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I had to laugh when I saw the press releases about ASLEF and RMT working together on DOO. I never thought it would last. Look what happened with Airdrie-Bathgate a few years ago. Quite frankly look at what happened between the two unions in 1982 when the ASLEF President threatened (in front of...

There is no absolute prohibition on DOO on Absolute Block lines.

'Safety critical' is not the same as 'Operationally critical'. Loads of jobs are safety critical but they are not an absolute requirement to run a train. A Lookout is a safety critical job but his role can be replaced by an automatic warning system for example.

11th Jan Mick is quoted on the ASLEF website saying that the Hayes trap and drag incident means there needs to be a Guard on every train. Less than a month later and there is an agreement to run additional trains on Southern without a Guard to operate the doors. Today's material from ASLEF...

Yes and yes.

I would suggest that there are reasons for doing this. Many of the people on this forum will disagree with the individual items on this list either on the basis of their view of the facts or because of their heartfelt beliefs about how the railway should operate. However, it is quite possible to...

The letter I got on Saturday says this (directly quoted from the letter). 'A Safety competent guard on every train - our current proposals maintain a safety competent guard on every Super Express Train and every Turbo cascaded to the West. This means that these trains will NOT be Driver Only...

This is not true as pointed out by someone else in the thread. --- old post above --- --- new post below --- Given a franchise that only runs to 2019 and trains that only arrive in 2017 they would have to act incredibly fast to get even the slightest saving from trying to do this. Seems...

Probably best not to encourage the use of track circuit clips if it was a derailment in an axle counter area...

So in post #1755 you said that FGW have been silent on competencies for on train staff. When they send out a letter saying Train Managers will keep all their safety competencies and the trains will not run without a competent Train Manager that is apparently misleading. There's no satisfying...

So the various letters I have had from FGW say that they are employing 100 extra on board staff. Some are Train Managers and some are Customer Hosts. So what they are saying is they are employing more Train Managers. The letter I got yesterday said the Train Managers would keep all their...

While I can absolutely understand that people have different views about this issue it simply isn't true that dispatch incidents like West Wickham would not happen with a Guard on board. Elsewhere I in this thread (post #1660) I linked some detailed statistics about PTI fatalities since 2001 for...

At busy stations I can understand your point. However IEP on FGW (and East Coast for that matter) will operate from some small stations that are never going to have dispatch staff.

Of course these are all PTI fatalities and not just those related to DOO or even to boarding and alighting. For 2013/14 there were no PTI fatalities related to boarding and alighting, they were all related to passengers falling in front of trains (see page 222 of this report)...

It was a new service so Southeastern were able to decide how it was operated. Someone in Southeastern tells me that RMT did not have trade union recognition for the on board staff to start off with. Apparently as part of an arrangement to get official recognition RMT had to accept that the...

For those of you who are following what is actually going on in FGW you might have spotted that this isn't about DOO at all any more. It is about who controls the doors. The latest proposals have Guards on all trains in FGW that are not already DOO. So this dispute pretty much boils down to who...

I just asked my manager and he told me. I also asked about the extra jobs. Nothing to do with natural wastage apparently. There would be Train Managers on Pad-Oxfords which means more. We have had stuff through the post explaining that. The extra Customer Hosts are because more trains will have...

The track is the same, the routes are the same, the passengers are the same, the risks are the same. What is going to change overnight to make a Guard unnecessary? But the track, routes and risks are the same for the Turbos already running from Paddington to Reading operated only by the...

I do have some sympathy with FGW over this though. If the RMT's position is that there must be a fully qualified Guard on all trains at all times it is a bit difficult to negotiate with them on the detail of an alternative proposal! I thought what FGW had proposed was quite clear actually. Maybe...

The Anglia Control is fully integrated like Wessex. The Network Rail RCM supervises all staff on duty: NR and TOC. Under NXEA the integration went even further. The NR and NXEA Control Manager roles were combined. NR and NXEA shared the cost of the post and the manager had objectives set by both...