I don't know. But the fact is that they do go shopping in large numbers at that time of year - Boxing Day is the busiest single shopping day of the year, and you've little chance of getting parked at any retail park for the few days after either.
Since most retail parks are nowhere near a railway station, that may not be that good an argument for rail services on Boxing Day.
We can argue about the rights and wrongs of this consumerist world, but the reality is that Boxing Day is a very busy time of year for travelling (not just shopping but also the full set of sporting fixtures etc) - should the railway ignore this demand?
If there were to be trains on Boxing Day, that should be a commercial decision, based on the whether the services would cover their costs or not.
More and more people seem to work Boxing Day nowadays (whether on overtime or not) - is the railway a public service to meet people's travel demands?
It always nice to hear the phrase 'public service' - it is quite a while since anything in this country was treated as a public service, it's all about money these days.
It seems, though, that the cry of 'the railway is a public service' only comes up at this time of year and on this topic!!!
I think we've had a couple of previous threads locked because they "go over old ground" (unlike all the threads about Pacers, Voyagers etc)
Perhaps this one should be locked as well then!
Just for the record, I am not against rail services on Boxing Day. But I do believe that no one should be forced to work on that day if their contract does not specify it, and services should only be run if they are not a further drain on public subsidy.
Other than that, if there is a demand and there are staff who are willing to work, perhaps a limited service in many areas could be justified.
Mmm this thread was slightly late starting this year.
Please bear in mind as a railway employee I work in the private sector, yes the TOCS are private sector due to the fact they are err privatised.
Therefore I for one won't ever contemplate giving up my Christmas Day and boxing with my family and kids for any amount off pressure/money from anyone.
I am sure that you are not the only one. If I were still on the railway I would be of the same mind! That said, one or two colleagues did express a willingness to work Boxing Day, for various reasons, ranging from not beign quite so family focussed to wanting extra leave to go to Australia!
I'm not sure why the mods allow this to come up on a new thread each year, can't we just merge into any off the last how many years threads so we can all bask in the same old comments being regurgitated over and over.
I am becoming keener by the minute to close this thread!
If the idea is that nothing should interefere with the staff's Christmas Day then it wouldn't be fair to require them to be on duty on Boxing Day as they wouldn't be able to drink and may well not be able to stay up very late into the evening if they were required to be on duty for the start of serice on Boxing Day. This isn't a personal opinion, I'm just saying that running a service on Boxing Day can have an impact on Christmas Day for the staff.
Indeed it would. However, some staff may be quite willing to make these sacrifices! Thiose who aren't should be given the day off!
Just curious as to why people feel it's so "sacrosanct" to have Christmas Day as a non-working day, as it never used to be. In fact it's really quite a modern phenomenon and nothing to do with the religious festival
It's all about family friendly working, work life balance etc. To say that just because it used to be a normal working day for more people, it should be again, is a little akin to saying that children should be sent up chimneys again!
Of course, I realise that is not what you are saying!
As for Christmas being a religious festival, it never was, it was appropirated by the early Christians from the Pagan midwinter festivals as a way to encourage the pagans to convert to their 'new' religion!
