Southern's Timetable Reduction

[cromptonnut]

It's not just "the disabled" - whatever that term may mean - it's just anyone needing assistance.

 

I've dealt with elderly people who just wanted a hand with their luggage, families with prams and childrens, or even those who just aren't sure where they are going.

 

I just see it as part of the job - even if it's not strictly in my role - to help people where I can, and I'm happy to do so.

 

Which I can't do, obviously, if I'm not there.

[phil-b259]

I can see merit in it during peak hours at busy stations as an addition to the ticket office to assist people with ticket machines, give travel advice without having to queue for 10 minutes, and to issue simple tickets.  But there isn't much in the proposals to benefit anyone that couldn't be addressed by training existing gateline staff (as some already are) with hand-held Avantix or similar ticket issuing machines like on-board (whilst they still exist...) staff use, for no disruption, little expenditure, and an increase in pay to cover the additional skill.

 

But that's too simple and too obvious for the civil servants to even consider.

 

The saying evolution rather than revolution comes to mind. Unfortunately both the DfT and the Unions both seem to prefer the latter over the former.

[cromptonnut]

The saying evolution rather than revolution comes to mind. Unfortunately both the DfT and the Unions both seem to prefer the latter over the former.

 

Well there certainly isn't any evidence of "Intelligent Design" being shown...

[caradoc]

While it is good that the Scotrail dispute has been settled, this will now lead to a quite ludicrous situation, once electric trains are running on the Edinburgh/Queen St High Level route; Travelling from Edinburgh to Haymarket or Glasgow, for example, if you board a Class 334 on a Queen St Low Level via Bathgate service this will be DOO, and will run whether any other member of staff is on board or not; But if you join a Class 385 on a Queen St High Level service this train will have a Guard, and will be cancelled if it does not. Where is the logic in that ? 

 

As has been said several times in this topic, DOO trains have ran in the UK for 30 years, and as yet no-one has proved that they are unsafe. In a perfect world it absolutely would be a Good Thing to have additional staff on board to assist passengers, in fact on a longer train or where two or more sets are coupled with no gangway connection between them, more than one person, but this of course raises the perennial question of who pays ? The only sources of funding are either yet higher fares - Not likely to be popular; Or increased government funding, meaning those who do not use trains have to subsidise (even more) those who do.

 

Regarding Labour and renationalising the railways, remember that they won power in 1997, only 3 years into privatisation, yet in the following 13 years did nothing to fundamentally change the structure of the industry; Spouting crowd-pleasing slogans at Party Conferences (or while pretending a train is so busy that you have to sit on the floor) while in opposition is very different to the reality of actually running the country, with multiple demands on the nation's finances, some of which such as health, education, national security and housing, are a far higher priority than the railways.

[Neal Ball]

Any chance of trains this Saturday evening from Gatwick to Bognor?

[cromptonnut]

Any chance of trains this Saturday evening from Gatwick to Bognor?

 

As I often say to people, there is no planned disruption at the moment.

[John M Upton]

No amount of strike action now will change the bigger picture here - only the election of a non conservative government in 2020 will.

 

Given that the political opposition in this country consists of the red team - a completely unelectable loony left that is fighting amongest themselves. the yellow team - all but wiped out as punishment for siding with the blue team as a result their annual conference can be held in a phone box and the gold team who don't give a toss about anything south of Carlisle, quite frankly they might as well hand the next election to Teresa May and co now and not bother with all the election nonsense next time around.

[cromptonnut]

Given that the political opposition in this country consists of the red team - a completely unelectable loony left that is fighting amongest themselves. the yellow team - all but wiped out as punishment for siding with the blue team as a result their annual conference can be held in a phone box and the gold team who don't give a toss about anything south of Carlisle, quite frankly they might as well hand the next election to Teresa May and co now and not bother with all the election nonsense next time around.

 

What about the purple party...?

 

[John M Upton]

Too busy electing someone to stand in for Nigel Farage for a few weeks every other month by the looks of it!!

[royaloak]

The Thames Valley on the WR has run DOO(P) for a good many years and most of the stations served by DOO(P) trains have no platform staff for most (or indeed all) of the day and never have had such staff since long before DOO(P) was introduced.

And a week or two ago there was a story about one of our wheelchair bound Paralympians who was unable to get off the train on her way to work becuae the assistance didnt turn up/wasnt available!

 

Is that the future you want?

Its all well and good saying 'many years ago' etc but that was then and this is now, believe it or not these days disabled passengers want the same as we take for granted, why is that so wrong?

[Guest]

And a week or two ago there was a story about one of our wheelchair bound Paralympians who was unable to get off the train on her way to work becuae the assistance didnt turn up/wasnt available!

 

Is that the future you want?

Its all well and good saying 'many years ago' etc but that was then and this is now, believe it or not these days disabled passengers want the same as we take for granted, why is that so wrong?

 

She was the only passenger, was she? That says more about human nature than anything else. Did everyone else just sit there and not help?

My bold. Just a tad melodramatic, don't you think? Personally, I'd prefer a future where the average person gets off their ar$e and helps their fellow human being without being employed to do so.

[Coryton]

She was the only passenger, was she? That says more about human nature than anything else. Did everyone else just sit there and not help?

My bold. Just a tad melodramatic, don't you think? Personally, I'd prefer a future where the average person gets off their ar$e and helps their fellow human being without being employed to do so.

 

Um.

 

A passenger in a wheelchair normally needs a ramp to get on and off a train. These are usually padlocked when not in use, and even if not I don't think it would be appropriate for passengers to go around trying to deploy them,

[Gwiwer]

And a week or two ago there was a story about one of our wheelchair bound Paralympians who was unable to get off the train on her way to work becuae the assistance didnt turn up/wasnt available!

 

 

 

She was the only passenger, was she? That says more about human nature than anything else. Did everyone else just sit there and not help?

My bold. Just a tad melodramatic, don't you think? Personally, I'd prefer a future where the average person gets off their ar$e and helps their fellow human being.

 

 

While other passengers might have been more than willing to offer their assistance they are unable to unlock the ramp from its storage either in the platform locker or aboard the train.  They may be personally liable rather than the rail operator corporately should any incident arise when assisting a disabled person who has booked assistance which is not provided.  he nature of the assistance required might be beyond the scope which fellow passengers feel they can provide.  Persons exiting the train to help may be considered by the driver to have alighted and be prevented from re-boarding as the doors are closed.

 

The TOC (or NR where they manage the station) is responsible for providing assistance when so requested.  It may be considered over-staffing to have someone at the station - every station - just in case they are needed irrespective of what else they might be available for such as customer service and ticket sales.  Or it might be considered inconvenient and costly to deploy an individual to a location which might be some way from their normal place of work for a brief few minutes of assistance.

 

You decide which is the better scenario.

 

I work for a suburban rail operator who has removed staff and all obstacles such as barriers and steps from most of its stations.  A minority remains staffed first to last train daily (and overnight Friday morning to Sunday night) and a very few more are "hosted" for usually four hours in the weekday morning peaks.  Staffed stations are referred to as "Premium" despite providing what I and many others consider to be the very basic requirements of one staff member present when trains are running, plus toilets and a secure waiting area.  Unattended stations have none of those.  All trains are DOO.  Wheelchair users and others with mobility difficulties can easily access any platform but the driver has to exit their cab, deploy the ramp (always carried in the passenger saloon),  allow the passenger(s) to enter / exit the train at their own rate and then stow the ramp before returning to the cab and proceeding.  Each such occasion takes typically one minute when 20 seconds is allowed for a station stop.  One wheelchair on and off delays the train by around 90 seconds which is easily enough for it to lose its pathway.  Many trips convey several wheelchairs often over quite short distances.

 

Any unwell passenger is also the responsibility of the driver who must stop, delaying up to 1000 others aboard, until the emergency is assessed and must await the arrival of an ambulance if required.  Only at Premium stations can unwell passengers be taken off the train by station staff and only then if they are willing and able to do so allowing for their other duties.  One faint passenger often results in multiple trains being delayed by 15 - 30 minutes.

 

I accept DOO as an evil of modern-day operation rather than an absolute necessity. If second persons were carried on trains some - not all - of these delays could be reduced or eliminated.  If stations were staffed to a higher level platform staff could be standing ready with wheelchair ramps.  

 

We are moving into the era of autonomous transport - driverless cars and buses are already being tested and London Underground has sought to introduce driverless tube trains.  How long until DOO(P) becomes driverless?  Melodramatic?  I'm already hearing plans for driverless buses in service on a limited scale ......... 

[Guest]

My apologies. I thought it was perfectly possible for a couple of folk to lift a wheelchair down from the train to the platform or vice versa. I hadn't realised the average commuter had evolved to lose the use of their hands and arms for anything other than thumbing through a smartphone.

I seem to remember disabled people existed before ramps became universally available, How on earth did they manage???

[ejstubbs]

My apologies. I thought it was perfectly possible for a couple of folk to lift a wheelchair down from the train to the platform or vice versa.

 

Have you tried it?

 

My Dad is now pretty much confined to a wheelchair and I can assure you it's no trivial task simply trying to get him on to the pavement from road level where there's no dropped kerb.  The suggestion that a couple of commuters unfamiliar with wheelchairs (pull on the wrong bit and the thing starts to fold up) can easily manhandle an occupied one off a busy train is, frankly, well en route to la la land.

 

I seem to remember disabled people existed before ramps became universally available, How on earth did they manage???

 

A lot of the time they simply didn't manage - they couldn't readily use trains, or any other services which had not been provided with facilities specifically  to enable access to wheelchair users.  The days of well-staffed stations and trains had already started to fade in to distant memory before the DDA came along, requiring businesses to take reasonable measures to help.  (Note that's businesses, not their other customers.)

 

We then somehow ended up with the situation where someone whose only "disability" is the possession of an unfeasibly large baby-carriage-######-shopping-trolley occupies the wheelchair space on a bus and refuses to move when a disabled person needs to use the space.  To deal with this my local bus company has chosen to provide a wheelchair space and a buggy space on every bus, meaning there are even fewer seats for other passengers - some of whom may have other mobility problems which don't require the use of a wheelchair.

 

On the other hand, said bus company has equipped all its buses with a rather neat (though unfortunately not always 100% reliable) self-deploying and retracting access ramp for when a wheelchair user wishes to board or alight.  Could something like this be installed at the doors which give access to the wheelchair space on trains?

[Guest]

Have you tried it?

 

Yes, many times. Moderate effort required, but far from impossible.

[jjb1970]

If there has been a failure of the arrangements to look after travellers needing assistance, then surely the appropriate response is to establish what went wrong and to instigate measure to try and prevent a recurrence. What those measures might be should be based on an evaluation and analysis of what went wrong and how to avoid such incidents.

[roythebus]

While it is good that the Scotrail dispute has been settled, this will now lead to a quite ludicrous situation, once electric trains are running on the Edinburgh/Queen St High Level route; Travelling from Edinburgh to Haymarket or Glasgow, for example, if you board a Class 334 on a Queen St Low Level via Bathgate service this will be DOO, and will run whether any other member of staff is on board or not; But if you join a Class 385 on a Queen St High Level service this train will have a Guard, and will be cancelled if it does not. Where is the logic in that ? 

 

As has been said several times in this topic, DOO trains have ran in the UK for 30 years, and as yet no-one has proved that they are unsafe. In a perfect world it absolutely would be a Good Thing to have additional staff on board to assist passengers, in fact on a longer train or where two or more sets are coupled with no gangway connection between them, more than one person, but this of course raises the perennial question of who pays ? The only sources of funding are either yet higher fares - Not likely to be popular; Or increased government funding, meaning those who do not use trains have to subsidise (even more) those who do.

 

Regarding Labour and renationalising the railways, remember that they won power in 1997, only 3 years into privatisation, yet in the following 13 years did nothing to fundamentally change the structure of the industry; Spouting crowd-pleasing slogans at Party Conferences (or while pretending a train is so busy that you have to sit on the floor) while in opposition is very different to the reality of actually running the country, with multiple demands on the nation's finances, some of which such as health, education, national security and housing, are a far higher priority than the railways.

 

The other sources of funding for the second person on the train is to cut management staff or cut the profit margin for the operating company. Simple.

[wombatofludham]

My apologies. I thought it was perfectly possible for a couple of folk to lift a wheelchair down from the train to the platform or vice versa. I hadn't realised the average commuter had evolved to lose the use of their hands and arms for anything other than thumbing through a smartphone.

I seem to remember disabled people existed before ramps became universally available, How on earth did they manage???

 

Disabled people in the past were told they shouldn't expect to be able to travel, or were treated like parcels.  Manhandling people with disabilities is humiliating and rightly gets the person with disabilities angry.  If someone who has competed in the Rio Paralympics then had to be manhandled by complete strangers like some parcel or non-sentient piece of luggage, and you consider that acceptable, then you really have no awareness of what the person with disabilities is feeling or has a right to expect.  They have been encouraged to be independent and to represent their country showing their willpower to overcome their disabilities, then their country repays them by declining them the right to be able to use a train without being treated as a piece of baggage and an inconvenience in the name of cheeseparing money saving.  Welcome to the selfish, oafish and nasty face of modern Britain.

 

People with disabilities have the RIGHT not to have to rely on the goodwill of the public and to have service providers provide a service the rest of the travelling public enjoy.  It is also the law that service providers have a duty to provide reasonable adaptations for disabled people to access services, and if the platform-carriage interface is unable to provide level boarding, then the service provider has to provide as means of accessing the train that overcomes the step.  If that means a member of staff is needed to operate the adaptation, then so be it, they will have to suck it up or face prosecution.

 

 

[cromptonnut]

The other sources of funding for the second person on the train is to cut management staff

 

Almost all of the current advertised external vacancies are for management roles, or graduates. 

 

https://gtrailwaycareers.com/templates/GTRailway/job_list.aspx

[Guest]

Disabled people in the past were told they shouldn't expect to be able to travel, or were treated like parcels.  Manhandling people with disabilities is humiliating and rightly gets the person with disabilities angry.  If someone who has competed in the Rio Paralympics then had to be manhandled by complete strangers like some parcel or non-sentient piece of luggage, and you consider that acceptable, then you really have no awareness of what the person with disabilities is feeling or has a right to expect.  They have been encouraged to be independent and to represent their country showing their willpower to overcome their disabilities, then their country repays them by declining them the right to be able to use a train without being treated as a piece of baggage and an inconvenience in the name of cheeseparing money saving.  Welcome to the selfish, oafish and nasty face of modern Britain.

 

"Manhandling", "parcels"...what a ridiculous statement. Nobody is talking about picking a disabled person up and tossing them and their wheelchair off a train. It does you no credit to infer otherwise. If someone with a disability asked for help, I'd give it. If they didn't ask but looked as if they needed help, I'd offer. If that offer was declined, then so be it, but at least I would have offered. The next time my wife (who is disabled) requires any kind of assistance, I'll refuse to give it. I'll also get all indignant if anyone else offers to help and tell her to stop moaning and be a bit more independent...

[Coryton]

The other sources of funding for the second person on the train is to cut management staff or cut the profit margin for the operating company. Simple.

 

You need to be careful cutting management; if it went too far Southern might be unable to manage to provide a reliable service.

 

By the way - same adverts in the Metro again today. I wonder if they paid for a week's worth in advance?

[wombatofludham]

"Manhandling", "parcels"...what a ridiculous statement. Nobody is talking about picking a disabled person up and tossing them and their wheelchair off a train. It does you no credit to infer otherwise. If someone with a disability asked for help, I'd give it. If they didn't ask but looked as if they needed help, I'd offer. If that offer was declined, then so be it, but at least I would have offered. The next time my wife (who is disabled) requires any kind of assistance, I'll refuse to give it. I'll also get all indignant if anyone else offers to help and tell her to stop moaning and be a bit more independent...

 

There's a difference between offering to help and expecting others to help which your original post suggested.  In any case the point is it should not be necessary for anyone to need to offer or request help from passengers.  A person with disabilities should have the right to be able to expect to travel without any barriers to their journey.  Not providing a means of getting on and off the train independent of requiring the other passengers to "offer" to help or be expected to help IS reducing their independence, and is reducing the individual to the level of an inconvenient item of baggage rather than someone who should be able to access public transport on their own terms.

 

Passengers are not able to access the on board ramp.  Therefore how would well meaning individuals, assuming the person with disabilities accepts their offer without feeling demeaned or humiliated, be able to assist someone in a wheelchair without manhandling them onto the train?  You even talk of "I thought it was perfectly possible for a couple of folk to lift a wheelchair down from the train to the platform or vice versa".  That is manhandling in my book, and unacceptable in the 21st Century.

 

There is a fundamental conflict here.  UK trains cannot have level boarding because of the high platforms and the need to accommodate the dynamic envelope of passing trains, so some sort of ramp will be needed to bridge the ensuing gap.  The Equality Act imposes a duty on service providers to make reasonable adaptations to allow people with all forms of disability to access services independently.  Unless technology can be used to provide an independently worked means of bridging the platform-train gap then the railway companies will have to provide someone to work the manual ramps needed to access the train.  Should that be the driver on a DOO service?  Or should the industry be working on some sort of self service device that can be retro-fitted to DOO stock to comply with the Equality Act?  After all, there's no point in there being the "Access for All" fund to make the many non-fully accessible stations barrier-free to persons with reduced mobility, or even fitting rolling stock with disabled accessible toilets, if a person in a wheelchair can't access the train because the rail operator is running the service as a DOO service and hasn't got a "Customer Host" on board to work the ramp.

[Gwiwer]

 

 

Disabled people in the past were told they shouldn't expect to be able to travel, or were treated like parcels. 

To which end they were often required to travel in their wheelchair in the guard's van.  Along with the parcels.  Also unheated and draughty.  Simply because provision for them in the seated accommodation along the train had not been made.  Now we have wide doorways, designated wheelchair spaces and wide toilets with curved doors to permit a wheelchair user to turn around inside.  How did they manage to cope with nature's needs when confined to the guard's van?

[John M Upton]

Almost all of the current advertised external vacancies are for management roles, or graduates. 

 

https://gtrailwaycareers.com/templates/GTRailway/job_list.aspx

And a 'Train Presentation Team Member' which is the modern trendy speak for a cleaner.