Is anyone else left wondering why the station infrastructure ie lighting etc has not been resolved over the last five years that the 701s have been parked up ? I am guessing that was Heidi Alexander who stood up and gave that information.
So the DfT ordered them to ensure that they didn't do anything over the last few years to ensure that platform lighting was up to standard and that they deliberately run sufficiently short of drivers so that they can't afford to release any for training?
Poor from the transport secretary to regurgitate the role of the guard, AFAIK the role of the guard on these trains was agreed in 2021 was it not?
All I’ll say is “Good luck with that one!”.
Yep you are correct, multiple guards are still being trained weekly at inner depots and unless theres fresh problems im not aware of, for her to bring this up sums them up to me.
I've been told by at least 3 sources that they have halted guard training? New Guards are still being trained on 455 Traction.
Yeah it wouldn’t make much sense to keep training up guards when there’s no active driver programme and therefore no new diagrams. Large majority would loose their competency rating (6 months from memory) before they were able to guard another 701, and then when eventually the driver training restarts they’d have to go through a refresher course.
701 guard training is still continuing, albeit at a reduced pace to before. 5Q02 is running right now which is a guard practical training run.
www.realtimetrains.co.uk
Your source is wrong. Guards are still being trained and assessed almost daily now.
What’s the point? You can’t exactly run extra services without a driver.
So that when driver training resumes in it's shortened, faster version, you don't run into the problem of having too many drivers trained and not enough guards?
Don’t the guards need to keep competency on both the 455s and 701s then? Seems a bit inefficient but this is SWR I guess.
"455/459/450/444 traction training is entirely separate to 701 Training" - New Metro Guard based at Wimbledon
The six diagrams probably have 20 different guards turns across the day so working one every six months should not be a problem.
And even on 458/5s - I saw one being trained last week.
I would certainly hope so (but I am over a decade out of the industry). Which union, or none, that a person subscribes to should not have a bearing on their chosen career path. I was NUR/RMT for most of my career, even though more than 50% of same was in clerical/Management grades. It was an individual's choice as far as I was concerned.
This morning I saw an April Fool's post elsewhere saying all the 701s would enter service today. To anyone with even an iota of railway knowledge, no-one was falling for that
Noticed just in passing a group of a dozen or so guard trainees at Guilford a few weeks back, but that was 455 related on p2.
This morning I saw an April Fool's post elsewhere saying all the 701s would enter service today. To anyone with even an iota of railway knowledge, no-one was falling for that
Reported elsewhere as 47739 701512/509
If it said by the end of 2026 I wouldn't believe it, never mind by the end of todayThis morning I saw an April Fool's post elsewhere saying all the 701s would enter service today. To anyone with even an iota of railway knowledge, no-one was falling for that
Talking of 2026, a quote from the current issue of Modern Railways, reporting Andrew Haines recently:If it said by the end of 2026 I wouldn't believe it, never mind by the end of today