Should we have DOO?

[O L Leigh]

I am neutral to DOO but I have an aversion to scaremongering.

And I have an aversion to people sticking their heads in the sand. I'm annoyed at being asked for stats and then there being an admission that such stats almost certainly do not exist. I'm annoyed too at giving the view from the ground together with supporting examples from experience and having them dismissed out of hand.

Or maybe people just don't want to hear it from me.

O L Leigh

 

[Tomnick]

Indeed. It doesn't do the industry any favours.

When it comes to safety, some branch lines are at real risk of becoming unviable due to the disproportionate safety and staffing requirements, and the alternative is a bus! A DOO train is far safer than road transport.

Many passengers already choose not to use a perfectly viable rail service and instead save money by taking a bus/coach, which is nowhere near as safe as DOO rail.

I'm against the idea of trains only having one member of staff on board, but the idea that it must be a Guard (who may be highly visible, or in some cases may be in the back cab all journey), and not a ticket inspector patrolling the train constantly (without having to pause to do doors) isn't an argument I can accept.

It's interesting to see how things change over time. Half a century ago, the Guard was playing an important role in making some branch lines more economic to operate (no doubt saving some from closure) through the Paytrain concept, allowing stations to become unstaffed and so on. I'm still convinced that the Guard is in the best position to do that - as long as he's able to carry out his station duties from any part of the train, and not restricted to the back cab. It's not very often that I've seen a Guard struggle to get through the train working in this manner; indeed, I've noticed that many make the most of their station duties by seeing who gets on the train and where, so that they can target their revenue protection activities more usefully . I remember one Guard, on a busy (relatively) Barton line train observing 17 passengers boarding at either Ulceby or Habrough, but only seeing/selling 16 tickets as he passed through the train - would an RPI, less aware of comings and goings, have picked up on the potential fare dodger?

On that basis, leaving the Guard to operate the doors seems to make sense (and avoids the hefty investment that'd be required to achieve otherwise) - but either way, I'd like to see the provision of a second safety-critical member of staff remain a requirement (even if they do lose control of the doors) rather than something that can readily be dispensed with to save the TOC a bit of money here and there.

I do agree that we - and the RMT - aren't doing the grade any favours by concentrating on the worst imaginable catastrophe of a scenario. There's no doubt that there's more risk of something going wrong (or going more wrong than it otherwise would), but the probabilities involved are so small that it's difficult to argue convincingly! I think it'd be far more helpful to look at the roles of the Driver and the Guard during more routine activities - up to and including a train failure, not an uncommon event - and consider the 'customer service' aspect too.

 

[Bill Stanier]

And I have an aversion to people sticking their heads in the sand. I'm annoyed at being asked for stats and then there being an admission that such stats almost certainly do not exist. I'm annoyed too at giving the view from the ground together with supporting examples from experience and having them dismissed out of hand.

Or maybe people just don't want to hear it from me.

O L Leigh

O L, are you now saying the stats don't exist? Not even at DfT who I understand are the decision makers on DOO? I rather think those stats do exist there!

If you think your personal experiences will swing the decision I have to ask what leads you to that conclusion? Someone else's personal experiences could well show a different picture to yours. Where would DfT stop if they went down that route?

For that and other reasons, the decision maker (DfT) won't be polling railwaymen on the ground (it'd take forever and be inconclusive). Instead they'll be looking at unequivocal data gathered over the (I'm told by some on here) 30 years of DOO experience rather than anecdotal reports. Data on costs, safety, and practicality. Only hard data leads to robust decision making. Not just on this, but on every business issue in the universe!

 

[O L Leigh]

So you paint me into a corner where I cannot have any active part in this discussion. You either accept that I have a viewpoint or you don't. Simple as that.

And the DfT won't be taking any notice of this discussion anyway, so I think you can relax a wee bit.

**EDIT**

Just as an afterthought, it may appear to be anecdotal evidence to you but, in the absence of having access to publicly available statistics to back up what I'm trying to say, I am attempting to give you a flavour of what those statistics are likely to be.

O L Leigh

 

[Tomnick]

It's a sad state of affairs, particularly on here, if the experience of those who keep the railway running on a daily basis, in various capacities, count for nothing. No matter how thorough a risk assessment is, it's unlikely to cover every reasonable eventuality if it's drawn up by an office bod with little or no operating experience and without consulting those who understand the real issues! More than any other, I'd be inclined to trust the word of the chap who (as explained either here or on the other thread) has worked under both DOO and conventional operation.

 

[SPADTrap]

In most cases the plane now flies itself - indeed removal of the pilot from the loop of the one remaining place where they have to do significant work (takeoff and landing) is well underway with the deployment of Cat III Precision Landing systems that will eventually allow a completely hands off approach.
This is an important criteria for improving the performance of highly stressed airports (like Heathrow) in suboptimal conditions.

How do you think we are able to get a significant incidence of the entire flight crew being asleep at the asme time? The plane just flies itself with the pilot snoozing in the chair.

And despite what is often claimed about how important pilots are to preventing deaths in accidents, 90% of the time if the autopilot unexpectedly hands back control because it can't cope with the situation - everybody dies.
Events such as that plane landing in the Potomac are unfortunately rather uncommon, more likely is the plane diving nose first into the drink at several hundred knots.

Who do you fly for? In real life I mean. Not a flight simulator..

A fair few times I've had the autopilot trip off during approaches - I'm still here!

I love your made up statistics, by the way!

Are you sure events like the crash in the 'Potomac' being infrequent is unfortunate? Have you been drinking?

Tell me this, when has a flight crew fallen asleep and had their aircraft land itself?

 

[NSEFAN]

Just as an afterthought, it may appear to be anecdotal evidence to you but, in the absence of having access to publicly available statistics to back up what I'm trying to say, I am attempting to give you a flavour of what those statistics are likely to be.

I appreciate that you have lots of experience in driving trains, and are very aware of the dangers and difficulties. The question "Should we have DOO?" relies on "Is DOO safe?" for an answer. This can only be fairly answered by looking at hard stats and seeing how much higher or lower the rate is, although your own experience will give us a good guess as to what the actual answer could be. Given how anal the railway is about safety, someone somewhere must have hard facts about incident rates on DOO vs non-DOO routes, at the very least for insurance purposes. Or is it "commercially sensitive" like the ORCATS system? Would a freedom of information request help obtain such data?

 

[Bill Stanier]

I don't understand why OL says 'I painted him into a corner'. I asked for stats to back up his experiences, he told me they're not available to the public, I postulated that they probably are available to TOCs / DfT (there seems to be some confusion over whose decision it is - OL says it's not DfT) to inform any decision on DOO.

Where's the paint?

 

[notadriver]

Can I just say - last night there are a lot of undesirables travelling on my train. The hot weather seems to have brought them out - they travel ticketless to the seaside, get drunk and kick off on the way back. I'm so glad a guard was on board who could at least stop things from going completely out of control. I'm an ex-conductor myself and dealing with these incidents was undoubtedly the worst part of the job.

Is this not a good enough reason to convince you all that DOO is a bad thing ?

 

[Tomnick]

I don't understand why OL says 'I painted him into a corner'. I asked for stats to back up his experiences, he told me they're not available to the public, I postulated that they probably are available to TOCs / DfT (there seems to be some confusion over whose decision it is - OL says it's not DfT) to inform any decision on DOO.

Where's the paint?

My understanding, in simple terms, is that it's up to the TOC to make it happen - carrying out the risk assessments, taking any necessary actions and signing the whole thing off as sufficiently safe. They'll no doubt be under a lot of pressure from the DfT to ensure that it does happen, especially if it's a franchise commitment and/or the agreed level of subsidy/premium relies on it. I'm not sure what role the ORR play - I understand that they ultimately oversee the safety aspect, as well as having at least some responsibility for allocating pots of money (if so, it's in their best interests to make it as cheap as possible). No conflicts of interest there then!

 

[RPI]

Can I just say - last night there are a lot of undesirables travelling on my train. The hot weather seems to have brought them out - they travel ticketless to the seaside, get drunk and kick off on the way back. I'm so glad a guard was on board who could at least stop things from going completely out of control. I'm an ex-conductor myself and dealing with these incidents was undoubtedly the worst part of the job.

Is this not a good enough reason to convince you all that DOO is a bad thing ?

In my experience most guards (though not all) tend to hide in the back cab and stay away, saying it's unsafe, I'm impartial on the DOO situation tbh because over the years I've seen more and more lazy guards join the railway who seem to think they're untouchable, and in reality, putting our emotions to one side, a DOO train with a ticket examiner on half the wage is a realistic and acceptable concept in my opinion, I do think though that stations will need longer staffing hours for the purpose of wheelchairs etc

 

[notadriver]

I can understand your viewpoint RPI. Maybe I'm lucky - the guys I work with are top dollar and I know they must be at least patrolling the train as dispatch is carried out from different doors throughout the journey

 

[O L Leigh]

I don't understand why OL says 'I painted him into a corner'. I asked for stats to back up his experiences, he told me they're not available to the public, I postulated that they probably are available to TOCs / DfT (there seems to be some confusion over whose decision it is - OL says it's not DfT) to inform any decision on DOO.

Where's the paint?

I didn't say that the decision is not the DfT's.

I imagine that the stats, if not already collated by some body or other, are held by each TOC at their traincrew depots or performance management teams in the form of internal safety records. However, whether or not this information is provided to the DfT is unknown. I imagine that if you submitted enough FOI requests for information regarding safety of the line (SOL) incidents broken down by traincrew depot together with information on passenger harm you may begin to get a picture, but to ensure that your results are statistically significant you would need ensure a very high response rate and then normalise your findings using statistical analysis tools to give a true picture.

What I would postulate is that the DfT are not interested in this information and are making this decision based solely on a cost basis. They have committed themselves to a path that they cannot now get themselves off. They are driven to reduce the burden on the taxpayer and I imagine that they are quite content to allow for an erosion of safety standards and an increased level of risk to passengers. I would argue that this is not an acceptable position from which to make a decision like this. The recently published RSSB report suggests to me that actually we're getting things about right just as they are now.

What is beginning to rankle with me is that you refuse to accept that there is another side to this argument. You want hard stats but none are publicly available in the form that you desire but you won't accept anything else and certainly nothing that you would class as "anecdotal". I'm not sure on what basis you're convinced that DOO is an adequately safe method of working; presumably just the lack of any rail crash news on the 10 o'clock news. That is not a very good source and, anecdotal or not, people who work on the railways are very aware of what is going on around them. Anyone who has to sit through the Red series of videos on their regular safety brief will know that there are incidents happening all the time. I know about the times when an 8 car train has stopped at the 4 car board and the doors been released (I've even seen the CCTV footage of passengers holding the doors open and jumping down onto the track). I know about the driver who stopped at a red signal and, on impulse, released the doors even though there was no platform and the train was on a high brick viaduct. I know about the driver who released the doors on the wrong side of the train. I know about all of these incidents and more that have happened on DOO lines even though they have not made the news. May I ask, what do you know?

Can you see the paint now?

O L Leigh

 

[notadriver]

I know nothing .......

 

[O L Leigh]

Noted.

O L Leigh

 

[Beveridges]

in the case of a emergency such as derailment the driver would stay with the train and the conductor would go and lay track circuit clips and detonators in order to stop other trains causing a collision or vice versus . (Just one of the examples)

Actually the only time anyone would go and lay detonators is if no one can contact the signaller.

With NRN / GSMR / Plenty of lineside Telephones everywhere, it's extremely unlikely that any Guard or Driver would ever need to go walking 1 1/4 to lay detonators in this day and age.

Most emergencies (e.g. a Derailment) the only action needed is a quick laying of a set of Track Circuit clips on the effected line(s) which takes seconds, and a quick call to the signaller.

 

[TheEdge]

With NRN / GSMR / Plenty of lineside Telephones everywhere, it's extremely unlikely that any Guard or Driver would ever need to go walking 1 1/4 to lay detonators in this day and age.

What about assistance? I had an incident a few days ago where the driver was almost on his way to lay protection for assistance (in the case the unit managed to fix itself and wasn't needed). Had it been DOO and he had needed to lay protection then that train would have been abandoned.

What has shocked me with this thread is two things. Firstly the absolute willingness of some people on here to disregard the livelihoods of the thousands of guards in the UK on the off-chance tickets might be cheaper (which they simply wont) and then the happiness of some others to be part of and privvy to a good old fashioned race to the bottom.

 

[carriageline]

Actually the only time anyone would go and lay detonators is if no one can contact the signaller.



With NRN / GSMR / Plenty of lineside Telephones everywhere, it's extremely unlikely that any Guard or Driver would ever need to go walking 1 1/4 to lay detonators in this day and age.



Most emergencies (e.g. a Derailment) the only action needed is a quick laying of a set of Track Circuit clips on the effected line(s) which takes seconds, and a quick call to the signaller.

TCOC don't work so well in axle counter sections unfortunately (which are becoming more and more common), or in AB sections, or even areas that don't have the privilege of track circuits, or areas that the occupation of TCs doesn't necessarily affect the signalling system (semaphore areas),

And as said, assistance protection is needed, while it's not the same distance, I'm not quite sure what the passengers would do if the driver explained he's just going to walk down the track to lay some detonators!

As I said in the other thread, I can't see how people think it will personally benefit them losing guards, their taxes won't go down, fares will continue to rise.


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[68000]

DOO requires TCB throughout and a secure radio system. The secure radio system can be used to protect the line.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

Removal of guards and the spread of DOO will not reduce subsidy. Anyone who works revenue, whether or not they also have a safety critical role, pay for themselves. That is revenue that would go uncollected if those positions are removed.

O L Leigh

herein lays the problem

it seems many Guards even those with role titles that suggest a dual focus (Senior conductor etc) see their revenue responsibilities as a distant second to potentially nebulous 'safety' concerns ...

 

[carriageline]

DOO requires TCB throughout and a secure radio system. The secure radio system can be used to protect the line.

Yeah I know that thanks.. I wasn't specifically talking about DOO, more about detonator protection.

But as has been bought up time and time again, if the driver is unable to raise the alarm, who will? Of course, in this day and age the chances are reducing, which I suspect is what is driving this.


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[Beveridges]

What about assistance? I had an incident a few days ago where the driver was almost on his way to lay protection for assistance (in the case the unit managed to fix itself and wasn't needed). Had it been DOO and he had needed to lay protection then that train would have been abandoned.
.

Assistance protection only requires a 300 metres walk so can be done quite easily without assistance from a Guard. Nothing like the mile and a quarter walk for emergency protection which never happens now.

 

[GB]

Before consigning detonators and clips to the rubbish heap in favor of GSM-R, the powers that be need to sort out all the niggly issues with it first as it certainly isn't 100% reliable.

ie calls going to the wrong signaller, wrong workstation/panel or all together wrong area. I also heard of an incident a couple of months ago that that the emergency button was pressed on the ECML but went through to the NLL instead.

 

[Tomnick]

Assistance protection only requires a 300 metres walk so can be done quite easily without assistance from a Guard. Nothing like the mile and a quarter walk for emergency protection which never happens now.

It might only be 300yds (unless you happen to have failed just outside Totley Tunnel, and the assistance is coming through the tunnel!!), but the train's still going to be 'abandoned' for a prolonged period if the driver has to wait a whole for the assistance to actually arrive. That's when passengers start to get restless, think about detraining themselves and so on - when there's no-one to give updates or reassurance.

 

[Carlisle]

DOO requires TCB throughout and a secure radio system. The secure radio system can be used to protect the line.

Is that right ,? so that means quite a large number areas like the southern part of the WCML for instance that are signalled with axle counters are barred from ever operating DOO tains on them anyway does it ?

 

[Tomnick]

Plenty of lines are signalling under the TCB regs but with axle counters as the method of train detection.

 

[Carlisle]

Plenty of lines are signalling under the TCB regs but with axle counters as the method of train detection.

Cheers for explaining that

 

[Tomnick]

No problem, you're not the first to confuse the method of train detection with the method of signalling, and you'll not be the last either!

 

[Bellbell]

I'm curious: those of you in favour of DOO, would you still actively support its introduction if there was no cost reduction for passengers?

 

[carriageline]

I'm curious: those of you in favour of DOO, would you still actively support its introduction if there was no cost reduction for passengers?

Exactly what I said. But yeah I got told I have the intellect of a 7 year old, by some mature member who should really know better!


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