Driver only trains, eh? It isn’t only Southern that has a problem with them – or, to be specific, a problem with the unions objecting to losing the guard.
There’s nothing new about driver only operation. They were around when I was working a signalbox some twenty-odd years ago. On the suburban routes there is a logic to it as a guard will have trouble getting through the train effectively to check tickets. The door operation isn’t a huge issue – someone has to do it and to do it, they have to be able to see all of the train to ensure that no one is trying to board or disembark at the crucial moment. Guards do it by standing outside on the platform. Where DOO applies, there will be aids for the driver to do the same – mirrors, CCTV and so on. When I’ve been in the cab with drivers, they will often open the window and look out along the train. So long as it is possible for them to see the length of the train, there really isn’t a safety issue.
So what is the problem? Well, it’s the old Cotton Jenny thing. Technology means that trains can be operated perfectly safely and efficiently by the driver. Guards effectively become redundant. Well, mostly. On intercity routes there is a case for on-board customer service for when things go wrong and to generally look after the travelling public, check tickets and so on. And if there is service disruption, someone who will assist in onward travel arrangements or if it all goes horribly wrong, someone who will take charge of evacuation of the train and safe passage for the customers. They just aren’t needed on modern stock to operate the doors.
You could argue, I guess, the same for the suburban routes, but the bottom line here is that modern traction is not designed with a guard in mind. I was discussing this very point with a couple of drivers I was assessing a few months back and they acknowledged that times are changing and that eventually, the company will get its way. Guards are going the way of buggy whip manufacturers. ASLEF and the RMT can argue as much as they like. It’s happening. So the vote today, rejecting the peace deal will merely piss off the travelling public. What it won’t do is stop the inevitable. Delay it slightly, maybe, but the tide is coming in, just as it has all but come in for those people working the old panel signalboxes currently being replaced by centralised signalling centres with lots of signallers being made redundant. And losing guards will shrink my target market, too.
Progress, eh?
My former commuting line (c2c) went through this process about 15 years back and the eventual compromise was that a ‘guard’ would be retained on 12 coach services but not on 4 or 8 coach ones.
Why have a driver? A bored human to cancel signal warnings in their half sleep? A human ‘passenger side’ makes more sense, but then if things go wrong a reassuring voice over the ‘tannoy’ could just as easily come from ‘control’ and the passengers wouldn’t be any the wiser.
We are nowhere near being able to operate driverless trains on the mainline system. The signalling system is anything from 150 years old to modern electronic systems and vary across the network.
What has the signalling system got to do with it? It is the train that needs to change. if we can operate driverless cars on roads we can certainly manage it on railways where the position can be absolutely determined. We can read number plates from cars on the move so we can certainly read fixed signals with or without AWS etc.
GWR say that their new trains will use GPS to determine which doors on a train are safe to unlock when berthed at short platforms.
Public confidence and vested interests in ASLEF are the only things that stop us, (one year of a driver’s salary could easily pay for necessary kit per train).
Here in Port Chalmers,New Zealand,we only have Passenger trains when the Cruise ships are in.We do however have many Container trains using a single track line. All of their movements are controlled by radio from a Control Centre in Wellington That is many kilometres and on another island. Just shows it can be done.
Okay, before anyone else regales me with the driver-less trains stuff, please stop. It is a triumph of ideology over pragmatism. A single line running one type of traction is not the same thing as a suburban route in the London area with multiple lines and junctions with multiple traction running at capacity with signalling systems that vary according to age – in some cases using levers and wires. Driver-less trains will involve an investment of billions, not to mention the time and cost involved in ensuring that the system is safe for passenger use – you are talking decades here before any system is in place on a dedicated line. The whole infrastructure? At present, pie in the sky. So, please, give it a rest. I’m really not interested in either hearing it or having to repeatedly debunk it.
Next century, maybe. Until then, forget it, ain’t going to happen.
I saw a programme a little while ago about the railways which mentioned that one development – can’t remember now whether it was the APT or the 125 – was held up for years because it was designed for one driver but the unions insisted on two people in the cab.
Would have been the 125. You only need two in the cab if ATP is fitted, but disabled. The Southall accident was a direct example of ATP being disabled and the offer of a second person to sit in the second man’s seat and GWR refused the offer because the person was a Railtrack employee. They could have turned the set so that the leading cab had ATP working, but they didn’t.