Just a thought, but if the railway wants to get costs under control, it should be the legions of lawyers, consultants, feasibility studies, marketing & PR types, corporate communications officers, delay attribution, middle management with titles such as 'customer service champion', expensive campaigns to promote 'on time running' which surface every few years with little results, and other such things / positions who should face the axe, before worrying about front line staff.
I'm not going to go down the nationalisation versus privatisation debate again, but if more efficient working practices are required, then it cannot make sense that one company can have spare men sitting around, whilst another company in the same area is canceling trains due to lack of crew.
As for keeping guards, most of the ones I see these days seem to take in enough revenue to justify their wages, regardless of anything else. With the likes of voyagers and whatnot, there aren't many trains left with brake vans to hide in and have a fag or read the paper, and most guards seem to be up and down the train all day.
As a driver if things go wrong, I want a second safety critical, psychometricly tested individual who can help out, be it with just little time saving tasks such as checking rear cabs or whatnot if circuit breakers trip, to riding up front when the rule book requires it, to taking charge in the event of a fatality or emergency. No disrespect to catering staff, but there are plenty I wouldn't want to have any remit in these circumstances, and the ones that are good tend to end up becoming guards or drivers anyway. As for RPOs, let's face it, its a job which is based around dealing with conflict, which is a completely different skillset to that of a guard. I certainly wouldn't have the ability to do their job.
Modern signalling may be more effective at protecting the line from further train incursions into an obstruction / derailment these days than clips and guards and drivers running around, but it can't co-ordinate evacuations, it can't keep people informed. It can't help clear the line of debris when some scumbag has thrown blocks on the tracks or deal with the situation once it has occurred.
I also fail to see how giving the driver all the guards' responsibility, and eliminating them entirely, yet demanding our wages are cut and jobs restructured, yet for more hassle is a sensible idea. Everything these days is about SPAD prevention, distractions, having adequate rest, defensive thinking and suchlike, brief after brief after brief goes on and on about this. How is this in line with forcing more duties onto us, messing around with our hours and conditions and pay?
Incidentally some of you might be familiar with the tree that hit an HST near Westbury recently. The driver thankfully survived, but with broken hands, and was therefore unable to do much. It was the guard who dealt with the signaller and passengers, who had the required route knowledge to identify in the middle of nowhere exactly where they were, and what had gone on.
