RMT Extends Strike Action on Network Rail to Dec 24-27

[HSTEd]

Any suggestions as to which train services which are not currently driver only operation could realistically be converted to driver only operation? How would revenue be protected on driver only train services outside London where most stations are not staffed and many staffed stations do not have ticket gates? Without a guard checking tickets on the train I see nothing to prevent someone for instance at London Waterloo buying a ticket to Woking to get through the ticket gates and travelling to Weymouth.

The cost of gates at every single staffed station would be paid back rapidly if it was necessary to allow DOO to be adopted.

Either way, you could mount revenue protection on low traffic density services through resort to roving ticket inspection blocks and spot checks, as well as barriering high traffic stations.
You can take various actions for short-ticketing on journeys started at unstaffed stations, such as ticket validators on the route to the platform

 

[Bletchleyite]

As I have noted, an optimal revenue protection strategy is almost certainly not going to put an inspector on every single train!

If that was the only reason, no. But if accessibility rules, absent level boarding, mean you need to have a member of staff available to put the ramp down for a wheelchair user if they just rock up, as is the way things are headed, then you're either going to need platform staff on every station or a second member of staff on board due to the delays that would result from the driver doing it. If they are on board for that reason, then they might as well also check and sell tickets, and your evasion will go down to near-nil, just as it was in the days when everything in the North was a 2-car DMU and the super-quick SPORTIS machines were used to sell tickets mostly for cash, so the guards could easily get round everyone and ensure nobody got away with it.

(The fact that they can't go around everyone in 2 coaches paying by card is just lousy design of modern portable TISs, to be honest, though delving into that is for another thread )

Only on high frequency metro services do you need more staff to put them on board than on stations. Even with Merseyrail*, on the Ormskirk line it's 5 guards vs. 13 members of station staff (at any one time), arguably twice that on some stations where getting between platforms or from the booking office may take too long. On Sundays it's 3 guards but 13 station staff, and half hourly is a much more common urban heavy rail frequency than 4tph.

* OK, level boarding, but it's a good example, as I was surprised when I worked it out!

 

[HSTEd]

If that was the only reason, no. But if accessibility rules, absent level boarding, mean you need to have a member of staff available to put the ramp down for a wheelchair user if they just rock up, as is the way things are headed, then you're either going to need platform staff on every station or a second member of staff on board due to the delays that would result from the driver doing it. If they are on board for that reason, then they might as well also check and sell tickets, and your evasion will go down to near-nil, just as it was in the days when everything in the North was a 2-car DMU and the super-quick SPORTIS machines were used to sell tickets mostly for cash, so the guards could easily get round everyone and ensure nobody got away with it.

Only on high frequency metro services do you need more staff to put them on board than on stations. Even with Merseyrail*, on the Ormskirk line it's 5 guards vs. 13 members of station staff (at any one time), arguably twice that on some stations where getting between platforms or from the booking office may take too long.

* OK, level boarding, but it's a good example, as I was surprised when I worked it out!

Do you know how many Harrington Humps you could afford with the wages of all these onboard staff?

It would be far cheaper to just retrofit for level boarding than providing for staff for every one of these trains, for the rest of time. Especially on Merseyrail where only one type of stock will be calling.

The railway network has thousands of guards on staff [although I still can't find authoritative figures!], each one probably has a cost of employment, including training etc etc, not far shy of £70k per annum

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do you know how many Harrington Humps you could afford with the wages of all these onboard staff?

It would be far cheaper to just retrofit for level boarding than providing for staff for every one of these trains, for the rest of time. Especially on Merseyrail where only one type of stock will be calling.

Harrington humps don't provide level boarding on most routes. They are generally used, as per Harrington station itself, to bring a very low platform as typically found at rural stations (and Salford Central for now) up to a vaguely normal height, replacing those old wooden steps that tended to go missing and were no use for a wheelchair even with the ramp, but without being as costly as raising the whole thing.

The problem is that 1100mm (or whatever it is) platform heights infringe on the loading gauge, particularly on curves. This is fine for HS2 because only HS2 units will operate on that. It's fine for the Thameslink core because nothing other than 700s* operate there. It'd also be fine for Merseyrail, because nothing other than Merseyrail units operate there, though they've chosen to go the other way and provide level boarding by reducing train floors to 960mm instead. Thus if you have a mixed-use platform that has various types of unit or freights etc passing, you can't do that.

To me Merseyrail could be DOO because of the level boarding. I just used it as an example of why even on a relatively high frequency metro route you need fewer staff if you have one on each train than if you have them on stations.

* They were not present when it was a mixture of 700s, 319s and Electrostars precisely for this reason. They were added once operation had gone fully over to 700s, which is why they look different (in terms of the surface) from the main platform!

 

[Mojo]

The problem is that 1100mm (or whatever it is) platform heights infringe on the loading gauge, particularly on curves. This is fine for HS2 because only HS2 units will operate on that. It's fine for the Thameslink core because nothing other than 700s* operate there. It'd also be fine for Merseyrail, because nothing other than Merseyrail units operate there, though they've chosen to go the other way and provide level boarding by reducing train floors to 960mm instead. Thus if you have a mixed-use platform that has various types of unit or freights etc passing, you can't do that.

To me Merseyrail could be DOO because of the level boarding. I just used it as an example of why even on a relatively high frequency metro route you need fewer staff if you have one on each train than if you have them on stations.

You don’t even need to only do it on routes with the same stock - Greater Anglia claim that at most stations served by services operated by their new Stadler trains customers with wheelchairs do not need a ramp because the trains have a retractable step to bridge the gap between the train and the platform, and the lower floor height of the train means there’s no step up either. Not sure how this works in practice, but when I travelled on one last week it looked like it would be quite easy.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You don’t even need to only do it on routes with the same stock - Greater Anglia claim that at most stations served by services operated by their new Stadler trains customers with wheelchairs do not need a ramp because the trains have a retractable step to bridge the gap between the train and the platform, and the lower floor height of the train means there’s no step up either. Not sure how this works in practice, but when I travelled on one last week it looked like it would be quite easy.

Yes, you can use low floor trains with 960mm floors on any line, they're just more tapered lower down so they don't whack anything. But there's the minor point of huge fleets of high floor trains having been ordered and still on order, including the vast majority of the InterCity fleet.

What you can't do is 1100mm Harrington humps with only a couple of centimetres gap to the footboard, because they would infringe on the loading gauge and whack things. The only exception to this is where the stock has been designed not to do so and nothing else runs through those platforms, e.g. the Thameslink core - and as I said those weren't built until operation had gone fully over to 700s.

 

[HSTEd]

What you can't do is 1100mm Harrington humps with only a couple of centimetres gap to the footboard, because they would infringe on the loading gauge and whack things. The only exception to this is where the stock has been designed not to do so and nothing else runs through those platforms, e.g. the Thameslink core - and as I said those weren't built until operation had gone fully over to 700s.

That depends, a lot of platforms on the modern railway are overwhelmingly served by a single traction type at this point - or could be made so with comparatively minor modifications to the timetable, especially with the reduction in peak traffic. Indeed ordering significant amounts of new stock would probably be justifiable if it allowed homogenisation of the fleets in use.

But really we should have been ordering 960mm floor trains for years.

EDIT: As an example, I believe mainland SWR will be down four fleets total pretty soon (Sprinters, 701, 450 and 444)? And the Sprinter fleet is small enough to be worth replacing, and arguably the 444s to considering there are only 30 of them (that itself surprises me, I always thought there were more!).

 

[pt_mad]

The risk here, is that the Government/DfT/TOC's could now determine that talks are at a stalemate, and implement their offer anyway. I support rail staff, but the RMT do risk going off a cliff edge here.

The “anti strike” legislation isn’t really to do with this specific dispute, or dependent on its outcome.

My understanding (assuming it’s the route they want to go down) is that they could at any point, via the TOCs, start the process of fire and rehire, which would likely take a few months from start to finish, including a consultation period (90 days?).

Perhaps they’re hoping it won’t come to that, and that the RMT will acquiesce after Xmas, or perhaps the govt will still take the DOO off the table before Xmas and it’s all a negotiating ploy! I sort of doubt that, though.

Part of me hopes the RMT double down and cause as much chaos as possible just for the sheer hell of it, and to draw attention to what has happened, given how dirtily this has been handled.

Purely hyperthetically, let's say as an example the government's red line is now DOO, and an alternative offer might never be available.
Let's say they took steps to implement some sort of fire and rehire. Let's say strikes then get even more serious in whatever way while this all takes place. Potentially way more serious than now. Presumably the RMT would have to advise it's members on whether to agree to the new terms on offer. If they said don't sign, and enough essential staff didn't (reminds of when enough people didn't pay the poll tax) what then?
If thousands of onboard critical staff refused to sign and would rather take redundancy or their union advised don't sign and they didn't, who replaces them to run the trains on cliff edge day when they finish? (Or would the government give in if only a small percentage agreed)?

What if a fire and rehire was attempted to be imposed, without the pay rise, the strikes continued, enough people did sign up for new roles to run some sort of service, what would stop the RMT re-balloting for a new dispute pretty quickly under a mandate of something like [Achieve a Pay Rise, improve terms and conditions] while the trains still need guards to run? Because presumably if it was forced through with no pay rise, and conditions were forced down by a great enough margain, people would expect their trade union to fight to raise their conditions once again as time went on, and get them the pay rise?

The reason I asked this was because a strike over potential redundancies is something I see as potentially detrimental to progression of the industry, like advances in technology, etc. Similarly to how self-service checkouts replaced a lot of manual ones in supermarkets, and ticket machines replaced many offices, trends and improvements in technology do make human jobs redundant, which is one way of the world that if prevented could hold us back.

But the main role of a union is to represent and protect it's members the best it can. What else would anyone expect other than fighting tooth and nail for their members to retain the skills and competence which make them collectively absolutely essential to the operation of the industry in which they work?

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

My inclination is that the RMT would be more about job preservation and ASLEF would be more about safety because their drivers are the ones who will get in trouble if there's an incident.

In which case I'd pour scorn on the former but have more sympathy with the latter.

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But the main role of a union is to represent and protect it's members the best it can. What else would anyone expect other than fighting tooth and nail for their members to retain the skills and competence which make them collectively absolutely essential to the operation of the industry in which they work?

Whatever is genuinely essential to the industry is not going to be at risk. If it's planned to be made obsolete, it can't be essential to the industry.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That depends, a lot of platforms on the modern railway are overwhelmingly served by a single traction type at this point - or could be made so with comparatively minor modifications to the timetable, especially with the reduction in peak traffic. Indeed ordering significant amounts of new stock would probably be justifiable if it allowed homogenisation of the fleets in use.

But really we should have been ordering 960mm floor trains for years.

EDIT: As an example, I believe mainland SWR will be down four fleets total pretty soon (Sprinters, 701, 450 and 444)? And the Sprinter fleet is small enough to be worth replacing, and arguably the 444s to considering there are only 30 of them (that itself surprises me, I always thought there were more!).

Umm, freight?

960mm floor would have been the real fix, but too much has been ordered. That said, SBB did convert their Domino EMUs by inserting new-build low floor trailers, so the idea of adding one or two to the 80x, 19x and 720/730s at least doesn't seem all that far fetched while the production lines are still open.

What is beyond stupid is that HS2 will be level boarding at 1100mm, which renders it inaccessible at classic platforms basically permanently. It should have been 960mm, it's not like Stadler and Talgo don't have a high speed EMU which can be specified for this.

 

[pt_mad]

In which case I'd pour scorn on the former but have more sympathy with the latter.

But would you pour scorn over it if you were an RMT member / a guard or whatever and wanted to keep your terms in tact and make sure you had a future for more than just 16 months?

 

[HSTEd]

If thousands of onboard critical staff refused to sign and would rather take redundancy or their union advised don't sign and they didn't, who replaces them to run the trains on cliff edge day when they finish? (Or would the government give in if only a small percentage agreed)?

Likely the railway falls over until the Government can rush enough crash DOO schemes down the pipeline to restart operations. I have no idea what is actually required for DOO installation these days, I understand platform cameras are deprecated?

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

But would you pour scorn over it if you were an RMT membe / a guard or whatever and wanted to keep your terms in tact and make sure you had a future for more than just 16 months?

No. Yes. I'm not hypocritical in that way.

Edit: Misread it! Should most definitely say yes not no.

 

[pt_mad]

Likely the railway falls over until the Government can rush enough crash DOO schemes down the pipeline to restart operations. I have no idea what is actually required for DOO installation these days, I understand platform cameras are deprecated?

Absolutely couldn't see that for one second. Actually close the railway down due to making a tonne of guards redundant for the time it takes to introduce DOO where they have gone? Sounds like something which could bring a whole government down to me. Imagine the hundreds of thousands in the country who'd lose their jobs or livelihoods or social contact and everything else. It wasn't even shut down during the most extreme lockdown where some express trains were carrying about 5 people.

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No. I'm not hypocritical in that way.

Exactly. So nobody can reasonably expect their members to act in any other way. And the elected union leaders are there to represent the needs of their members alone.

 

[yorkie]

Absolutely couldn't see that for one second. Actually close the railway down due to making a tonne of guards redundant for the time it takes to introduce DOO where they have gone? Sounds like something which could bring a whole government down to me. Imagine the hundreds of thousands in the country who'd lose their jobs or livelihoods or social contact and everything else.

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Your idea is pie in the sky and not going to happen (Edit: yes I know you said hypothetical but it's so hypothetical it's not worth debating as it just wouldn't happen)

Exactly. So nobody can reasonably expect their members to act in any other way. And the elected union leaders are there to represent the needs of their members alone.

Indeed and not passengers. I completely agree.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Absolutely couldn't see that for one second. Actually close the railway down due to making a tonne of guards redundant for the time it takes to introduce DOO where they have gone? Sounds like something which could bring a whole government down to me. Imagine the hundreds of thousands in the country who'd lose their jobs or livelihoods or social contact and everything else. It wasn't even shut down during the most extreme lockdown where some express trains were carrying about 5 people.

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Exactly. So nobody can reasonably expect their members to act in any other way. And the elected union leaders are there to represent the needs of their members alone.

No, no, I meant yes! I would still pour scorn over striking for that reason. As I said, I'm not hypocritical in that way.

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No. Yes. I'm not hypocritical in that way.

Edit: Misread it! Should most definitely say yes not no.

I've edited it @pt_mad. I'm not a hypocrite and would not change my view purely down to me being in that same position. A close family member is a bank manager and her branch is set to close due to the rise of online banking. That's because technology does replace humans in some fields as it advances. To object to that would be cutting society's nose off to spite their face.

 

[HSTEd]

Absolutely couldn't see that for one second. Actually close the railway down due to making a tonne of guards redundant for the time it takes to introduce DOO where they have gone?

A large part of the rail system would remain intact, certainly in terms of passenger journeys, since they are already DOO.
London Overground, GTR, Southeastern, Crossrail, c2c etc etc etc.

Together they make up a huge portion of the railways business.

Sounds like something which could bring a whole government down to me. Imagine the hundreds of thousands in the country who'd lose their jobs or livelihoods or social contact and everything else.

I very much doubt it, barely anyone in the general population would really notice. After a year and a half of being ordered to stay at home the bulk of the time, a few months of rail disruption (running with whichever guards sign up) won't matter too much.

EDIT:

Finally, the McNulty report suggests there were about 6,800 guards in 2011. If we assume an average cost of employment (including training, management, national insurance et al) of around £60,000 - that would be close to £410m in pay.

 

[pt_mad]

Your idea is pie in the sky and not going to happen (Edit: yes I know you said hypothetical but it's so hypothetical it's not worth debating as it just wouldn't happen)

It's not an idea. It's a hyperthetical scenario exploring suggestion by many other posters regarding a possible fire and rehire being enforced, which a lot of posters have suggested they feel could actually be an option. (I am in no way an advocate of that whatsoever btw, I feel a negotiated settlement which works for all parties is absolutely essential, and the only sensible outcome).

Is it a fire and rehire in itself which you feel would be pie in the sky? Or the question of whether it could ever be possible that enough critical staff opt not to sign new contracts (either through wanting to leave the industry and receive redundancy); or any possibility of them being advised not to sign by their union to see if it would make the government lose its nerve at the last minute?

It was HSTEd who suggested that if a forced fire and rehire affected the service then:

HSTEd said:

Likely the railway falls over until the Government can rush enough crash DOO schemes down the pipeline to restart operations. I have no idea what is actually required for DOO installation these days, I understand platform cameras are deprecated?

I would never ever expect that suggestion there to actually happen or be allowed to happen. I don't think it would be tolerated politically.

Surely there must be some reason why they haven't gone down this road so far. Grant Shapps talked about forcing it through a [was it a section 188 or something similar] early on, but presumably something must have made them change their minds, as the the next SOS then wanted a negotiated settlement.

 

[LowLevel]

No, no, I meant yes! I would still pour scorn over striking for that reason. As I said, I'm not hypocritical in that way.

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I've edited it @pt_mad. I'm not a hypocrite and would not change my view purely down to me being in that same position. A close family member is a bank manager and her branch is set to close due to the rise of online banking. That's because technology does replace humans in some fields as it advances. To object to that would be cutting society's nose off to spite their face.

Society feels pretty crap at the minute. I'm pulled along with other people's motivations that don't match mine, I feel rushed off my feet in the world of social media and instantaneous reactions, over stimulated and I'd like to step back 20 years. I sleep badly and seem to be worrying all the time.

I'm strongly aware at the minute that I only get to live for so many years and I question whether a lot of our current advancements are really making things better. The world seems to remain a rather bitter and angry place and extreme views just get more so.

In the mean time I'll just keep doing my best, I suppose. I manage to fill my days as a train guard so I don't suppose my entire day at work is totally worthless, the customers at least seem to appreciate me strikes or not, I had another nice letter the other day and a lovely lady took the time to visit both rear and then very unusually front the cab of my train the other day to thank both me and the driver for a pleasant trip and getting her there safely. Small positives at the minute!

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Society feels pretty crap at the minute. I'm pulled along with other people's motivations that don't match mine, I feel rushed off my feet in the world of social media and instantaneous reactions, over stimulated and I'd like to step back 20 years. I sleep badly and seem to be worrying all the time.

I'm strongly aware at the minute that I only get to live for so many years and I question whether a lot of our current advancements are really making things better. The world seems to remain a rather bitter and angry place and extreme views just get more so.

In the mean time I'll just keep doing my best, I suppose. I manage to fill my days as a train guard so I don't suppose my entire day at work is totally worthless, the customers at least seem to appreciate me strikes or not, I had another nice letter the other day and a lovely lady took the time to visit both rear and then very unusually front the cab of my train the other day to thank both me and the driver for a pleasant trip and getting her there safely. Small positives at the minute!

I should just add that while I may not agree with striking purely over redundancies, I do personally appreciate the role of a pleasant guard on a train myself.

 

[Thirteen]

Your idea is pie in the sky and not going to happen (Edit: yes I know you said hypothetical but it's so hypothetical it's not worth debating as it just wouldn't happen)

Indeed and not passengers. I completely agree.

No Government would be insane enough to close the entire railway network for such a period simply because it would overwhelm roads and other forms of transport but they would face a legal battle from all sides such as TOCs, the unions and devolved transport bodies to force them to reopen it.

 

[g492p]

As I have noted, an optimal revenue protection strategy is almost certainly not going to put an inspector on every single train!

I have to say my experience says your wrong on this. It’s generally much easier for a guard on a train to get passengers to pay up, and the person can’t run, and has the threat of being removed from the train. Once the fare dodger gets to the station they will just tail gate or push through the barrier. Staff on the barrier will not be allowed to challenge them as they are trained to avoid conflict, which is much more likely on the station.

 

[Annetts key]

The reason I asked this was because a strike over potential redundancies is something I see as potentially detrimental to progression of the industry, like advances in technology, etc. Similarly to how self-service checkouts replaced a lot of manual ones in supermarkets, and ticket machines replaced many offices, trends and improvements in technology do make human jobs redundant, which is one way of the world that if prevented could hold us back.

(1) the primary reason for a union is to represent and protect their members.
(2) the RMT union is pro public transport, hence them encouraging more public transport (including busses) and increased spending (including investment) on public transport.
(3a) there are a number of factors with regards to safety. First is the safety of staff. If there are two (or more) staff on a train, that’s better than only one. As they can, if need be call on each other for help.
(3b) a person in the train in addition to the driver helps the passengers feel safer, and in practice does mean that there is less likely to be any trouble on the train. Hence could be described as passenger safety.
(3c) a safety trained guard (or equivalent) has a primary requirement to ensure not only the safety of individual passengers, but also the whole train. That includes dealing with any accident, incident including using whatever means necessary to protect the train in the event of a crash, derailment or any other accident or incident.

In regards to 3b, I’ve certainly been on trains where the guard (or equivalent) has had to enter a carriage to take control of a situation that could have got nasty if it had been left to escalate.

In regards to 3c, if the train hits an object, a guard can assist the driver. Be it helping to move a small fallen tree, or branch, or helping the driver to identify damage to the train.

In addition, if there is a problem with the train, e.g. a problem with the doors, a guard and driver working together are more likely to fix or overcome the problem.

In which case I'd pour scorn on the former but have more sympathy with the latter.

Whatever is genuinely essential to the industry is not going to be at risk. If it's planned to be made obsolete, it can't be essential to the industry.

So taking this further, in maybe ten or twenty years time, if technology advances far enough that androids, AI and other technology can replace humans in the vast majority of jobs and professions, how are people going to be able to earn a living?

Plus do you really want a world where you hardly ever interact with other humans, where absolutely every service or retail outlet is all completely automated?

In other words, people may find themselves obsolete.

Will people miss having a friendly chat and passing the time of day with employees as the go about their business?

 

[Falcon1200]

How would revenue be protected on driver only train services outside London where most stations are not staffed and many staffed stations do not have ticket gates?

The same way as is carried out daily on the hundreds of Scotrail services which run DOO, since 1986.....

the Strathclyde Agreement (ticket examiner) or similar is still DOO, because the driver is wholly responsible for the operation and protection of the train and the second person is purely there for customer service or in some cases emergencies.

Every Scotrail DOO train should have a Ticket Examiner rostered, and in my experience tickets are examined more rigorously on DOO services because that person does not have to operate the doors at every station.

 

[InkyScrolls]

Humans are the only species which actively goes out of its way to make itself redundant.

 

[railfan99]

A trained guard not doing doors/dispatch would still be preferable to a GTR style OBS who (in my understanding) aren’t even PTS let alone rules trained, can’t reset passcoms so are essentially no more use than a trolly host, or just another passenger.

I have recently travelled extensively in the UK and Europe (see my contributions under 'trip reports').

Your UK situation will not be identical to Melbourne, Australia where I reside, but on an extensive suburban network we have had DOO since the early to mid 1990s. From memory the union was against it when proposed, but it came in. There had to be extra mirrors or CCTV provided at the ends of platforms (including where we have curved platforms) but generally it works well. The very occasional incident that gets into the media can be due to passenger stupidity (trying to force doors on older rollingstock at the very last second).

However our rural rail network that mostly has DMUs retains a conductor who gives the 'right away' at each station.

 

[John Bishop]

5+5 has been accepted in both Scotland and Wales so I see no reason it wouldn't be in England. The issue seems to be primarily DOO plus a couple of the other conditions related things (though I think there could be a better way of handling the Sunday thing, e.g allowing staff to choose if they opt in for them in the week or not with all new recruits having it in, and some sort of one off sweetener for opting in). I think even though there's lots of noise over booking offices the RMT know that's a lost battle and it's more about securing decent terms for redeployment and voluntary redundancy.

Point of order. 5+5 hasn’t been accepted in Scotland. It’s only 5% until April 2023 then it’s back round the table to see what the next offer will be, but the general consensus is that it’s not going to be anywhere near 5% and we’ll be back to more IA.

Given the state of the Scottish Government’s finances, I think it will be a struggle/ fight to get a decent deal after April.

 

[yorkie]

Humans are the only species which actively goes out of its way to make itself redundant.

You think the unemployment rate now is higher than it used to be? Feel free to create a new thread to discuss.

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...t was HSTEd who suggested that if a forced fire and rehire affected the service then..

The quote you provided was a reply to your hypothetical scenario; it was posted after, not before, your post; I don't think it's relevant to the NR dispute though so I don't think it's a discussion for this thread.

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No Government would be insane enough to close the entire railway network for such a period simply because it would overwhelm roads and other forms of transport but they would face a legal battle from all sides such as TOCs, the unions and devolved transport bodies to force them to reopen it.

There is no prospect of the entire railway network closing.

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Plus do you really want a world where you hardly ever interact with other humans, where absolutely every service or retail outlet is all completely automated?

In other words, people may find themselves obsolete.

Will people miss having a friendly chat and passing the time of day with employees as the go about their business?

Your argument is not new; people have been saying this for many decades. But there is no sign of this actually happening; I don't think it's a debate for this thread, but feel free to create a thread in General Discussion.

I have to say my experience says your wrong on this. It’s generally much easier for a guard on a train to get passengers to pay up, and the person can’t run, and has the threat of being removed from the train. Once the fare dodger gets to the station they will just tail gate or push through the barrier. Staff on the barrier will not be allowed to challenge them as they are trained to avoid conflict, which is much more likely on the station.

I doubt this experience includes networks like London Overground, ScotRail Strathclyde area etc; I suggest you create a thread to discuss your experiences and others can post their experiences which may be very different to yours, as I don't think it's relevant to this particular dispute?

Does anyone have anything to add on the subject of the topic title?

 

[Bantamzen]

The “anti strike” legislation isn’t really to do with this specific dispute, or dependent on its outcome.

My understanding (assuming it’s the route they want to go down) is that they could at any point, via the TOCs, start the process of fire and rehire, which would likely take a few months from start to finish, including a consultation period (90 days?).

Perhaps they’re hoping it won’t come to that, and that the RMT will acquiesce after Xmas, or perhaps the govt will still take the DOO off the table before Xmas and it’s all a negotiating ploy! I sort of doubt that, though.

Part of me hopes the RMT double down and cause as much chaos as possible just for the sheer hell of it, and to draw attention to what has happened, given how dirtily this has been handled.

I disagree, the current industrial action is at the heart of the government's desire to introduce more anti-strike legislation, especially where key public services are involved. This and other strikes are literally delivering the cabinet the perfect excuse to their ministers and hard core supporters to draft any such legislation. Whilst you may think that the RMT doubling down will hurt the government more, it could also have the opposite effect and harden their line & egg on their supporters.

State Pension and benefits are getting 10% and they're not even paying the taxes that contribute to those Government bills.

Oh boy not this line again. Remember pensioners & people on benefits do still pay taxes, why does this need to be said again? And the former group have spent most of their working lives paying taxes for all the infrastructure we have today, just saying like....

 

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deleted.
I’m not getting involved