Should make that easily......we leave after the players have walked off and typically get the train from Falmer at about 17.10
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Southern Rail STRIKE details
- Thread starter Ernest
- Start date
Should make that easily......we leave after the players have walked off and typically get the train from Falmer at about 17.10
AmexRuislip
Trainee Spy 🕵️♂️
Brighton and Hove Albion bid to start rail dispute talks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-38095125
Brighton and Hove Albion bid to start rail dispute talks
A football club hit by rail disruption caused by strikes has offered to broker talks between the arguing parties.
Southern and the RMT Union are in a long-running dispute and the union has staged a series of strikes since April.
Brighton and Hove Albion has invited all sides to talks at the Amex stadium.
The RMT accepted the offer but Southern said it had met the union "countless" times. The government said it would respond to the letter in due course.
Southern has been hit by months of strikes in a dispute over the roles of guards on trains and had to bring in a reduced timetable earlier this year blaming high levels of sickness and crew shortages.
On Friday, Southern apologised to football fans after crowds were left stranded at Falmer station following train cancellations.
But it also said the disruption followed short-notice sickness and "a reluctance to work rest days and overtime" by crews.
The RMT blamed mismanagement and lack of planning by Southern.
'Frankly ludicrous'
The football club's executive director Martin Perry wrote to transport secretary Chris Grayling and said: "Rail passengers have suffered enough.
"They are at risk as a result of this dispute and your urgent intervention is required.
"We are writing to Southern trains and the RMT along with yourselves and invited you all to a meeting which we will facilitate."
Accepting the offer, RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "The union has been calling for just such a meeting for months and it's frankly ludicrous that it has taken the intervention of the football club."
'Meetings pointless'
A Southern spokesman said: "Over the past 10 months we've met face to face with the RMT leadership countless times, including many times at (conciliation service) ACAS."
He added: "We've made a full and comprehensive offer which they have repeatedly rejected. Nothing will be solved until the RMT agrees to let go of the past and help deliver a better service for our passengers. Until that happens more meetings are pointless."
A Department for Transport spokesman said improving services was a priority for the government and the operator.
He said: "Chris Grayling has unveiled a package of measures, including a Network Rail £20 million fund and he appointed Chris Gibb, a senior industry expert, to lead a new project board this autumn as we take steps to deliver a rapid improvement in services.
"We have also announced that passengers on Southern will be able to claim compensation if their train is more than 15 minutes late."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-38095125
Brighton and Hove Albion bid to start rail dispute talks
A football club hit by rail disruption caused by strikes has offered to broker talks between the arguing parties.
Southern and the RMT Union are in a long-running dispute and the union has staged a series of strikes since April.
Brighton and Hove Albion has invited all sides to talks at the Amex stadium.
The RMT accepted the offer but Southern said it had met the union "countless" times. The government said it would respond to the letter in due course.
Southern has been hit by months of strikes in a dispute over the roles of guards on trains and had to bring in a reduced timetable earlier this year blaming high levels of sickness and crew shortages.
On Friday, Southern apologised to football fans after crowds were left stranded at Falmer station following train cancellations.
But it also said the disruption followed short-notice sickness and "a reluctance to work rest days and overtime" by crews.
The RMT blamed mismanagement and lack of planning by Southern.
'Frankly ludicrous'
The football club's executive director Martin Perry wrote to transport secretary Chris Grayling and said: "Rail passengers have suffered enough.
"They are at risk as a result of this dispute and your urgent intervention is required.
"We are writing to Southern trains and the RMT along with yourselves and invited you all to a meeting which we will facilitate."
Accepting the offer, RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "The union has been calling for just such a meeting for months and it's frankly ludicrous that it has taken the intervention of the football club."
'Meetings pointless'
A Southern spokesman said: "Over the past 10 months we've met face to face with the RMT leadership countless times, including many times at (conciliation service) ACAS."
He added: "We've made a full and comprehensive offer which they have repeatedly rejected. Nothing will be solved until the RMT agrees to let go of the past and help deliver a better service for our passengers. Until that happens more meetings are pointless."
A Department for Transport spokesman said improving services was a priority for the government and the operator.
He said: "Chris Grayling has unveiled a package of measures, including a Network Rail £20 million fund and he appointed Chris Gibb, a senior industry expert, to lead a new project board this autumn as we take steps to deliver a rapid improvement in services.
"We have also announced that passengers on Southern will be able to claim compensation if their train is more than 15 minutes late."
Taken from a Facebook account very good read to what is going on if you are still in the dark.
I am a Conductor for Southern Rail and for obvious reasons I have to remain anonymous. But I want to tell you the truth. I will try to keep my personal opinion out of this and go with the facts.
Firstly, the dispute is not just about who presses a button to close the doors, although this is part of it. This dispute is about having a second member of staff on the train who is safety critical trained. Southern are telling you that every train service that already has a Conductor on it, will have a second member of staff on board. This has already proven not to be the case. There have been lots of trains that do not have another member of staff on board, just the Driver. Myself and other colleagues have gone to take over a train and there has been no-one there to hand it over to us. We have taken the train not knowing if anyone requires assistance, if there are any faults with the train and if there is anyone on board we might need to keep an eye on. It has also happened the other way around. We are supposed to be leaving the train and handing it over to someone else and there is no-one there. If there is someone on board who requires assistance, then we have no-one to tell. We could try to ring the station, if the number we have for them works and if they answer it, and that is assuming it is a manned station. We could try and ring Control, but they hardly answer. So, the poor person requiring assistance would just be left, unable to alight at their station.
The second member of staff will now be an On-Board Supervisor (OBS) who is safety trained but not safety critical. The difference being, they do not have any route knowledge and do not hold Personal Track Safety (PTS). PTS means you are trained to go on the tracks in the case of an emergency. We have been trained for this and made aware of dangers and hazards on and around the track. The new OBS’ have not. They are as qualified as any member of the public to go on the track. They did not have training for it. They do not have any route knowledge. They do not which parts of the track to walk along, which parts of the tracks are not safe to walk on. They did not get trained for this. So, in the horrible event that the Driver becomes incapacitated, there will not be a safety critical and knowledgeable member of staff on board. Would you get on an aeroplane without any cabin crew? As they may be there to give you pillows, blankets and refreshments, their main role is safety. In the event of an emergency they are fully trained to assist and deal with it. You just hope they never have to. The same is with Conductors. We are trained to assist and deal with emergency situations, but to the travelling public we are there to check tickets and make announcements. We are a safety measure. You should hope that you never have to see us assist in this way, as this means something has gone wrong, but isn’t it best to have us on there? Just in case.
Now about the pressing of the button to close the doors. This might seem like such a trivial thing, but I can assure you, it is not. The pictures that Southern and the media show you are from the new 387’s that are used on Gatwick Express. They are brand new trains. Although, some of the pictures I have seen from them are shocking, that’s if they are working at all. But, the trains operated on Southern routes are 377’s. The cameras on them are terrible. They do not work in bright light, in low light, they are fuzzy and blurry. Some of them do not work at all. They only show part of the doors, so the Driver cannot see much. Also, the cameras are not in real time. They take shots every few seconds and that is all it takes for someone to slip under the train and they would not see it, so they would not be aware of it. Also, the angle the cameras are at, you are unable to tell if someone has a piece of clothing or hand trapped in the doors. If something like a piece of clothing, umbrella, even a small child’s hand is trapped in the door, the Driver will still achieve interlock (tells him all the doors are safely closed), so they could drive away without knowing. The cameras also don’t allow the Driver to see what is happening on the platform, so if someone is running for the train or if someone slips or falls on the platform, they would not know. With these trains, when the Driver takes the power to move the train, the camera images disappear, so they cannot see anything. We as Conductors, look at the platform until all the train has left the platform, in case something happens.
Southern already operate Driver Only Operation (DOO) on the Metro routes (train journeys that start and finish in London Zones 1-6), but this does not make it right. Most if not all the Drivers who operate on those routes wished they had a Conductor. Also, the distance between stops is not that much, so if an emergency occurred there would be a manned station not far away. A lot of the stations on the East and West Coast of Sussex are unmanned. I know Thameslink are also DOO and this is often used by Govia as a reason to make Southern DOO as well. But, Thameslink went DOO when less people used the railway. The stations were not as busy and over-crowded and neither were the trains. Most of the Thameslink Drivers would like a Conductor back on their train.
Southern stated earlier this year that services were severely disrupted due to unofficial strike action. I can tell you this was nonsense. The high levels of sickness was due to the way we were being treated. Every time we start a shift we have to sign a form stating we are fit to work, mentally and physically. This is due to the Conductor Grade being a safety critical role and we need to be at our best and be fully-concentrated on our job. As our mistakes can cost lives and we could be prosecuted. If we do not feel 100%, we should not be at work. Due to the constant bullying and harassment from senior management, a lot of Conductors were suffering from work-related stress and anxiety, which decreases your ability to concentrate. So, in the interest of safeguarding the public and ourselves, people got signed off sick. They did not want to. They just knew they had to. Now, they have imposed a rule for Conductor’s that we are unable to self-certify any sickness and a doctor will only certify for over 7 days. So, if we are sick and want to receive our company sick pay, we have to be off work for at least 7 days, even if we are not ill for that long. This rule is still being imposed upon us. The other form of unofficial strike action Southern keep mentioning, is the fact we are not working our rest days. Now, each week we can have either 1 or 2 days off, due to them being different days we can end up working 10 days in a row and then we are expected to work the 1 day we do get off. Yes, in some Depots we can get between 7-9 days off every 7 weeks, but this is just time that we have accrued and time we want to spend with our families and friends. Yes, it is true that some people did work their rest days and now they don’t. This is not due to any form of strike action, this is due to Southern treating them so badly, that they have lost any goodwill towards them. It is not striking, it is just taking the time off we are entitled too.
The truth of it is, they do not have enough staff, Conductors and Drivers. They were always understaffed, but people worked their rest days. But in the last 18 months the number of Conductors has reduced and they have not employed enough people to replace them. They want to get rid of Conductors, to improve Customer Service. Rubbish. If they employed enough Conductors to cover all the rostered shifts, then they would not need to cancel trains due to shortage of train crew, as they would have enough. They do not want to improve customer service. They just do not want to employ any more Conductor’s but not have to cancel trains and get fined for it. If they wanted to improve customer service, then they would make sure an OBS was on every train, which has not been the case. They also stated that the Conductor/OBS would no longer have to go to the panel and have any interaction with the doors, which is now not the case. We still have to open the panel we work from, put and turn our key on, step out onto the platform to check if anyone requires assistance and then get back on the train and take our key off. I cannot see how doing that is allowing us to spend more time with passengers to provide customer service.
I know a lot of passengers are fed up of the strikes and the disruption it has caused you and believe me, we are sorry to. We do not like causing this disruption and inconvenience to you. We are just fighting for your safety. Just think of how much disruption there has been on Southern trains in the last 18 months, when there have not been any strikes.
I am a Conductor for Southern Rail and for obvious reasons I have to remain anonymous. But I want to tell you the truth. I will try to keep my personal opinion out of this and go with the facts.
Firstly, the dispute is not just about who presses a button to close the doors, although this is part of it. This dispute is about having a second member of staff on the train who is safety critical trained. Southern are telling you that every train service that already has a Conductor on it, will have a second member of staff on board. This has already proven not to be the case. There have been lots of trains that do not have another member of staff on board, just the Driver. Myself and other colleagues have gone to take over a train and there has been no-one there to hand it over to us. We have taken the train not knowing if anyone requires assistance, if there are any faults with the train and if there is anyone on board we might need to keep an eye on. It has also happened the other way around. We are supposed to be leaving the train and handing it over to someone else and there is no-one there. If there is someone on board who requires assistance, then we have no-one to tell. We could try to ring the station, if the number we have for them works and if they answer it, and that is assuming it is a manned station. We could try and ring Control, but they hardly answer. So, the poor person requiring assistance would just be left, unable to alight at their station.
The second member of staff will now be an On-Board Supervisor (OBS) who is safety trained but not safety critical. The difference being, they do not have any route knowledge and do not hold Personal Track Safety (PTS). PTS means you are trained to go on the tracks in the case of an emergency. We have been trained for this and made aware of dangers and hazards on and around the track. The new OBS’ have not. They are as qualified as any member of the public to go on the track. They did not have training for it. They do not have any route knowledge. They do not which parts of the track to walk along, which parts of the tracks are not safe to walk on. They did not get trained for this. So, in the horrible event that the Driver becomes incapacitated, there will not be a safety critical and knowledgeable member of staff on board. Would you get on an aeroplane without any cabin crew? As they may be there to give you pillows, blankets and refreshments, their main role is safety. In the event of an emergency they are fully trained to assist and deal with it. You just hope they never have to. The same is with Conductors. We are trained to assist and deal with emergency situations, but to the travelling public we are there to check tickets and make announcements. We are a safety measure. You should hope that you never have to see us assist in this way, as this means something has gone wrong, but isn’t it best to have us on there? Just in case.
Now about the pressing of the button to close the doors. This might seem like such a trivial thing, but I can assure you, it is not. The pictures that Southern and the media show you are from the new 387’s that are used on Gatwick Express. They are brand new trains. Although, some of the pictures I have seen from them are shocking, that’s if they are working at all. But, the trains operated on Southern routes are 377’s. The cameras on them are terrible. They do not work in bright light, in low light, they are fuzzy and blurry. Some of them do not work at all. They only show part of the doors, so the Driver cannot see much. Also, the cameras are not in real time. They take shots every few seconds and that is all it takes for someone to slip under the train and they would not see it, so they would not be aware of it. Also, the angle the cameras are at, you are unable to tell if someone has a piece of clothing or hand trapped in the doors. If something like a piece of clothing, umbrella, even a small child’s hand is trapped in the door, the Driver will still achieve interlock (tells him all the doors are safely closed), so they could drive away without knowing. The cameras also don’t allow the Driver to see what is happening on the platform, so if someone is running for the train or if someone slips or falls on the platform, they would not know. With these trains, when the Driver takes the power to move the train, the camera images disappear, so they cannot see anything. We as Conductors, look at the platform until all the train has left the platform, in case something happens.
Southern already operate Driver Only Operation (DOO) on the Metro routes (train journeys that start and finish in London Zones 1-6), but this does not make it right. Most if not all the Drivers who operate on those routes wished they had a Conductor. Also, the distance between stops is not that much, so if an emergency occurred there would be a manned station not far away. A lot of the stations on the East and West Coast of Sussex are unmanned. I know Thameslink are also DOO and this is often used by Govia as a reason to make Southern DOO as well. But, Thameslink went DOO when less people used the railway. The stations were not as busy and over-crowded and neither were the trains. Most of the Thameslink Drivers would like a Conductor back on their train.
Southern stated earlier this year that services were severely disrupted due to unofficial strike action. I can tell you this was nonsense. The high levels of sickness was due to the way we were being treated. Every time we start a shift we have to sign a form stating we are fit to work, mentally and physically. This is due to the Conductor Grade being a safety critical role and we need to be at our best and be fully-concentrated on our job. As our mistakes can cost lives and we could be prosecuted. If we do not feel 100%, we should not be at work. Due to the constant bullying and harassment from senior management, a lot of Conductors were suffering from work-related stress and anxiety, which decreases your ability to concentrate. So, in the interest of safeguarding the public and ourselves, people got signed off sick. They did not want to. They just knew they had to. Now, they have imposed a rule for Conductor’s that we are unable to self-certify any sickness and a doctor will only certify for over 7 days. So, if we are sick and want to receive our company sick pay, we have to be off work for at least 7 days, even if we are not ill for that long. This rule is still being imposed upon us. The other form of unofficial strike action Southern keep mentioning, is the fact we are not working our rest days. Now, each week we can have either 1 or 2 days off, due to them being different days we can end up working 10 days in a row and then we are expected to work the 1 day we do get off. Yes, in some Depots we can get between 7-9 days off every 7 weeks, but this is just time that we have accrued and time we want to spend with our families and friends. Yes, it is true that some people did work their rest days and now they don’t. This is not due to any form of strike action, this is due to Southern treating them so badly, that they have lost any goodwill towards them. It is not striking, it is just taking the time off we are entitled too.
The truth of it is, they do not have enough staff, Conductors and Drivers. They were always understaffed, but people worked their rest days. But in the last 18 months the number of Conductors has reduced and they have not employed enough people to replace them. They want to get rid of Conductors, to improve Customer Service. Rubbish. If they employed enough Conductors to cover all the rostered shifts, then they would not need to cancel trains due to shortage of train crew, as they would have enough. They do not want to improve customer service. They just do not want to employ any more Conductor’s but not have to cancel trains and get fined for it. If they wanted to improve customer service, then they would make sure an OBS was on every train, which has not been the case. They also stated that the Conductor/OBS would no longer have to go to the panel and have any interaction with the doors, which is now not the case. We still have to open the panel we work from, put and turn our key on, step out onto the platform to check if anyone requires assistance and then get back on the train and take our key off. I cannot see how doing that is allowing us to spend more time with passengers to provide customer service.
I know a lot of passengers are fed up of the strikes and the disruption it has caused you and believe me, we are sorry to. We do not like causing this disruption and inconvenience to you. We are just fighting for your safety. Just think of how much disruption there has been on Southern trains in the last 18 months, when there have not been any strikes.
You must have a 'contact' who can tell you what the rosters/rotas look like?
Utter shambles on London-bound trains this morning due to 'shortage of train crew'. Affecting Southern and Thameslink. If you can avoid it, do so......
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Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
The West Coastway train to London Bridge seems of be OK. Well, so far. Just at Portslade
Well from Wivelsfield the 5.46, 6.04 and 6.24 were cancelled. The 6.15 ran, but waited at Haywards Heath for 40 mins due to the back half being delayed by a fire somewhere near Bexhill. Maybe it's just all the early trains and things will clear up.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
Just chatting to the conductor on the train. He mentioned a drivers strike ballot today. I was unaware that this was happening today. That will make things a he'll of a lot worse.
Yup, sadly.
Chatting ? I hope you weren't distracting this essential employee from his critical safety duties.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
I did rt by saying I'd not seen many conductors lately. He said many were a little wary of how the public feel towards them
Striking over Christmas and New Year will help that public feeling.
Great to hear that he's embracing Southern's wishes by getting out to converse with passengers.
Alternatively, maybe his phone battery was dead or he's already completed Candy Crush.
Blue Valkyrie
Not seen such Bravery!
Sackable offense to use their mobiles to play games when on duty isn't it ?
How very perceptive of him.
Out of interest what happens if a TOC cancels the last train of the night? Do they have an obligation to get people home?
Yes taxis or buses
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
More fun and games as ASLEF now voting for strikes.
[tweet]803218824677863424[/tweet]
[tweet]803218824677863424[/tweet]
Taybha
Whalewhine
Whatever your views on this i would imagine the process of meaningful talks will now be at Defcon 1 and something will have to give , hopefully in favour of the people that have had to suffer this bollox for far too long .