Recent content by Leuvenn

I would be interesting in seeing a full schedule for the Britannic Explorer and British Pullman. I was shocked to hear they don't run at all from January to May

I have a follow on question. Do the guards on charter services require route knowledge?

They also predicted that the post-Covid inflation was "transitory". The job of these organisations isn't to be impartial, it's to support the work of governments. Recessions are a fact of capitalism. The question is not if but when.

Of all the industries, the railways are the most reselient to adverse economic situations. It's not just the unions, it's our place within the transport industry. Without the railways, economic growth becomes fairly difficult to maintain, with as much as 20% of the nation relying on passenger...

Barnstaple station has a special place in my heart. Since using it first in 1999, I've seen this part of the Tarka Line grow and grow. Over the past few years it's had an increase in passenger traffic, which not all branch lines can say. I think there's a lot of opportunity in this role. Last...

The TSSA are bad at being an effective union. Any pay deal they agree with the Rail Delivery Group can only go through once the RMT agree a separate one.

Thank you all, this has been incredible helpful

A couple of years back I saw a book with an intricate diagram of all the Rail maps in the West Midlands. It was at a WH Smiths of all places :) I don't know where to find anything like this. Google is now help and neither is Amazon. Any help would be much appreciated

My brother in Christ, we have the world wide web at our finger tips. When a Union wins something, they share it somewhere. A Google search got your hear, it can get a source.

Collective Bargaining in TOCs is often inherited from British Rail agreements from the 1950's-1980's. Open Access operators are brand new and so CB agreements have to be fought for by a given union. This is not a straightforward process and can take years, just for one grade. The RMT have...

Open Access have less of a Union presence, so even if your place is a part of RailPen, consider it a temporary affair.

A lot of people, I guess bruised by a LU strike or two, have got in their head the Train Drivers do nothing but press buttons. I guess it's technically true, but so do Accountant and Bankers. We shouldn't live by this weird Victorian idea that the more physical your job is the more money you...

It's as easy as it sounds. Anyone can do it. To be fair, it's a minor part of a fairly comprehensive role which is divided between three members of staff (Driver, Guard and Paddington's Dispatch Supervisor). It's easy to miss unless you're keen and fairly ancillary to the overall service. Only...

It's a mix of laziness and pragmatism. The reservations are easy to input but also easy to mess up. If you're not careful you'll have reservations showing the wrong coach numbers, which causes needless confusion and delay. As a guard, if you are only going 20 mins to Reading, why bother...

No train bound for Taunton is allowed to start DOO from Paddington. But you're not far off. In essence what happened, like as not, was that the TM was only going as far as Reading anyway and just forgot to activate the reservations. Either a Driver or Guard change caused them to reactivate at...