Guard / Conductor / Train Manager terminology

[HH]

Throwing the cat among the pigeons, I seem to recall that DOO has been shown to be safer than Driver & Guard. Ah yes, here it is.

 

[craigwilson]

Throwing the cat among the pigeons, I seem to recall that DOO has been shown to be safer than Driver & Guard. Ah yes, here it is.

Maybe the passenger trying to alight at Erith who posted recently might disagree with that!!

 

[OxtedL]

That incident at Erith wasn't as a direct result of DOO. It could still have happened with a guard, as it is a driver mistake which the guard has to notice, so it's difficult to use it as an strong case against DOO.

It particularly wouldn't have been prevented on a non-DOO route where the driver opens the doors.

 

[Urban Gateline]

Very unlikely to happen, but imagine if the Guard was in the rear coach or even the rear cab, and failed to see that the last coach was not fully accomodated on the platform at a station, and then they open the local door, step out and fall down and injure themselves, leaving a potentially dangerous situation.

Yes its hypothetical, but with human error, it can be easy to make such an oversight, especially when its dark!

 

[TUC]

The key question has to be, if you were designing a rail system today with a blank sheet of paper, would you create an on-train staff structure with these types of distinctions? The answer would almost certainly be no

 

[BestWestern]

Throwing the cat among the pigeons, I seem to recall that DOO has been shown to be safer than Driver & Guard. Ah yes, here it is.

Perhaps you should read it again; that document states two or three times that neither method has been shown to be generically safer than the other, according to them anyway. However, as we all well know, anything which involves figures can be conveniently skewed and twisted to suit, particularly if any other outcome might be derogatory to the intended cause. There is no way that anybody in authority will ever admit that DOO is less safe, despite the obvious fact that having double the competent staff on board is very clearly the safer option. Try telling anybody who has ever been mugged or beaten up on a late night DOO service that having no staff available is acceptable. Try looking beyond the puppet McNulty and his flawed 'report' and see the real cause of the ludicrous cost of running the railway - the flood of taxpayer's cash being used to protect the profit margins of the private companies who happily preside over the woefully inefficient way the system collects it's income from customers, or indeed doesn't.

Axing the jobs of thousands of innocent staff is to bark up totally the wrong tree. Scrap the Guards, cut the ticket offices and station staff, and what do you have? A free railway. Make no mistake, people will not pay through the nose for tickets if it becomes common knowledge that there is nobody at any point in your journey to check them. The odd visit from a couple of RPI's won't stop it either. Our railways will become a national freebie, a standing joke. Look at London's bendy buses. Within weeks it became apparent to users that tickets were no longer required. Fare evasion soared. The Government has said publicly that it wants to cut subsidy and increase the share the passengers pay. Yet at the same time TOC's are free to dispense with their Revenue Protection staff, leave gatelines open and make as little effort as possible to collect any money in order to qualify for handouts from the Government. Guards are rapidly becoming the last line of defence against the afore-mentioned free railway system. Doing away with these vital staff will cost many times more in lost revenue that it could ever save in wages.

The proposals to allegedly save money by going DOO are a non-starter. It will more than likely creep, like a disease, over the network as new trains and signalling eventually arrives, but it will need to be a 'natural' process, doing it ahead of time won't save anything. Aside from the revenue issue there are various factors. For a start, you have to negotiate with the nation's train Drivers. Neither they nor their unions will accept the additional responsibilities of duties they currently do not have for anything less than a substantial reward. Never mind those who already do it, they signed their contracts, that's their problem. Door operation brings risks, and errors can end careers. Having nobody else on the train means becoming far more customer facing, and dealing with passenger incidents which at the moment they have no involvement in. Complaining punters when they get delayed. Passenger assistance and enquiries. Idiots on a friday night pulling Pass-Comms, walking back through the train entirely alone with nobody to back them up. The working environment expands from just the cosy confines of the front cab, to the whole train, saloons and all. So, let's say somewhere between £5 - £10k? If your Guards are on £30k, you downgrade them to ticket sellers only and pay them, with commission, somewhere around £20k, then increase Driver's pay by about £5k-ish, what are you saving? Answer - not much. Then you have to add in the cost of modifying every train and every station that currently aren't equipped - i.e. most of them. This is the railway, so nationally we'll be talking probably hundreds of millions. TOC's are short of trains as it stands, how will the likes of Northern find the slack to remove from traffic enough units at any one time to make it all possible within a sensible timescale?

Funny how none of these burning questions appear to have been asked or answered by those so keen to dump another 10,000 people on our already over-burdened dole queue. 'Going DOO will save money' has been bandied around as if it's the easiest most simplistic thing in the world to do, as if we should expect an announcement that it'll happen next tuesday. It is far more complex than the likes of McNumpty have the insight to appreciate, and is quite obviously not the answer to the railway's problems.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Perhaps you should read it again; that document states two or three times that neither method has been shown to be generically safer than the other, according to them anyway. However, as we all well know, anything which involves figures can be conveniently skewed and twisted to suit, particularly if any other outcome might be derogatory to the intended cause. There is no way that anybody in authority will ever admit that DOO is less safe, despite the obvious fact that having double the competent staff on board is very obviously the safer option. Try telling anybody who has ever been mugged or beaten up on a late night DOO service that having no staff available is acceptable. Try looking beyond the puppet McNulty and his flawed 'report' and see real cost of running the railway - the flood of taxpayer's cash being used to protect the profit margins of the private companies who happily preside over the woefully inefficient way the system collects it's income from customers, or indeed doesn't.

Axing the jobs of thousands of innocent staff is to bark up totally the wrong tree. Scrap the Guards, cut the ticket offices and station staff, and what do you have? A free railway. Make no mistake, people will not pay through the nose for tickets if it becomes common knowledge that there is nobody at any point in your journey to check them. The odd visit from a couple of RPI's won't stop it either. Our railways will become a national freebie, a standing joke. Look at London's bendy buses. Within weeks it became apparent to users that tickets were no longer required. Fare evasion soared. The Government has said publicly that it wants to cut subsidy and increase the share the passengers pay. Yet at the same time TOC's are free to dispense with their Revenue Protection staff, leave gatelines open and make as little effort as possible to collect any money in order to qualify for handouts from the Government. Guards are rapidly becoming the last line of defence against the afore-mentioned free railway system which we so nearly have.

The proposals to allegedly save money by going DOO are a non-starter. It will more than likely creep, like a disease, over the network as new trains and signalling eventually arrives, but it will need to be a 'natural' process, doing it ahead of time won't save anything. Aside from the revenue issue there are various factors. For a start, you have to negotiate with the nation's train Drivers. They nor their unions will accept the additional responsibilities of duties they currently do not have for anything less than a substantial reward. Never mind those who already do it, they're on different contracts, that's their problem. Door operation brings risks, errors can end careers. Having nobody else on the train means becoming far more customer facing, and dealing with passenger incidents which at the moment they have no involvement in. Complaining punters when they get delayed. Passenger assistance and enquiries. Idiots on a friday night pulling Pass-Comms, walking back through the train entirely alone with nobody to back them up. The working environment expands from just the cosy confines of the front cab, to the whole train, saloons and all. So, let's say somewhere between £5 - £10k? If your Guards are on £30k, you downgrade them to ticket sellers only and pay them, with commission, somewhere around £20k, then increase Driver's pay by about £5k-ish, what are you saving? Not much. Then you have to add in the cost of modifying every train and every station that currently aren't equipped - i.e. most of them. This is the railway, so nationally we'll be talking probably hundreds of millions. TOC's are short of trains as it stands, how will the likes of Northern find the slack to remove from traffic enough units at any one time to make it all possible within a sensible timescale? 'Going DOO will save money' has been bandied around as if it's the easiest most simplistic thing in the world to do, almost as if we should expect an announcement that it'll happen next tuesday. It is far more complex than the likes of McNumpty have the insight to appreciate, and is quite obviously not the answer.

A very simple way (IMHO) to prove DOO will never be safer than (at least) 2 Staff on a train

In an accident who is most likely to be injured (or worse) in a crash

A. The Driver (at the front of the train)

B. The Guard somewhere in the train but not the front cab


DOO Driver gets injured who helps the passengers..A Poster

2 Traincrew Operation.....The Guard



hardly Brain Surgery is it?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Very unlikely to happen, but imagine if the Guard was in the rear coach or even the rear cab, and failed to see that the last coach was not fully accomodated on the platform at a station, and then they open the local door, step out and fall down and injure themselves, leaving a potentially dangerous situation.

Yes its hypothetical, but with human error, it can be easy to make such an oversight, especially when its dark!

Then the guard is blind.....We have a saying

LOOK before you leap!

 

[CarterUSM]

ASLEF took the DOO money. back in the day, so I'm under no doubt they'd do it again. That's not a dig either, just my reading of it.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

ASLEF took the DOO money. back in the day, so I'm under no doubt they'd do it again.

Well they have always been it for themselves, always will at the detriment of every other railway employee, that will never change.

 

[BestWestern]

ASLEF took the DOO money. back in the day, so I'm under no doubt they'd do it again. That's not a dig either, just my reading of it.

I don't doubt that for a moment. The question, however, would be just how hard they'd push for the jackpot. if they know the TOC's would be saving a good £30k or so per head, how big a slice are they going to want?! In the current strike-happy climate, my guess is that it'd be a big number, quite possibly enough to make the whole exercise worthless with the other costs on top.

 

[tirphil]

I've driven DOO and currently work trains with a guard.

Sod the money, from my experience you can't beat working with a guard.

 

[BestWestern]

I've driven DOO and currently work trains with a guard.

Sod the money, from my experience you can't beat working with a guard.

Thank you

Sensible, honest sentiments like this do make the job all the more worthwhile.