No Southern Trains Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

skipper734 said:

A quote from Chris Grayling's letter to rail users.

When I met the General Secretary of ASLEF soon after my appointment, with virtually his first breath he promised me “10 years of industrial action.”

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Uncle Buck said:

And there you go again.

Suspect it is some form of self defence mechanism for you.

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Ernest said:

Sensible post/question = Sensible answer

Trolling post gets treated with contempt

Seems a bit hard for you to understand does it ?

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Ernest said:

Would you want to be on a train travelling at 90mph with a driver not knowing where the signals, stations, speed restrictions etc were ? Drivers are trained in sections so a newbie driver is only trained on a small section which I explained in a past post, so to be a fully competent driver in a big depot like Brighton would take 10 years or more, in the past it was impossible to be one and you could do your entire life as a driver and not be fully competent in all routes and tractions at each depot.

But hey I only troll this thread so why am I responding ?

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Ernest said:

I think you have some sort of problem understanding English, not sure why you're posting on this thread either

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Simster said:

The thing is, most of the "sack the lot" brigade are like that because they use the "service". Personally I am seething that everybody in the industry clearly behaves in a way that suggests it doesn't matter what utterly shithouse service I receive for my £2,600 a year. Any other business and they'd all be out of a job, from the fat incompetent bosses at the top to the grumpy surly miserabalists at the coal face who have no idea of customer service at the best of times.

If you're going to take the side of one of the parties responsible for this outrage and want to get the public onside, I think you need to be reacting with a bit more humility.

The shame of it is that when you do provide answers, they are often quite reasonable. If you're fed up with seeing what you consider are ignorant posts, you're probably better off ignoring them than replying calling them an idiot.

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Ernest said:

There are sensible posts worthy of debate and posts such as what [MENTION=3792]bhanutz[/MENTION] comes out with which are just idiotic troll posts

But I've given up caring now, I'll let you have the playground to yourselves now and I won't bother trying to help anyone anymore

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Ernest said:

There are sensible posts worthy of debate and posts such as what [MENTION=3792]bhanutz[/MENTION] comes out with which are just idiotic troll posts

But I've given up caring now, I'll let you have the playground to yourselves now and I won't bother trying to help anyone anymore

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Simster said:

Alternatively, just respond to the ones you want to respond and ignore the ignorant posts?

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albionite said:

Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, spoke out this afternoon after claims made by Chris Grayling, the Secretary of State for Transport, in a letter released by the DfT.
‘The Transport Secretary is being less than honest on all counts,’ said Mick.‘Earlier this year Peter Wilkinson, the £265,000 a year director of rail passenger services, said on a public platform that the aim of the DfT is to force train drivers – men and women he derisively referred to as ‘muppets’ –‘out of my industry.’ Mr Wilkinson said he was determined to provoke industrial confrontation and, indeed, was looking forward to ‘punch ups’ with trade unions. The strikes this week are not, whatever Mr Grayling tries to suggest,politically motivated. We have a trade dispute with GTR / Southern, and only a poor government would seek to spin it any other way. I think their motives are clear.’
Mick added: ‘The Transport Secretary is also being less than honest – and utterly selective – about a private meeting I had with him held, in good faith, under Chatham House rules. We said there could potentially be issues, in the future,on GTR/Southern following his refusal to entertain the serious safety concerns we raised and given the complete breakdown in trust between the union and the company.That loss of trust now extends to Mr Grayling and the government of which he is a part.
‘I am not sure how Mr Grayling has been made party to private and confidential conversations that took place but, in the interest of fairness, he might have said that we were willing to go to ACAS last week but GTR Southern refused because they wanted to go to court. These conversations finished yesterday evening and,logistically, could not have been concluded before we had to meet with our legal teams and was not a genuine offer.
‘I am more concerned, than either the minister or the company, about the safety of our members and the travelling public, but today we will find out whether a fully or partly-owned foreign company can deny British workers the right to strike.

Shock horror a Tory mp twisting the truth again.

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Randsta said:

The roads are going to be ****ing shite tomorrow! FFS southern

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coagulantwolf said:

I know it's common knowledge that the BBC aren't biased or impartial, but it's really starting to annoy me so much about this dispute. All their reporting is siding heavily with the Government and Southern, there is no impartiality or decent investigation/reporting.

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Deadly Danson said:

I've ducked out of these threads for a while and will probably do so again but having read a lot of the vitriol and some more informed comment (even if I don't agree with it all) I'm just going to say this. This is my personal opinion - and I won't be going back and forth over the arguments and history of DOO again because I think, as Bozza said about 200 pages in the original thread, the arguments just go round in circles but...I will be going on strike not because I'm a 70s dinosaur (I'm not), not because I'm a RMT or ASLEF “puppet” (I'm not) and not because I'm against modernisation (I'm not). I will be going on strike because I absolutely, fundamentally, hand on heart believe it is the right and only thing to do in the circumstances. I believe that the extension of DOO will make the railway a less safe, less pleasant and less customer focused place (at best it just removes one layer of safety and customer service), especially for the disabled, the vulnerable, the elderly etc. I am convinced that the changes already being imposed by GTR and the government are nothing whatsoever to do with improving customer service and have everything to do with cutting costs (none of which will be passed on to customers). I am certain that none of their plans have anything to do with “modernisation” (apart from a few new Gatwick Express trains, nothing has changed) and am equally certain that if the guards' role at Southern is lost then they will be ultimately lost throughout the network. I also know (because it is happening every day) that the “exceptional circumstances” where a train may be allowed to leave without an On Board Supervisor is already basically “whenever it suits Southern.” I also know that this is government/Dft led but I am not especially anti-Tory – that's just a fact and it is exceptionally frustrating when you hear Grayling and Co coming out with blatant untruths and distorted truths that the general public believe (see today's statement about state of the art trains which have nothing whatsoever to do with the dispute). We may lose the fight but, if we do, I will at least I will be able to say I stood up for what I believed in and, if there is a major incident in the future, I can say I did all I could to prevent it. And on the anniversary of the Clapham disaster it's worth remembering that ensuring a safe railway is the ultimate objective.

You may argue that if I don't like the changes I can leave, you may argue that the railway is better with fewer staff and driver only trains, you may argue that you don't care about the causes of the dispute; all you want is to get to your destination - and they are valid objections but rather than just throw abuse at us perhaps at least understand why we are striking. I wouldn't expect the travelling public to throw their unwavering support behind us when they can't get to work, to football or to their families but you should at least know that for this driver at least, and I believe the vast majority of drivers about to go on strike, I am genuinely doing this in the hope that you will have a better, safer and more reliable service in the future. Again, I thank those on this site who, even though they are having hellish journeys every day, have expressed support, can see the bigger picture and can see what is actually happening and are doing their best to inform others. I have never been on strike before (it is not a decision I have taken lightly – I don't like throwing away at least 6 days pay and depriving people of the chance to travel) and am hoping that the strikes and threat of strikes will mean the government will enable GTR to think again about their ill-thought-out plans and we will see a return to a fully staffed, safe and hopefully bit more reliable railway. Again, I'm not going to debate the issues again – I just wanted people to know that we are not “scum” as we have been called on here – and rightly or wrongly I believe we are doing the right thing.
And just to answer one question from today – we already use simulators in training, they are not very good but they are used.

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Deadly Danson said:

I've ducked out of these threads for a while and will probably do so again but having read a lot of the vitriol and some more informed comment (even if I don't agree with it all) I'm just going to say this. This is my personal opinion - and I won't be going back and forth over the arguments and history of DOO again because I think, as Bozza said about 200 pages in the original thread, the arguments just go round in circles but...I will be going on strike not because I'm a 70s dinosaur (I'm not), not because I'm a RMT or ASLEF “puppet” (I'm not) and not because I'm against modernisation (I'm not). I will be going on strike because I absolutely, fundamentally, hand on heart believe it is the right and only thing to do in the circumstances. I believe that the extension of DOO will make the railway a less safe, less pleasant and less customer focused place (at best it just removes one layer of safety and customer service), especially for the disabled, the vulnerable, the elderly etc. I am convinced that the changes already being imposed by GTR and the government are nothing whatsoever to do with improving customer service and have everything to do with cutting costs (none of which will be passed on to customers). I am certain that none of their plans have anything to do with “modernisation” (apart from a few new Gatwick Express trains, nothing has changed) and am equally certain that if the guards' role at Southern is lost then they will be ultimately lost throughout the network. I also know (because it is happening every day) that the “exceptional circumstances” where a train may be allowed to leave without an On Board Supervisor is already basically “whenever it suits Southern.” I also know that this is government/Dft led but I am not especially anti-Tory – that's just a fact and it is exceptionally frustrating when you hear Grayling and Co coming out with blatant untruths and distorted truths that the general public believe (see today's statement about state of the art trains which have nothing whatsoever to do with the dispute). We may lose the fight but, if we do, I will at least I will be able to say I stood up for what I believed in and, if there is a major incident in the future, I can say I did all I could to prevent it. And on the anniversary of the Clapham disaster it's worth remembering that ensuring a safe railway is the ultimate objective.

You may argue that if I don't like the changes I can leave, you may argue that the railway is better with fewer staff and driver only trains, you may argue that you don't care about the causes of the dispute; all you want is to get to your destination - and they are valid objections but rather than just throw abuse at us perhaps at least understand why we are striking. I wouldn't expect the travelling public to throw their unwavering support behind us when they can't get to work, to football or to their families but you should at least know that for this driver at least, and I believe the vast majority of drivers about to go on strike, I am genuinely doing this in the hope that you will have a better, safer and more reliable service in the future. Again, I thank those on this site who, even though they are having hellish journeys every day, have expressed support, can see the bigger picture and can see what is actually happening and are doing their best to inform others. I have never been on strike before (it is not a decision I have taken lightly – I don't like throwing away at least 6 days pay and depriving people of the chance to travel) and am hoping that the strikes and threat of strikes will mean the government will enable GTR to think again about their ill-thought-out plans and we will see a return to a fully staffed, safe and hopefully bit more reliable railway. Again, I'm not going to debate the issues again – I just wanted people to know that we are not “scum” as we have been called on here – and rightly or wrongly I believe we are doing the right thing.
And just to answer one question from today – we already use simulators in training, they are not very good but they are used.

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vegster said:

The cutbacks in ticket office hours is an odious and obvious example, how long before those assigned to "platform duty and interacting with the customers " are regarded as surplus to requirements ? I'm sure Southern view almost every station ticket office as a rental opportunity for yet another coffee shop now.

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