VTWC Facing Industrial Action By On-Board Staff

[furnessvale]

Although that money did go back onto the state which is obviously good for citizens and taxpayers. Just a view.

Not really. For freight, the required rate of return was 8% compared to the average road hauliers return at the time of 2-3%.

The end result was that most freight moved by road (and still does) and the citizens and taxpayers got nothing.

 

[Clip]

Wouldn't the railways exist without shareholders then? East Coast seemed to do ok.

No, they wouldn't. They were built using private money from people who invested in them and for a return - otherwise called shareholders.

 

[Mathew S]

I know pretty much nothing about guard training, or the detail of DOO/DCO, but I thought I'd post this to give my perspective as a passenger and an interested observer.

1. If a train is on-time, well maintained, and comfortable then by and large I'm a happy bunny.
2. A staff member present in the train actively undertaking customer service duties is a necessity on longer journeys, and on certain trains at certain times of day (eg. Friday nights coming home from Manchester or Liverpool to Wigan; or football match days). Without this, I often don't feel safe travelling, even if there is a guard in the rear cab - and for clarity I'm a 33 year old man, I can't imagine how some more vulnerable people feel.
   
3. I don't give two hoots who opens and closes the doors, as long as it's reasonably safe.
   
4. Passengers also have a responsibility to keep themselves safe, and not do anything that puts them, or others, in danger. This is especially true where doors and platform edges are concerned.
5. Where technology provides a means to make an economy without unduly endangering safety, it should happen. Considerations of whether this costs jobs aren't important to me, as a passenger, if it makes my fare cheaper or means more money can be spent on a better service.

Finally, no system can ever be completely safe. Harsh though this may sound, it comes down to how much danger you are prepared to accept, given the additional cost that you incur by removing further risk. My criteria for DOO/DCO isn't "is it safe?" but rather "is it safe enough?" As a passenger, interested observer, and professional journalist who has written more than a little about this, I've yet to see anything from the RMT or others which convinces me it isn't "safe enough."

If the RMT genuinely do believe DOO/DCO isn't safe, they need to stop all the pointless political posturing, and banging on about renationalisation, and work hard at producing robust evidence to back up their points. As long as they look like a group of anti-government militants (sorry, but that's how a lot of what they say comes across) they will get nowhere.

 

[driver_m]

I personally feel with gsm-r that we will have an issue at some point where it connects to the wrong box on an urgent call, and results in an incident. Always small things isn't it that lead to screw ups. It's particularly an issue in areas with many boxes in a close location. Even Crewe has this issue with the steelworks, coal yard and no doubt on the independents too.

 

[driver_m]

I personally feel with gsm-r that we will have an issue at some point where it connects to the wrong box on an urgent call, and results in an incident. Always small things isn't it that lead to screw ups. It's particularly an issue in areas with many boxes in a close location. Even Crewe has this issue with the steelworks, coal yard and no doubt on the independents too.

As for the comment above. Posturing? You said it yourself, you don't really know the intricacies of doo, it's fairly obvious to say that my eyes should be looking in front of me, not behind. Both sides can twist stats to suit themselves, not just the union. But there are numerous doo threads on here elsewhere, which this dispute is not about. To be honest, the safety systems of the trains aren't either, it's about the rest of the staff striking because they've not had that hour reduction in work time resolved as we have.

 

[Mathew S]

Posturing? You said it yourself, you don't really know the intricacies of doo

A lot of what the RMT say and write seems, to me, to have little to do with either DOO or the hours pay that is the issue at Virgin. For what it's worth, I can't abide the current government either, but I don't have an agenda or a position to push here. In fact, I'm trying very hard to be as neutral and objecive as I can - not least because my job requires me to be. If the RMT want to be taken seriously by the public - and the press, which is also important for them - the only way they'll do it is to cut out the posturing and vitriol and start producing cold, hard evidence to back up their claims.

 

[footprints]

Strike action suspended by TSSA and RMT. Virgin to operate full timetable.

 

[dk1]

Strike action suspended by TSSA and RMT. Virgin to operate full timetable.

Just heard that. Fantastic news for all concerned. What a shame the issues at GA can't be resolved so quickly.