Woah woah woah! I've just been shouted at by a mod in the virgin thread for bringing up the DB news so your not allowed to talk about virgin jobs here! Only fair!!
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DB Cargo planning almost 900 job losses
- Thread starter CosherB
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Woah woah woah! I've just been shouted at by a mod in the virgin thread for bringing up the DB news so your not allowed to talk about virgin jobs here! Only fair!!
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R
RailUK Forums
I've already shown where your accusation was way off the mark.
If you feel a need to widen your point perhaps a thread discussing loss of jobs at DBC isn't really the place.
Start a thread discussing the merits or otherwise and I'll gladly give you my opinion. Doing it here is diluting disturbing news
It will be interesting to see how remote booking on will work as either way the company has to fork out for some kind of transportation as not all jobs finish where they started
As an example for a ballast turn
- drive to depot
- book on
- drive train to site and work as required
- get relief and travel back to depot by taxi
- drive home
with remote booking on it would be exactly the same, but how would it work for the relieving driver?
- drive to site, try and find some sort of parking (would the company pay for any parking charges?)
- book on
- relieve train
- work as required then drive train back to a yard
then they would still need to get a taxi to pick up their car
Tablets overall aren't the issue though as it beats carrying all the publications separately and your always going to be up to date as long as you have a location (fixed depot) where you can get a hard copy if it was to fail.
As an example for a ballast turn
- drive to depot
- book on
- drive train to site and work as required
- get relief and travel back to depot by taxi
- drive home
with remote booking on it would be exactly the same, but how would it work for the relieving driver?
- drive to site, try and find some sort of parking (would the company pay for any parking charges?)
- book on
- relieve train
- work as required then drive train back to a yard
then they would still need to get a taxi to pick up their car
Tablets overall aren't the issue though as it beats carrying all the publications separately and your always going to be up to date as long as you have a location (fixed depot) where you can get a hard copy if it was to fail.
The two drivers would probably either share a taxi, van, hire car or get conveyed to and from site by groundstaff....pretty much the same as now I suspect.
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Exactly my point, wouldn't make the company benefit anything
As for jobs that do start and finish in the same place I guess they would save if the job was to start at a different location from the depot, although if the traveling time is longer than their normal depot then the driver will have to potentially drive an extra 30min or so outside their booked hours which means and extra 1hr on top of their 11 and a half hour maximum turn length
At present No driving of either Train our Car/Van is allowed after the 11th hour. You can only travel as a passenger be it Train, Taxi or Bus.
Apart from the costs and overheads saved from not having numerous fixed depots around the country.
Add to that the real possibility that travelling to/from a loop or relieving point in the middle of nowhere could well be in the drivers own time and it's obvious where the cost savings will come from.
It could also free up planning and rostering - rather than working a diagram out where a driver needs transporting from depot to relieving point they could easily have the driver travelling, in their own time, to a point which maximises hours driving trains.
I'm not saying this will happen or that's it's a good thing - just showing why it could be implemented.
Russ Butler
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- 26 Oct 2016
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I pad, what is the issue with those.
As an airline pilot we operate paperless flight deck with all documents bar for the QRH, (emergency check list) and minimum equipment list (which you use to see if you can depart with a technical defect) being on the iPad only. This includes all navigator charts for airport layout, departure routes, arrival routes and instrument approaches.
The iPad is also used to calculate the take off performance, giving the required thrust settings and take off speeds. Obviousley both pilots have an iPad and if one is not working you may still depart.
I guess being an unemployed train driver is rather like being an unemployed pilot, you are very skilled in your own field but how many of those skills are transferable to other industries? From personal experience it is not a pleasant place to be.
As an airline pilot we operate paperless flight deck with all documents bar for the QRH, (emergency check list) and minimum equipment list (which you use to see if you can depart with a technical defect) being on the iPad only. This includes all navigator charts for airport layout, departure routes, arrival routes and instrument approaches.
The iPad is also used to calculate the take off performance, giving the required thrust settings and take off speeds. Obviousley both pilots have an iPad and if one is not working you may still depart.
I guess being an unemployed train driver is rather like being an unemployed pilot, you are very skilled in your own field but how many of those skills are transferable to other industries? From personal experience it is not a pleasant place to be.
I'm not a freight driver and am aware it's different to passenger crew but generally speaking, one of the losses from remote booking on would be interaction. If you book on at a depot, you might see one or two people to have a quick chat to, plus then the driver you relieve. Obviously you'd cut this down to just the driver you relieve. Staff interaction is good for morale but also knowledge sharing - a little tip on keeping the cab heater at the right temp, the all night coffee shop just out of sight of x loop etc. Plus at our depot there's all sorts of stuff up about sponsored events, shift swapping, days out etc.
Anyone who is interested in the impacts on DB's locomotive fleet should use the thread here. This thread can therefore be kept clear for the ongoing discussion around staffing.
Many thanks
Many thanks
Russ Butler
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- 5
At home base you would ask for a replacement to be brought to the aircraft, but if their was not time to get a replacement or you are down route we can dispatch with only one and not two working, obviously both pilots have one each. For the Airlines not carrying loads of documents saves a lot of fuel over a 60 aircraft fleet over the year. Electronic documents are easy and cheap to update as well.
Fuel saving for railways must be a consideration I guess. How many documents are required I do not know but the less you have to lug around the better and updates can be virtually instantaneous as long as you are in range of a mobile network transmitter.
Surely all the redundant freight drivers will be snapped up by other rail companies. Relations in the industry tell me they have huge route knowledge & are used to working on their own initiative. They will have to move location but so does everyone else outside the rail industry & they will have good pay off money to cushion the blow.
UK Rail freight is now very uncompetitive when compared to foreign truck drivers who will haul around the UK on 200 gallons of untaxed fuel & on wages per hour a fifth of UK train drivers & then go back to Poland or Hungary to pick up more UK bound freight. I have regularly seen Hungarian lorry drivers in Wakefield refuel from drums in their artic trailer. I hope our rail freight companies can cling on in business until things possibly change after brexit.
UK Rail freight is now very uncompetitive when compared to foreign truck drivers who will haul around the UK on 200 gallons of untaxed fuel & on wages per hour a fifth of UK train drivers & then go back to Poland or Hungary to pick up more UK bound freight. I have regularly seen Hungarian lorry drivers in Wakefield refuel from drums in their artic trailer. I hope our rail freight companies can cling on in business until things possibly change after brexit.
Andrewlong
Member
Both pilots have ipads. The risk of both failing at the same time is pretty small. If an ipad is that critical, a company smartphone could be provided as well as a backup.
I am in my mid 50s and work in the IT industry - everything is done on a PC or mobile phone. Calls are encouraged by Skype - this is something which could be installed on an ipad. I am regularly told that young people love technology and embrace it within their personal and work lives. It will come to the railway industry. Yes it's a pain in the bum when your device fails but I don't hear the argument that we shouldn't rely on cars because they can break down too!
Some will certainly find new homes with other companies, but with the sheer amount of redundancies being advertised there just isn't enough to reemploy them all...particularly as the other companies are feeling some sort of squeeze themselves.
AnonymousUser1
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unless it's case that the lumbering dinosaur legacy operator as DB have ended up as the legacy operator is it is fundamentally still EWS which is has a direct line to the sectors fo BR railfreight which is directly descended from Blue / Green era BR freight ops ...
No, I've read that three times and still haven't a clue what you're trying to say.
I've no idea what he's on about either!
43096
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It's not that hard....
I think he's making the point that DBC has a legacy stretching straight back to EWS and BR before that, with all the inherited staff T&Cs and working practices. Most of the other operators (DRS, Colas, GBRf, Freightliner Heavy Haul) are post-privatisation start-ups that have been able to take on staff on their terms, giving them a much more flexible, reliable workforce and none of the depot and working practice overheads that DBC has.
To my mind, this should have been dealt with by EWS/DB years ago, but it hasn't, which is symptomatic of weak management historically.
AnonymousUser1
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exactly DB are the 'legacy' operator in the railfreight market regardless of the name above the door the organisation is still fundamentally BR Railfreight , where other operators - in part because of EWS getting so much of BR Railfreight are 'clean sheet' operators ...
Thanks for the translation.
Obviously you're both unaware/oblivious/ignorant of all the DRI and restructuring that has taken place many times over the decades.
Unless you're going to compare the contracts of front line staff of the all FOCs and show us where DBC have been weak.
I won't hold my breath...:roll:
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