Daily Telegraph train conductor article, 10th June

[Pyewipecarshed]

‘I earn £38k as a train guard – fare dodgers help me top up my income’

Secret life of a train conductor: taxpayers are footing the bill of a huge bureaucracy

www.telegraph.co.uk

Another dubious article in the media about the working life of a member of railway staff. I can't decide if it is AI generated or if an actual staff member has been interviewed and edited/misquoted/re-written to oblivion, but obvious howlers are;

1- the person is quoted as being in the job for three years but talks about Covid timetables which were generally four or more years ago.
2- we are told that this person loves the extra income that commission on ticket sales brings, but then that they are quite happy to lose a full day's pay on a regular basis due to strikes.
3- it is claimed that you "need to know somebody" to get the job; this was the case in certain roles (such as maintenance depots) until c.ten years ago, but IME has not been a feature in the conductor role for over twenty years.
4- it is stated that the tests you take to become a conductor are not transferable and you need to do them again if you move companies. Again not the case; many (most/all?) TOC's are happy to take qualified conductors from elsewhere without submitting them for the tests again, as long as they have one year's experience or more.

And so on! It seems the article has been written to deliberately provoke anti rail staff bile, and looking at the comments on it, it has achieved its goal.

 

[Welly]

I have stopped reading the Daily Toerag in the past 2 years.

 

[AlterEgo]

The article is almost certainly ghostwritten by someone with an agenda. The guard here reckons they saw an RPI penalty faring a crying woman but they would have said “don’t worry about it”. Well, guards can’t issue PFs. So.

 

[styles]

I heard a call-in interview last week with a similar point of view. It was a guard or RPI talking about the commission they earn, though they weren't singing the praises of this commission approach in quite the same way.

If this is a real guard, they're likely not a very smart one. I mean:

Sometimes you can go a whole shift doing nothing but watching Netflix or catching up on sleep. It happens roughly every fortnight now, but when we first came out of Covid restrictions and weren’t running a full service, I barely worked a train for a month and a half.

If you have this sort of cushty setup, you don't put it all at risk by going to the national papers; well, not unless you really believe in reforming the system, even if it puts your job at risk. Drawing your employer's, politicians', and the public's attention to your literal sleeping on the job, I mean really.

 

[TheSmiths82]

That newspaper is designed to get rich Tory pensioners angry about things. It is just a slightly posher version of the Daily Mail. "Look at these train staff earning a fortune daring to want to go on strike while your taxes pay their wages". Anything to divert the truth away from the tax dodging billionaires that often own such publications.

 

[sor]

This is the calibre of the modern Torygraph:

Telegraph withdraws banker school fees story after being deceived by source

Fake Telegraph article about rich banker struggling to afford school fees was result of deception by a source.

pressgazette.co.uk

It told the story of investment banker Al Moy, 38, and wife Alexandra who have a joint salary of £345,000 with two children at fee-paying schools. The pair were also said to have a daughter, called Ali, a son called Harry and a two-year-old called Barry.


It recounts how the couple have had to switch from Waitrose to Sainsburys, cut the gardener back to once a month and are taking less long-haul foreign holidays in order to make ends meet after the addition of VAT to school fees.


Journalist Ian Fraser first flagged up concerns about the piece on Bluesky noting that it was illustrated with stock images which were taken 13 years ago. He could also find no trace of bankers called Al and Alexandra Moy anywhere online except in the Daily Telegraph piece.


A spokesperson for Telegraph Media Group said: “On 25th May, we published an article in our Money section based on a case study. After publication it became clear that during his conversations and other communications with us the case study had provided us with false information. We unpublished the article and started a thorough investigation.

and to think the former government decided this newspaper was in desperate need of protection from foreign ownership...

 

[greatkingrat]

If you have this sort of cushty setup, you don't put it all at risk by going to the national papers; well, not unless you really believe in reforming the system, even if it puts your job at risk. Drawing your employer's, politicians', and the public's attention to your literal sleeping on the job, I mean really.

I took that to mean they were referring to sitting spare regularly, rather than actually sleeping while working a train.

 

[styles]

I took that to mean they were referring to sitting spare regularly, rather than actually sleeping while working a train.

That was my reading also. But I still wouldn't want to draw this to the attention of politicians and the public. Before they know it, someone will start some sort of shift/rota review to try and 'drive out inefficiencies' or something.

Enjoy your Netflix and nap, but probably don't go to the nationals about it!