Current Affairs Rail strikes

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Bruce Wayne said:
That's undoubtedly the case in some areas, but in others it probably rings true. Unions have consistently opposed automation of trains, for instance, while at the same time also complaining about the kind of unsociable hours that would make night tubes or weekend services more frequent. These things wouldn't be a problem at all for an automated service.
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The same automated service that have a member of staff on board in nearly every case, that can drive it incase of emergency ?
Where are you getting the money for the trains signals ect, the country is skint according to the tories
Same sort of stuff they said with smart motorways, sounds good but in real world its a load of rubbish and kills people.
Its absolutely a load of bollocks the union don't want modernization, they have done numerous deals that have just that as part of there deals.
Merseyrail for instance has been restructured , shifts conditions ect. That was about 19 years a go.
They are always getting awards for being one of the best services in the country.
Staff just got something like 8% or 9% deal and on top of that got £150 ,cost of living one of payment.
They are not run by the government though.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
The RMT themselves say the average is £31,000

fullfact.org

Average salary of workers involved in RMT national rail strike is not £44,000 – Full Fact

Figures for the salary of rail workers mentioned by transport secretary Grant Shapps are not representative of those involved in the national rail strike.
fullfact.org fullfact.org
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That factors in people like engineering, specalist track workers,higher grade signal men ect,
Who are on very good pay.
For somebody in a station on northernrail to get that union average, they would have to do a days overtime at least once a week.
£13.50 an hour 35 hours a week , get that up to those figures you mentioned?

Every week they were not on holiday.
Cleaners ect on even less.
 
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edge said:
The same automated service that have a member of staff on board in nearly every case, that can drive it incase of emergency ?
Where are you getting the money for the trains signals ect, the country is skint according to the tories
Same sort of stuff they said with smart motorways, sounds good but in real world its a load of rubbish and kills people.
Its absolutely a load of bollocks the union don't want modernization, they have done numerous deals that have just that as part of there deals.
Merseyrail for instance has been restructured , shifts conditions ect. That was about 19 years a go.
They are always getting awards for being one of the best services in the country.
Staff just got something like 8% or 9% deal and on top of that got £150 ,cost of living one of payment.
They are not run by the government though.
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Oh for sure, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime, just as I don't expect to see a truly modern NHS either or a modern sewage system. The country is in a terrible mess. I believe the likes of the Elizabeth Line have been designed with automation in mind though (and the staff on board was a sop to the unions, no? It's not really needed)
 
Diogenes the Cynic said:
We pay top level taxes for a poor rail system.

That's not to critisise the workers who are the cogs in a dysfunctional machine.

I've had the same view all my life, cars should be a case of necessity and occasional luxury rather than personal choice.

Public transport is the way forward but it has to be done correctly. For all people complain about the tube I found it an absolute pleasure to be able to turn up at whatever time I desired knowing that it didn't matter if I caught it or not as the next one was only a couple of minutes away.

Buses were the same. For my job I was doing medical assessments on people in their homes. I was just given 3 addresses in the morning and then caught a variety of buses and trains to find my destination.
I don't think I was ever late to an appointment, in fact I was usually whisked back by bus to my flat by 4 in the afternoon.

I did a similar thing in Liverpool for the drug and alcohol team once. I only lasted 2 months on the visits because I was trapped in Waterloo or Aintree waiting for nonexistent buses or ones that bore no resemblance to the timetable at the stop.

Make public transport so good so people don't want to use their cars. I realise I have no idea where the money will come from for the infrastructure but there has never been any motivators to make public transport a priority.

While I'm on my soapbox I still think we should be transporting some goods by canal to take pressure off the roads. If it is non-perishable items transported in a constant loop there should be no problem.
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I've very limited experience of being in London but it was a real eye opener. The frequency of the tube and the ease of getting a bus pretty much anywhere I wanted to go was so different to my experience of things here in the NorthWest it was unreal.

Up here we have pretty poor service that turns people off using it. In turn companies cut services because they're under-utilised and not cost effective. It's a vicious circle.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
Oh for sure, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime, just as I don't expect to see a truly modern NHS either or a modern sewage system. The country is in a terrible mess. I believe the likes of the Elizabeth Line have been designed with automation in mind though (and the staff on board was a sop to the unions, no? It's not really needed)
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They have the staff in most around the world, not a sop to the RMT.
What happens when something fails as it surely will, say the computers get hacked for instance ?
The Paris driver only system , route 4(, I think its called cost £450 million to convert).
For track less than 14 miles long and converting 50 odd trains.
Imagine the cost of that on a bigger scale.
A lot of driverless trains system s around the world are on enclosed systems , raised tracks ect, and have little interaction with things like rail crossing ect.
It can certainly be done no reason it can't, but the costs are well beyond anything this country would fork out.
You are correct the country is in a mess.
Havnt invested in its own people enough for decades in the race to the bottom. .
Everything has been about keeping workers wages down and profits up.
It was bound to end in tears .
Welcome to the new reality .
We workers are not going any further down , we are finally at ground zero.
We are not going in the basement to suit the buggers at the top, without a fight.
Onwards and upwards ,
Up the Unions power to the people.
 
edge said:
They have the staff in most around the world, not a sop to the RMT.
What happens when something fails as it surely will, say the computers get hacked for instance ?
The Paris driver only system , route 4(, I think its called cost £450 million to convert).
For track less than 14 miles long and converting 50 odd trains.
Imagine the cost of that on a bigger scale.
A lot of driverless trains system s around the world are on enclosed systems , raised tracks ect, and have little interaction with things like rail crossing ect.
It can certainly be done no reason it can't, but the costs are well beyond anything this country would fork out.
You are correct the country is in a mess.
Havnt invested in its own people enough for decades in the race to the bottom. .
Everything has been about keeping workers wages down and profits up.
It was bound to end in tears .
Welcome to the new reality .
We workers are not going any further down , we are finally at ground zero.
We are not going in the basement to suit the buggers at the top, without a fight.
Onwards and upwards ,
Up the Unions power to the people.
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The problem is that productivity has flatlined since around 2008, which has undermined economic growth, which has undermined wage growth. I suspect half of the problem with that is that the government seem to only see huge infrastructure projects as the way out of it, which inevitably get mired in delays and cost overruns, so nothing ever happens. We won't really improve as a country without rectifying matters though as we run the very real risk of entering into a generation of stagflation where economic growth is terminal but inflation remains high.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
www.economist.com

Both the British government and the unions dig in on train strikes

A battle for public sympathy alongside a dispute over pay and conditions
www.economist.com www.economist.com

As long as the above averagely paid train staff get even more money though, hey?
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Well if the government had any sense this wouldn't be happening.
Should have just given a say 5,% rise to people that havnt had one for 3 yrs and picked another time to pick a fight with them.
When times were a bit more settled.
Honestly as I put back in the thread even the train operators don't have a clue.
They can't plan as they don't have a clue what's around the corner, much like us.
They are at the talks , well represenatives of the TOCs, are Northernrail directly are not so they only get it afterwards like we do.
They get the stick of the staff , but in this case they are not to blame.
 
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