimes.

I made this posting in a direct response to the comments made by a certain personage on the very first posting on the thread that made reference to the lessening of railway staff, so not being a member of rail staff, I asked these two questions to obtain knowledge of what currently employed staff do in situations that shall we say are "fraught".

I still await an answer to these two questions.

Personally I've only had one common assault (by battery) on my train, out of the thousands I've worked. This was two guys who kicked off with each other big style. An entirely separate hen-do than got involved to try a break it up. I got involved as someone pushed the pass comm about three minutes into the journey. I had to literally climb over the seats to get to the front of the train, due to fleeing mothers and pushchairs blocking the aisle, on what was a late but busy train. I reset the pass comm having spoke to the driver on it (no one else had clearly), then got the women to back off to protect them. I then pushed the pass comm myself as the situation was getting further out of hand and told the driver we needed to stop at the next station (we were semi-fast) before someone got hurt, what with the next booked stop 10 minutes away. We stopped two minutes later, got one of them to leave, the other refused. The driver rang the signaller, I rang control and a Cross Country TM who'd come to assist me from the other carriage rang BTP. While stood on the platform I then noticed that there was an off duty BTP officer I knew sat behind the drivers cab, right behind where these two had been scrapping. He, for reasons I half appreciated, me being ex-BTP, at no point made himself known to anyone including myself, who he recognised. Anyway, once everything had by then calmed down he offered to deal with the guy who was still on the train. We ended up going forward with this remaining guy, the PC babysitting him and there were no more problems. We only lost 10 minutes and made half of that back by the time we got to our destination.

Now I'll admit, I had no intention of going through that train to do tickets, but when the crap hit the fan I was there to sort it out. I know many Guards who have got involved in similar ways in situations like this. I've personally got involved in trying to control other incidents too, though non quite as dangerous as this, more just antisocial behaviour. If I hadn't got involved in this incident as quickly as I did I honestly believe one of the women from the hen-do would have got hurt, and all hell would have broken loose. Now obviously HH and bnm think me and the TM who assisted me are useless wastes of money and we just prevented the driver sorting all this out by himself, but for me it's obvious that having a second member of staff helped deal with this situation successfully.

I hate having this conversation but just last night I had a stone thrown at the rear carriage of my train. I was in the back cab, stood at the open window as the train left the platform. I just saw what was going to happen, I then heard the huge clang. Almost immediately (after we'd left the platform) I went to check everything/everyone was okay. Some of the passengers were quite shocked, as it was one hell of a noise, particularly one girl who was sat next to the impact who actually had a bit of ringing in her ear such was the sound. None of them knew what had happened though as it was dark. The girl had initially thought it was a bomb! Anyway I rang BTP and afterwards talked to the passengers again. The Driver obviously knew nothing about this until I called him on the cab to cab. It's another occasion where having a Guard was clearly beneficial. And for the avoidance of any doubt, I swear on my mother's life this is all true!

It's when I have incidents like this one tonight that I drag myself back into this argument on here, I struggle to hold back my indignance at the attitude shown by some on here who are desperate to belittle us, our role and prove how pointless we are. And for what end? Any money saved by DOO expansion will not benefit any of the cheerleaders for it on here in any way...

As for what the union tell me to do Paul, I have no idea. Probably the same as the company, avoid getting into conflict with people. You seem to be a far closer follower of what the union says than most railwaymen I know. If I'm being entirely honest Paul, I've got a lot of respect for you as a poster on here, but I'm finding your hang up with the RMT somewhat tiresome and your belief that we all pay some great deference to the union we're in a little bit insulting.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Most of the troublemakers get off at Cheadle Hulme, Poynton and Macclesfield with a few at Congleton (but not many). I have no idea why its so Anti Social but I dread working the late ones on a Fri/Sat Night.

Good to hear that Bramhall, Adlington and Prestbury are not cited by you...

I have yet to have been in any Prestbury restaurant on a Saturday evening when there has been any hint of anti-social behaviour whatsoever. All the 4 x 4 are always neatly parked in their respective car park bays.
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As for what the union tell me to do Paul, I have no idea. Probably the same as the company, avoid getting into conflict with people. You seem to be a far closer follower of what the union says than most railwaymen I know. If I'm being entirely honest Paul, I've got a lot of respect for you as a poster on here, but I'm finding your hang up with the RMT somewhat tiresome and your belief that we all pay some great deference to the union we're in a little bit insulting.

It is only when I see the arcane Socialist style of wording attributed to a certain union General Secretary in the year 2015 that my hackles rise and mentally, I am immediately transported back in time to the late 1960's / early 1970's, Red Robbo and all.

I do confess that since retirement and more so from 2012 when I suffered from that stroke, unlike the times when I had the common sense as a member of Senior Management NOT to let such matters bother me, I do indeed seem prone to being affected by the reading of such arcane trades union language from 40/50 years ago that I thought had long moved out of the union movement in their modernisation structures, so I make this apology to any trades union member upset at my comments but to understand that there are medical reasons outside my control which can make me appear to have a Jekyll and Hyde perceived personage.

 

[crehld]

As someone who has suffered a violent assault and robbery on a train I am well aware that it happens. It wasn't a particularly late service (8pm ish) and neither was it a busy city centre service (Eastleigh to Fareham). Nor did drink and drugs appear to play a part; I had an innocuous ruck sack which the offender thought would be of worth. There happened to be three staff in the carriage at the same time doing a ticket check, so their presence had no impact in preventing the crime, for which the responsibility lay squarely with the offender in question.

The incident has not put me off travelling by train, mainly because i do not believe the risk of being assaulted on a train to be disproportionately higher than that of walking down the street at night.

 

[Bodiddly]

As things are today, it's more likely you will be verbally abused by what can be described as an ordinary person than your stereo-typical chav. People are at breaking point when they travel on the railways when things are not going their way and perfectly reasonable people turn into hate filled yobs when they see a uniform to vent off at. I know, I've been directly in the firing line of a female senior citizen who had a go at me because we had to cancel a set due to a technical problem which left a single 158 on an already bursting Inverness to Edinburgh service. All I did was to ask her to vacate the failed set and move into the service one. I thought she was going to get violent with me and with us being engineering, we don't get any training in how to appease angry customers. I walked away from her and luckily enough a member of dispatch staff took over and seemed to deal with it. It is not a position I would like to find myself in again.
Like them or loathe them Paul, the railway trade unions are not going away and I would be a bit miffed if they didn't speak up about violence towards staff. It is and never will be acceptable to put up with violence at the workplace.

 

[Antman]

As things are today, it's more likely you will be verbally abused by what can be described as an ordinary person than your stereo-typical chav. People are at breaking point when they travel on the railways when things are not going their way and perfectly reasonable people turn into hate filled yobs when they see a uniform to vent off at. I know, I've been directly in the firing line of a female senior citizen who had a go at me because we had to cancel a set due to a technical problem which left a single 158 on an already bursting Inverness to Edinburgh service. All I did was to ask her to vacate the failed set and move into the service one. I thought she was going to get violent with me and with us being engineering, we don't get any training in how to appease angry customers. I walked away from her and luckily enough a member of dispatch staff took over and seemed to deal with it. It is not a position I would like to find myself in again.
Like them or loathe them Paul, the railway trade unions are not going away and I would be a bit miffed if they didn't speak up about violence towards staff. It is and never will be acceptable to put up with violence at the workplace.

Rail rage is much the same as road rage I guess? A friend of mine is a BTP officer and he has been called to deal with irate passengers, in most cases once they've calmed down they are actually perfectly reasonable.

 

[asylumxl]

Like them or loathe them Paul, the railway trade unions are not going away and I would be a bit miffed if they didn't speak up about violence towards staff. It is and never will be acceptable to put up with violence at the workplace.

Worth pointing out that the RSSB report the article is quoting shows that violence towards staff has remained stagnant while public on public violence has increased, even when normalised against the increase in journeys.

 

[misterredmist]

Looking at the stats, that appears to be ca. 8 incidents per day on the Railway , which given the size of the network, the pax numbers involved and the various issues at play, does not seem that many

However, whilst there have been some interesting posts on whether guards / BTP make a difference in preventing such flare ups, it seems perfectly reasonable that matters are more likely to be sorted out with additional train staff than with DOO trains -

I suppose a lot of it comes down to US though . We, as the fare paying passenger, given the choice of an extra couple of pound per journey on our tickets to afford more staff / BTP , what would we decide ?

When all is said and done, we all look for the cheapest options possible, and therefore, we end up with what we pay for....

 

[TUC]

So they've gone from an average of around 3 per day to 4 per day. Hardly a 'shocking increase'.

 

[bnm]

So they've gone from an average of around 3 per day to 4 per day. Hardly a 'shocking increase'.

That's a 33% increase...

 

[TUC]

Z

That's a 33% increase...

Changes in small numbers always make big percentages. That's just a statistical quirk.

 

[jimm]

That's a 33% increase...

From, as the previous posters point out, a pretty low base in the context of the numbers of trains operating each day and passengers using them, which have, of course, both grown considerably in the past couple of decades.

And figures from the Office for National Statistics earlier this year showed violent crime increasing across England and Wales, so the 'shocking figures' would appear to simply represent general crime trends anyway, from which the railways are hardly likely to be immune. The report linked to below says that there were signs that the increase was also partly down to more reports of violence being made to the police and better procedures in recording those reports after concerns about the reliability of previous figures.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11362013/Violent-crime-surges-16-in-new-figures.html

 

[broadgage]

Fear of possible trouble is almost a big a deterrent to travel as actual violence. And the actions of both Network Rail & Highway authorities contribute to making matters worse by providing structures / locations where "undesirables" can (and do sometimes) lurk, out of sight until you get near them.

Subways - would you willingly use a poorly lit subway - on your own - at night ?

Footbridges - the older types with lattice structures made it easy to spot if anyone was there; the newer types with high, solid parapets make it impossible to see if anyone is lurking there. Removal of boarded crossings may satisfy "safety obsessed types", but I, for one, felt safer on a boarded crossing than in a "quiet" subway or on a "mainly enclosed" footbridge.

Agree, I avoid ill lit subways at night, and in the case of a road crossing prefer to take my chances with the traffic in many places.
In the case of a subway or enclosed footbridge used to cross a railway, I have exceptionally crossed the line illegally rather than risk the subway or footbridge.
Fear of crime certainly puts me off late night public transport in some areas, and having been attacked and robbed twice on railway premises, this fear is not irrational but is based on experience.
I have often taken a taxi when in theory a train would have been sensible, due to the risk of robbery.
My negative experiences are based on south east London.

I have no access to reliable data as to whether crime on trains and in stations is getting worse or not, but I have a "gut feeling" that it is getting worse.
I feel that a lot of thefts, some of them violent, go unreported because the victim believes that nothing is to be gained by reporting it.
In other cases the victim has fought back and wishes to avoid police contact lest they be considered the guilty party.

 

[HH]

Ah those gut feelings. Tricky things those; hard to disprove them...

 

[CaptainHaddock]

So they've gone from an average of around 3 per day to 4 per day. Hardly a 'shocking increase'.

Indeed. When reading a "shocking" report in the media it's always important to ask who is behind publicising the report and what their ulterior motive is. What a coincidence that the RMT and TUC should be promoting this report just as some TOCs are considering doing away with on train staff!

 

[SPADTrap]

I suppose its one of them things isn't it, until it happens to you or your family or someone you know..

 

[meridian2]

I suppose its one of them things isn't it, until it happens to you, your family or someone you know..

But what has that got to do with the blatant attempt at hyperbole on display here?

 

[SPADTrap]

But what has that got to do with the blatant attempt at hyperbole on display here?

Nothing, I was just pointing out that god forbid you or anyone you know becomes that 4th person, I think most would agree that any increase is too much?