And in all those cases the signalling equipment was damaged/signallers knew about problems and stopped traffic anyway. This is among many others.
In the case of DOO trains, DSD and passcom alarms are sent through to controlling boxes and must be acted on. On the railways you are never 'out there on your own', and to state DOO trains are unsafe is scaremongering. This is old technology now, with modern GSM phones, GPS, communications and so on, far more can be done.
This is unlike the roads, where if a lorry driver of a 44 tonne truck has a heart attack, the likelihood is he'll plough straight across the central reservation of a motorway and kill many others coming the other way in much lighter cars. Shall we ban all heavy goods vehicles?
I strongly suspect the Unions will use a great deal of strike and scaremongering tactics to persuade the less informed that most if not all change must be resisted, and make the railways out to be a special case - which they are not. The fact remains the railways must modernise to 21st century working practices, innovate, and become much more competitive and much less reliant on government if the are to be sustainable.
For example, there is absolutely no reason where staff such as station personnel and conductors cannot undergo college based conversion courses of a few weeks if those people have already been in a retail environment. Anyone, should be able to get sponsorship or self-fund these courses and the railway should be able to draw on a large, readily available pool of talent paid at an appropriate rate of pay.
Even the training for more skilled positions like signallers, drivers, controllers should be done by third parties using simulators and so on to at least get to 'provisional licence' states. These should be open to anyone that wants to take up the career, just like bus, HGV drivers and airline pilots.
The railways need to invest in their staff, and staff need to invest in themselves, like just about every other area of industry so they can not only side move through rail, but be useful to other industries and employers to.
We shouldn't have a situation where staff are left with 'no qualifications' so they cannot earn the appropriate rate of pay elsewhere or in the rail industry. I dare say the threats of sackings, demotion and the general nepotism that goes on is one reason for the appalling industrial relations but it has just failed to modernise working practices, meaning staff are often fearful and trapped. The railways are one of the few industries left where 'them and us' still goes on, and often staff are not felt to be in a partnership, rather they have to 'fight' for their rights. This can be as much the fault of the Unions, as it is the management.
