Winter of Discontent (202)2

[ajohn]

The government blocked a higher offer from train companies and insisted on the driver only trains terms.

It's not just that there are other factors such as Sunday working. LOL The gov's comments about that is people use trains for leisure activities on Sunday now. That is what came out of his lips implying lots.

I live near to a bus hub. I see loads of buses during the day with hardly any people in them. Train services have a similarity. We live near a station but don't hear trains but a very easy walk away. This is a factor that influences fares.

 

[ajohn]

WILL NOT be striking, well they have and they are.

Definitely not working overtime.
Talking to a regular train user reliable train arrivals started having problems some time before all this happened. LOL Even in the SE but the one I was talking to doesn't use services there.

Another problem has been mentioned. Drivers working for a particilar company so can not be swapped around,

 

[JohnD]

Drivers working for a particilar company so can not be swapped around,

Privatisation of the national railways has given us a worse system that costs more.

 

[Andydevon]

JohnD has forgotten what a **** show it was before privatisation. Unfortunately it no better now so rather then winging lets look at a solution - public / private partnership I mean that worked so well in the past hasn't it.

 

[JohnD]

It's now worse, and costs more.

 

[Andydevon]

Err solution then rather than a sound bite?

 

[ajohn]

Privatisation of the national railways has given us a worse system that costs more.

Some rail service functions are nationalised. At least one privately owned bus service is subsidised as it can't make a profit.

Me, I wonder about the sense of every 15min services. They crop up or are close on both services.

Rail need a bit of history
The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board.

The first report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and 67,700 British Rail positions,[1] with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running. The second report identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. The 1963 report also recommended some less well-publicised changes, including a switch to the now-standard practice of containerisation for rail freight, and the replacement of some services with integrated bus services linked to the remaining railheads.

Protests resulted in the saving of some stations and lines, but the majority were closed as planned; Beeching's name remains associated with the mass closure of railways and the loss of many local services in the period that followed.

Forget that it was nationalised. The circumstances mentioned caused the changes. Ever increasing use of cars and HGV's, Subsidies were needed as the return on many routes didn't cover the cost of running them. Subsidies can also be used to even out cost according peoples wealth. Germany for instance subsidises theirs. Sadly they can also be used politically to keep prices down.

HS2 is all about capacity to carry people and things. Some rail services are being speeded up not as much as expected on one route. Trams are being introduced. Looks like some extra rail services routes are being established or thought about. Anybody wonder why?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Me, I wonder about the sense of every 15min services. They crop up or are close on both services.

I'm lucky, I have a 15min service, running just at the street end, 100 yards from my front door. It runs from one town centre to another, a 90 minute run, with where I live in the middle. Usually it is well subscribed, with between 1/3 and 1/2 full during the day. For me, the service is great, not really worth getting the car out most of the time. The service used to be two services, with slight variations in the two routes, each 30mins, alternating until some bright spark decided they could delete one service and double up the other, saving them - nowt at all. It has though left many people with up to a mile to walk to the nearest bus stop.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I live near to a bus hub. I see loads of buses during the day with hardly any people in them. Train services have a similarity. We live near a station but don't hear trains but a very easy walk away. This is a factor that influences fares.

I live between two stations, both just a short walk away and the line passing a short distance from the end of my back garden. Likewise, I don't hear them, they are in a cutting. Nor do I use them, and have only rarely used them, except as a child, back in the 50s. My father worked on the railways, as did many of my relatives, so we had free rail travel. He saw what was coming with the Beeching cuts and got out. It seemed there was some pride in running a service for the travelling public back then, there seems to be none at all now. If a service cannot be relied upon, then people are bound to make their travel arrangements elsewhere.

The country needs to modernise, take up modern methods, driver and conductor less trains. I didn't start work expecting to have a job for life, I had to move regularly, and had to upgrade my skill set constantly, why should they be any different, why should they expect a job for life?

Constant change is the only certainty.

 

[Mottie]

The DLR has driverless trains. Why can’t other lines be the same?

 

[motorbiking]

Because the service will be more efficient and there will be fewer union jobs, silly.

 

[IT Minion]

The DLR has driverless trains. Why can’t other lines be the same?

It costs a hell of a lot of money to retrofit. We're gradually moving that way but it's piecemeal.

 

[fillyboy]

MSN

www.msn.com

Pressure was growing on Mick Lynch today to accept a pay deal as it emerged that 250 signallers and track engineers earn at least £100,000.

Industry figures reveal that the workers, who are represented by Mr Lynch's RMT union, took home the bumper pay packets in the year to September.

Another 650 at Network Rail earned more than £80,000. And a quarter of track maintenance staff are on £60,000-plus – more than double the £27,055 given to a newly qualified nurse.

Obtained by the Mail under the Freedom of Information Act, the figures show that average earnings for a signaller were just under £56,000 and £50,000 for track maintenance staff. They include base salary, overtime, rest day working and allowances for unsociable hours.

Around 80 per cent of the 20,000 or so track maintenance workers and signallers at Network Rail are members of the RMT.

MPs last night said the findings made 'a mockery' of Mr Lynch's claims that his members were on the breadline.

They said the figures also undermined his claims that his strikes, which are costing the economy billions, are not about class war or trying to bring down the Government.

Mr Lynch has rejected a 9 per cent pay offer from Network Rail, a deal that has been accepted by the TSSA union.

It is worth double digits over two years for the lowest paid.

Unite, which represents electrical control room operators, backed a similar deal this week and has withdrawn strike action. But the RMT wants rises in line with inflation, currently around 11 per cent.

Tory MP Peter Bone said: 'Most people would consider these earnings pretty high. People are beginning to realise that this is just a politically motivated strike because Mr Lynch also rather likes being in the media.

'If the average wage is £50,000 for the people he represents, when the average wage in the country is £30,000-odd, then clearly his members are doing much better than the average worker and it's unfair to ask them to pay for inflation-level pay demands.'

 

[carmanmemoranda]

They include base salary, overtime, rest day working and allowances for unsociable hours.

Not a real wage figure then.

How much overtime?
how many rest days?

 

[JohnD]

"Rolls-Royce car plant workers win pay deal worth up to 17.6%"