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I work as a train conductor in the North West and cannot get my head round the fact that all the boxes on the Cumbrian coast are being shut and moved under one master signal box presumably miles away. I'm sure it will work eventually but it's already enough of a pain trying to explain to TOC management based in York the logistics of situations. Up here the single line is king.
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Aug 10, 2013 02:00
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319's look pretty sweet, then again I did work a 142 yesterday. It's impossible to write on one of those.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:58
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I'm working a pacer right now and I have got managed to get 4 bikes, 3 prams and a wheelchair on: I'm loving David Copperfield.
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Aug 21, 2013 12:31
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Must be something unique to that area? I had to do a an examination of the OHLE with my driver on Monday evening when a Pendelino broke down between Carnforth and Lancaster and never noticed those. That particular incident made everything two house late  http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/run-trains-well-save-20m-5851454#.Ui1ukdo0-8k.facebook This would be a catastrophe I think, especially in my area (Cumbria).
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Sep 9, 2013 08:02
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Authorities claiming the derailed Nuclear Flask Train at Barrow had empty flasks anyway, I would have thought the police would have sufficed rather than the army in that case?
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Sep 17, 2013 11:18
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Reveilled posted:Regardless of the fact that you have nothing to worry about because nobody is going to care about "theft of electricity via mobile phone charger", wouldn't your ticket constitute permission to use it? I'd assume in your position that I had permission to use it on the basis that when you purchase a ticket you are entitled to take advantage of the various amenities provided to you as part of your journey. You are entitled to sit in the passenger lounge, sit down on the train, use the train's toilet, the luggage racks, the train's Wi-Fi if you happen to be on a train that has it etc. Some of the things on the train and the track are not to be used by passengers, or are only to be used in emergencies, and every single one of those things has a sign that says "emergency use only", "staff only" or "penalty for improper use". The plug socket doesn't have those signs, so it's an amenity of the station or train provided at least partially for the convenience of passengers. Your ticket guarantees you travel and nothing else, not even a seat. I have to use this line on a regular basis with our single 153 carriage services, always fun. I've heard major time table changes in December can already be found on the Internet but my google-fu has failed me. Any of you crazy kids know where I would find such golden information for a member of train crew like myself?
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Oct 2, 2013 22:08
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It's strange, the area I work in has few female Traincrew members but then the company tends to aim for older women with established families when taking on since the amount of times their generous maternity schemes have burned them is unreal. If a member of Traincrew becomes pregnant for my company they are to be taken off their duties immediately (since a member of staff once alleged she lost her baby due to falling on a train that jerked suddenly). She is to be placed in a role like booking office if possible but if not possible she just has to sit in the mess room doing nothing because not all depots are run by the same company. They also have to provide the pregnant employee with a bed in a private area. They then get a year full paid maternity and all their holidays taken upon resuming to work. I worked with a female conductor who was on the railway 5 years and still hadn't got out of her 6 month probation period because she had never managed to do 6 months work in a row without being off on the sick or pregnant. Another bone of contention is that by nature Traincrew work unsociable hours. I'm in a 0524 tomorrow morning but I can't sleep so here I am. Women with babies/young children can be accommodated by the company to help their childminding needs, which essentially means they revert to all the good jobs between 9am-5pm and you get hammered with their 'last train home drunken express' on a ten hour Saturday night shift. Even one of our newest colleagues who was a declared lesbian living with her partner managed to become mysteriously pregnant about three weeks after finishing her training. Since train planning is reliant on x amount of conductors and x amount of drivers in at each depot on anyone day, it's easy to see how one or two people on long term sick/maternity can cause chaos when other things start going wrong. There is one female driver at my depot. She's a grandmother. Aside from the aforementioned lesbian who is in her twenties we also have two other female conductors who are 40+ with teenage children. The next nearest depot we have slightly more women but they are all late 30's onwards. Don't get me wrong I've seen meme play the childcare card aswell but I think from the employer's perspective it's too risky taking on women of childbearing age, especially if they don't already have children.
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Dec 30, 2013 00:43
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Apparently so. I'm all for their legal rights but to put things in perspective, earlier this year we had three drivers on long term sick at my depot. It was train cancellation central since my company has no overtime agreement for drivers. So from their perspective do they want a 50/50 male female workforce of varied ages, given that in that scenario there lies a chance that a significant percentage of drivers could be off for a year at a time, at the same time? Of course not.
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Dec 30, 2013 01:55
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Yeah they've been arguing with ASLEF about that for about five years ever since they took it off them. Even with conductors though it only takes a couple of people missing long term and cancellations start racking up, despite overtime being available. Say there are 10 Saturday shifts that need covering at the depot for conductors. The first person to apply for daily leave is granted regardless of whether there is cover or not. In addition there are usually two people on booked annual leave weeks (these are given in advance, you get told when your holidays are you don't get to pick. You can swap if you're lucky enough to find someone willing). So that's three people off already. Let's say there's someone on the sick too since it's not unusual. Now in the interests of equality we have two female conductors in the 21-35 age bracket who are both pregnant, by chance within months of each other. Everyone on leave, sick or pregnant today is on the same shift pattern (this has happened before). So out of the ten shifts we need to cover six are now uncovered. Say we can cover two with spare conductors, cross cover another shift from a different depot that signs he same routes and we need to find three more. There are some diehards who will come in to work any shift for overtime but they may already be in work, or have commitments anyway (it's a Saturday after all). Any roster clerk will tell you that covering that many shifts on a Saturday with overtime is a big ask. I personally refuse to work Saturdays because as our shift pattern stands, working a Saturday for overtime means I end up working five in a row. There is no good shift to catch on a Saturday. Late night and you will more than likely have to liaise with the BTP, afternoon and it's hordes of children misbehaving, I decided to stop working Saturdays when I realised I could have the day off instead of arguing with a stag do at 10am. I'm not saying that it's right, I'm not saying that I'm opposed to the idea, I'm just trying to shed some light on how the railway works in the context of the situation. There is already a lead swinging culture amongst people who have been on the railway a while, which exacerbates things to the detriment of everyone else. It's also widely acknowledged in our area that late night trains are getting a lot worse for violence: we've gone from no police on trains to police regularly travelling on late trains to police officers getting hospitalised whilst attempting to police said trains. Which is another reason why I'm not the only person unwilling to work overtime at weekends. If there is a workable solution to get more women into the workplace in the railway, that's great. Just don't moan if you see even more rail replacement buses than usual due to 'a member of train crew being unavailable'.
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Dec 30, 2013 02:24
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You'd think that but there's a train that was basically cancelled everyday for 12 weeks straight due to 'no driver' this summer. Edit: another issue is holiday entitlement. In our previous scenario I mentioned that the employee first in the queue for that holiday would be granted that holiday unconditionally. Anyone after that is marked with their position (2nd, 3rd etc) and 'subject to traffic' which essentially means if everything is looking rosy beforehand you will find out if you got that holiday about 48 hours before the actual date, handy if you've booked a hotel/gig tickets etc. Earlier in the year due to illness and people being unwilling to work overtime I actually applied for 6 different Saturdays between March - May and was denied all of them despite being 2nd, due to the fact there was a struggle for cover. As you can imagine, this can lead to increased 'sickness' levels amongst employees of a certain nature. Bacon Terrorist fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 02:45
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Of course not but the last young woman who worked at our depot had three kids in five years then retired to focus on her cake baking business she did from home. Let's estimate for arguments sake she worked 18 months out of the five years after her maternity and sick pay. That means she was paid a total pre-tax salary of £115,000 for her tenure, or £6390 per month of actual work she did. She is an extreme example but that's what happened and it seems they have been careful since.
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Dec 30, 2013 05:15
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Why's that? She fully acknowledged what she was doing. There's a guy who's a train driver we have estimated has worked less than 2 years on and off in the last six due to various 'ailments' and manipulation of the company's generous 6 months full sick pay allowance. I have just started work again after a serious back injury, I know my colleagues will have been slating me when they have caught my lovely shifts over Christmas because that's the nature of the beast. You see you are spare, you look to see what shift you have caught and see who's shift it was supposed to be. If you're in an unfortunate position in the shift pattern you can end up essentially catching all of one person's shifts when you are spare. I don't have a problem with young women on the railway, I have said this already. I've given real life examples of what has happened and why I think that railway companies are perhaps cautious when taking on young female train crew. There are more young female railway staff working in booking offices and on platforms. Again I can only speculate that it may be easier to cover a woman on maternity leave in those positions with secondment or a temporary vacancy: this is impossible for Traincrew. It takes two years to fully train a driver and around six months to fully train a conductor. In addition to this your shift position cannot be taken from you as it essentially your job line. People can cover your shifts but no one can assume your entire line of work.
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Dec 30, 2013 07:15
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Do you think ASLEF and RMT will allow temporary cover of their member's jobs?
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Dec 30, 2013 09:41
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That's a good thing of course, I'm not debating that. Looking back at the article I don't really know how the industry is supposed to make the shift work 'flexible and part-time' so that the 'high skilled high paid jobs' are more accessible since a large part of the reason the wages and conditions are good is down to the job being anti-social hours and long shifts. 40 hours in 4 days of 4am starts is par for the course.
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Dec 30, 2013 15:47
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Install Windows posted:Again, in America the relevant unions to rail transit operations explicitly have it in their contracts that temporary cover for things like maternity leave are ok with them and mandatory. I've no idea why the British rail unions would oppose that. I don't know about the US, I thought they actually had more stringent qualifications when it came to being a 'rail engineer' and conductor. There's generally not a pool of qualified train drivers hanging around waiting for a temporary contract, they are either in work or have been fired for one of the many hilarious reasons I have witnessed since joining the industry, such as masturbating whilst driving, being a secret arsonist, watching porn on a tablet whilst driving etc. Even if there was a pool of qualified train drivers who could temp, they would still need to be passed out on the relevant routes by getting so many hours driving in with an instructor before being able to drive services solo. I'm not saying it's impossible, just in my experience the people who have qualified and are not driving have been sacked for good reason.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:58
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I'm actually the guard on the train Portillo gets off at on the Kents Bank episode. I'm visible for all of a millisecond but he did speak to me. 100 people on a 153 in the height of summer, another giddy day on the railway. In other news, TPE are apparently looking into the use of 142's which would be quite a spectacular change in direction.
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Mar 17, 2014 13:11
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Who in the government stands to make the most from their involvement with TOCs? That will probably be the answer. First group have always been given favourable treatment by Westminster, whether it's First TPE receiving three times as much subsidy than Northern to run three times less services or their confident policy of opening new Traincrew depots and recruiting en masse despite 'uncertainty' over the franchise end in 18 months time.
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Mar 20, 2014 14:21
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I don't think it's against the law to board a train without a ticket regardless of intent, it is against the law to purposefully attempt to evade the fare for the journey. And if you try and short fare a journey or take the more radical step of altering your ticket with a pen then you are in fraud territory which is when a serious hard on for prosecution begins. I am a guard, I take a more relaxed approach to retail than some of my colleagues however this is because as far as I'm concerned the more and more emphasis put on safety (especially regarding operation of the doors at stations) means that it is simply impossible to get everyone and I'm not going to make myself miserable stressing out about something I can't control. I work on some rural lines, and here in the north west I'd say in my area at least you would be unlucky to meet a guard who would be funny with you for boarding at a manned station without a ticket as long as you were willing to pay. Most guards get commission on ticket sales, I don't think Retail Protection staff do however. Most Traincrew also hate retail protection staff as they are similarly arsey towards members of Traincrew from other TOCs, I heard that a Northern Driver and Guard got an early finish a while back and were booked to travel home on a Virgin service but elected to go home on the earlier service (since their train was cancelled so had no further duties) only for the Virgin RPI staff to kick them off. So I can sympathise with passengers on that front. Some people are just arseholes unfortunately, I know a guy who has stopped a train because an OAP was 20p short for her fare, there was a Virgin Train Manager who charged a Northern crew for the fare despite them being booked to travel on that service. It definitely seems to be more strict the further south you travel with regards to being in possession of a ticket prior to boarding. The Metrolink is a bastard for stinging people for fines as you can't buy a ticket on board from what I've heard.
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Mar 25, 2014 19:14
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Metrication posted:Out of interest does anyone know how passenger ridership figures are gathered? Are they still done by clipboard? It seems pretty archaic when you think about it and not really that accurate. In my area in the north west the rural lines are done by clipboard, if they want to assess how busy a particular service is so they can strengthen it for the school holidays then they get the guards to fill in a manual count. That's on the TOC side though not independent figures. My friend has done his PHD in Geography at Durham and during the course of it spent time working with Northern looking at their passenger numbers in the North East and admitted that the TOC had nothing in terms of solid statistics regarding passenger numbers and it was a clipboard job to map 'the human geography' of the areas in question. Further south it's probably less farcical.
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Mar 26, 2014 00:29
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Investment is usually an exercise in illusion anyway. I remember waiting at Workington whilst a manager waxed lyrical about the hundreds of thousands that had been spent on a station refurbishment: my point that the train was 15 minutes late and that's all the passengers really cared about was ignored. The majority of issues passengers have with trains are usually only brought up when compounded by an unreliable service. There are some genuine issues like the lack of disabled toilet access on 142/144/153 units but a lot of 'this train is a mess/there are no power points/the toilet is blocked' wouldn't be as major an issue if the trains were reliable and on time. Of course given the scope of the network there tends to be one incident free day followed by a run of fatalities, broken rails and train failures.
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Apr 4, 2014 12:30
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Good news, horrible unreliable bloated public sector waste of taxpayers money Network Rail are on schedule to finish the electrification of the Manchester - Liverpool route by December. Meanwhile the lean forward facing private sector efficiency of Northern Rail will have two (2) whole new* trains ready to run on the newly electrified line. Obviously the thusting young capitalists and railway experts at Northern can't be expected to have trains ready for when electrification "goes live" (ho ho ho) as it's only been planned for five (5) years. Given that when the new timetable changes come in on May 18th my depot will be running a 142 permanently, you get no sympathy from me.
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Apr 29, 2014 13:02
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Is it true that they want HS2 to go into Euston despite it being a logistical nightmare? It would make more sense to go to St Pancras, surely? Also heard they want it to go direct to Manchester Airport as opposed to Picadilly.
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May 3, 2014 17:01
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Jonnty posted:Where do you live? The capacity released from classic lines will enhance local services in the vicinity of the line, and it'll also cut journey times to London from anywhere further north up the West Coast. Anti-HS2 types desperately try to frame the benefits as limited to the area of the station and that's just not the case. The capacity thing is good, but what are the exact figures regarding journey times? Manchester Pic to Euston can be done in 2h21 at this point in time. I'm not sure the difference will be that significant in that respect.
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May 3, 2014 23:03
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Ok 1:08 is extremely significant, thanks for the swift replies. Wouldn't putting all us pesky Rail staff into a nationalised railway increase the union power significantly though? *cue sinister music*
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May 4, 2014 00:14
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I can't help since we don't have those railcards in my area, but was the railcard itself not supplied with literature? What you need is literature to support your argument, I'd also write to the relevant TOC and complain as I'd imagine they would at least clear things up for you in black and white, usually they dish out free travel vouchers if you have been left out of pocket by their idiocy.
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May 19, 2014 15:37
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Metrication posted:Imagine running a huge rail franchise for 8 years without having enough train drivers. A lot of franchises seem to constantly need qualified drivers. I know in the north, Workington Northern Rail depot suffers from a high turnover, people from away will get a trainee job there and then leave as soon as they can get a move, leaving them forever short.
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May 25, 2014 09:23
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Hezzy posted:Well, it is Workington... £42k a year and you could have your pick of any one eyed toothless hag there.
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May 26, 2014 06:05
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Hezzy posted:Do you reckon they'll let me have the one with the peg leg? Only if you know how to play Uppies and Downies.
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May 26, 2014 23:25
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Apparently Northern Rail are proposing Driver Only trains on the north of England in the new franchises. As a conductor I'd appreciate it if some of you signed this: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petiti...time=1402369651 Otherwise, giz a job Bozza.
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Jun 10, 2014 09:07
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Jonnty posted:The idea is that it's done on suburban lines where other trains are close at hand, it's often feasible to stop at the next station, and you're rarely in the middle of nowhere. Often, there will be another member of staff on board doing revenue duties - they just won't be fully trained as a guard. The reality varies, of course. The RMT would argue that it's inevitably less safe and, despite the mitigations, it's hard to disagree with them. I'd imagine if they really want to save money then any 'revenue protection assistant' or whatever they would replace the conductor grade with would hold a PTS card and nothing else. The argument is that our wages are good because of the fact we are trained to do emergency protection etc. they have just downgraded our first aid status at Northern now, apparently we should only ring an ambulance and provide a first aid kit rather than offering any tangible aid. When I started we did a day's course but I assume that's been knocked on the head to save money, the RMT were pushing for guards to et refresher courses. Doors is another funny issue: with the girl dying due to a conductor doing his doors wrong in Liverpool, Northern went into overdrive regarding what you can and cannot do when operating the train doors. Seems a bit strange to go from claiming it's absolutely essentially to have a guard monitoring the platform from the rear door window to just binning the grade and having the driver look out before driving off, unable to see what is occurring behind his cab. If they want to go D.O.O. they will, unfortunately they get their way eventually. I actually came in here to post this: http://www.therailengineer.com/2012/02/01/draining-dove-holes/
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Jun 17, 2014 13:24
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It's a similar argument to 'why isn't a single ticket half the price of a return?', and the answer is again to discourage fare evasion. Peak time in my area is before 9 in the morning (although 16-25 railcards are only valid after 10) or if you are travelling a certain distance it can depend on your arrival time. For instance you could get an off peak ticket from Lancaster to Clacton on Sea at 0730 because you wouldn't arrive until well after peak time. Regarding ticket collection, which is my job, unfortunately it's just not realistic in the mornings on some services. I work a route where I have 6 minutes to check 200 passengers tickets, including selling tickets which inevitably leads to someone using their card to pay, eating up the best part of a minute. I have never managed to get more than half of the first carriage of that service, especially since I have to operate the doors upon arrival and everyone stands up and traps you as soon as they know they are within 90 seconds of arrival.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:20
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Heard at my RMT branch meeting yesterday that the new signalling program has been pushed back until 2028 on the Cumbrian Coast (they planned to knock all the signal boxes down and have the area controlled by one powerbox) which is good news for signallers if true. Apparently the Cumbrian Coast is going 24 hour because 'heavily armed' freight bringing dirty nuclear material from Scotland to Barrow is going to commence soon. Sounds fun.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:03
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Out of interest how does one get into signal design and similar fields? Looking at career change, I don't think I can handle a potential 40 more years of being a conductor and the tens of thousands of 4am starts and trips to Morecambe that would entail. If the grade even exists at that point.
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Aug 4, 2014 23:42
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Hezzy posted:Did you not apply for the driver vacancies for TPE at Barrow? No. At 6'9" I am too tall to drive the traction Northern are using up here (153, 156 and 142) because I physically struggle to get my foot on the plate. This isn't an issue with a 185 as far as I'm aware however: it is extremely unlikely 185s will be running on the Furness line come 2016, there was only one job going and it went to the internal man, the man who was in fact a TPE guard and the son of the driver who retired to create the vacancy (no hard feelings though I'm glad he got it). The other concern about the job and concern for him now is that just after they started training him the new franchise proposals came through with TPE saying they weren't bothered about Barrow, Blackpool or Windermere. In the highly likely event that everyone is merged back into one company at Barrow now, if that franchise is won by Northern then his job could be at risk given they want to reduce the distance of trips etc. Don't really need 40+ drivers at Barrow if all the Airport's and Blackpool's are getting turned around at Lancaster instead. As much as I am unhappy as a guard right now I am well insulated in terms of seniority, so at least I don't have to worry about that particular issue. Thanks for the response Bozza. A crossing keeper was telling me about NR doing a big recruitment drive on the Cumbrian Coast due to the line going 24 hour and the extension on the boxes. Whilst I'm only 28 so 14 years isn't going to see me to retirement I suppose it could be a foot in the door. I think the main issue I have with work at the moment is that I just don't feel mentally challenged or stimulated. I'm living for my days off but would rather view work as something other than a means to an end.
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Aug 6, 2014 07:48
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Went to RMT demo outside the DfT yesterday, was interesting:  Surprised they actually let us in to deliver the 10,000 postcards protesting the Rail North franchising consultation.
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Aug 19, 2014 08:35
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I see the pledge to rid the network of Pacer units is being forgotten. They are now on about refurbishing the units instead so a whole new generation can enjoy the bus trains of yesteryear.
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Aug 31, 2014 14:08
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Metrication posted:I thought the whole point of getting rid of them was because they can't accommodate disabled people like recent legislation requires? They have until 2020 to comply apparently, the refurb would focus on making them compliant whilst costing significantly less than actual investment in new traction. We currently have a job where we spend 4 hours straight on one, it's as fun as it sounds.
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Sep 1, 2014 13:47
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Pacers are that bad I pulled my hamstring last summer and after 8 weeks of working Pacers it had become a tear  I've heard concerns about the D trains regarding the fact those units are usually hammered in constant operation on the tube and therefore even with a refurb are unlikely to have a useful lifespan, but I don't know how true that argument is. At least we are getting some Class 37's pulling old BR stock to run Sellafield commuter services in May.
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Feb 18, 2015 14:34
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Cheer up kids at least you aren't running round on MKII coaching stock built in 1965 hauled by a class 37 on each end with major safety issues and jammed to the gills with masturbating enthusiasts: this is now my daily existence - thanks DfT!
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Jun 28, 2015 23:58
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OwlFancier posted:Does the DfT supply the masturbating enthusiasts directly or are they subcontracted? Subcontracted from what I can tell. They constantly film everything as well so I feel like I'm trapped in a Charlie Brooker dystopian future. Can't wait until I make an inevitable gently caress up that is captured in glorious HD.
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Jun 30, 2015 11:14
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