An OBS is not required at any stage when a train is on the Brighton Main Line, hence why it was able to run between Haywards Heath and Victoria. Away from the main line, a train can run without the OBS if the OBS has been displaced by late running, late notice illness, accidentally being left behind etc. A train can’t run without an OBS if an OBS hasn’t been rostered to the train in the first place, which sounds like what has happened here. It wouldn’t be the driver making the decision to cancel, more likely to be decided by Southern Control.
Thank you for the information. In that case it seems ridiculous that they have that policy. I thought one of the main purposes of introducing DOO and having that huge dispute was to avoid this. Allowing them to run without an OBS if they call in sick or are disrupted but not allowing them to run without an OBS if one has not been rostered is a bonkers policy. It makes that whole dispute around 2016/2017/2018 and getting rid of Guards and introducing OBS seem completely pointless.
Also presumably this means that if Southern ever decide to get rid of the OBS and go full Thameslink style DOO then the Drivers will strike again and we will be in another dispute. Surely the Drivers would have a legitimate reason to dispute it as the current conditions do not allow running without an OBS if one has not been rostered. Lets hope that never happens though.
What a fantastic state of affairs that cancellation of a service is dictated by internal company politics rather than any operational reason.
I still don’t really see what the end-user has gained on Southern from the whole OBS thing. Either go the full way and have DOO, or keep guards in their traditional form.
Presumably the reason the service was able to RES at Hayward Heath was because the Brighton line has had DOO operation for many years?
The situation before the DOO introduction and before the OBSs were introduced was even more bonkers. On the Brighton Main Line they have indeed had DOO for years but they only allowed Southern trains to operate DOO under certain conditions.
Previously the rules were that any train that started or terminated at any East Coastway or West Coastway station was required to have a Guard all the way to or from London and could not even have a Guard join or alight part way and run DOO on the mainline. So in the past the rules did not even allow a train to run without a Guard on the mainline section and have one join or leave halfway if it had come from or was going to any Coastway station.
But yet any train that was scheduled to operate entirely on the mainline was able to operate in DOO without issue. So any Brighton to London train was DOO and similarly any Gatwick Airport to London or anything else which did not leave the mainline was DOO too.
To make it even more bonkers the same drivers drove both routes and would be able to drive a DOO train on the mainline if it was to or from Brighton but could not drive it DOO on the same exact section if it was to or from a Coastway station. It was a very odd situation before.
There was also a couple other weird restrictions. There was a four coach Brighton to London Victoria evening peak train that always had to have a Guard onboard because it attached to a service from Horsham at Three Bridges and therefore it was not considered an entirely mainline service even though the Brighton portion was.
Does Southern not have a sufficient number of OBSs and/or Guards to staff every mainline train south of Gatwick?
I always notice they seem to be hiring new OBSs every other month or so. There are always new job advertisements for this role. So maybe there is a very high staff turnover leaving them short of OBSs sometimes. I know especially in the early days a lot of the ex Guard OBSs left within the first year or so.
There are no Guards that sign any of the mainline routes any more. The only remaining Guards are at Eastbourne depot (who sign 171s only and the Eastbourne to Ashford route only) and at Selhurst depot (who sign 171s and 377s and 387s and the London Bridge and London Victoria to Uckfield and East Grinstead and various South London diversion routes as well as the Clapham to Watford route) only. Other than this it is all OBS on all other routes. Although the Guards can be used to cover OBS duties (in which case they simply act as an OBS and have no involvement in doors or despatch) which does happen quite often.
