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Do you care if there is a guard on the trains?


View Poll Results: Do you care if there is a guard on the trains?
Yes 72 56.69%
No 37 29.13%
Not Bothered 18 14.17%
Voters: 127. You can't vote on this poll right now - are you signed in?

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Unread 07-01-2017, 09:13
kidspud
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Do you care if there is a guard on the trains?

Yes, on safety ground. There are circumstances where a train driver might be injured or worse in an incident and there ought to be some railway official present who can take charge and lead the passengers off the train.

When profit is put before safety, it ultimately and inevitably leads to unnecessary deaths and bereavements.
There will be someone else on board. Has anyone suggested otherwise?
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Unread 07-01-2017, 10:07
Joan_Ferguson
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There will be someone else on board. Has anyone suggested otherwise?
Not necessarily. Part of the drive to do away with the conductor grade is so the trains still run despite there being no second member of staff on board.
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Unread 07-01-2017, 10:17
annemarie1066
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There will be someone else on board. Has anyone suggested otherwise?
Since we returned to work in January I have travelled on 16 trains there was not an OBS on any of them
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Unread 07-01-2017, 11:44
davidmcn
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Southern is owned by Govia. Govia is part-owned by Keolis.

The main shareholder in Keolis is SNCF, the French national rail company.

Is SNCF allowed to run driver-only trains?
Yes, not sure of the extent but at least some suburban services are DOO.
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Unread 07-01-2017, 12:05
LostFool
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Not necessarily. Part of the drive to do away with the conductor grade is so the trains still run despite there being no second member of staff on board.
I thought the whole point is that there would normally be someone else on the train but there wouldn't have to be for the service to be able to run. This would give the services more resilience against strikes and staff sickness.

Would anyone here really refuse to get on a train is there wasn't a "ticket inspector" or "customer service manager" on board?
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Unread 07-01-2017, 12:07
moox
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There will be someone else on board. Has anyone suggested otherwise?
But the next step will be to get rid of the OBS role, which they'll be able to do so easily since they're not legally required.

It makes the whole thing even more underhanded than if they'd just said "we don't want guards anymore".

Though, given that Southern seems to be reliant on overtime for things to run properly, maybe they could hire plenty of ex-guards as train drivers...
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Unread 07-01-2017, 12:25
davidmcn
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But the next step will be to get rid of the OBS role, which they'll be able to do so easily since they're not legally required.
Given how important they are for revenue control (among other things) on most TOCs which have them, it seems unlikely.
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Unread 07-01-2017, 12:26
moox
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Given how important they are for revenue control (among other things) on most TOCs which have them, it seems unlikely.
Depends on whether the cost of employing them is outweighed by revenue collected.

RPIs will still exist and flit from train to train, as will ticket barriers and gateline staff, so it's not as if no one will be checking tickets.
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Unread 07-01-2017, 15:57
koantemplation
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I'm still confused as to how getting rid of guards will be good for customers.

I seriously doubt the savings will be passed on to the customer in reduced ticket prices.
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Unread 07-01-2017, 22:10
koantemplation
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How could the rail workers target industrial action so that it only affected the company and not the people who use the railways?

A similar question is being asked on Sunday's The Big Questions on BBC.
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