More Rail Stuff

 Rail Turmoil Again

Rather surprisingly, this article doesn’t concern the 24 hour lightning strike held by Rail and Maritime Thingy (RMT) et al concerning their favourite subject “pay and conditions” in response to London Underground trying to deliver the kind of service the ever-patient public want.

By ever-patient of course what I really mean is captive since there is no other transport system in London that could cope with the volume of traffic London underground does.

This article is about turmoil elsewhere within the rail network and arguably elsewhen. .  yes its. . .

Welcome to the 1970s

Some readers may not have been around in the strike era, the days of ‘Brothers Out! as a trade union response to any change at all. On the one hand this protected workers rights to ensure they weren’t turned into slaves by their thoroughly evil and money grabbing employers.

On the other hand it was the beginning of the end of many companies who as a result of being forced to pay very high wages lost out on the competitive market to ‘cheap foreign imports’ – ring any bells?

You would have thought that the unions took their future into consideration after all, they achieved the end of manufacturing in the UK, the type of business they were set up to protect.

Sadly that kind of thinking still exists but the unions that are around today are representing ‘members’ who are employed by indestructible industries, it is not possible for any government to switch off transport, education and health. This is why we ever-patient consumers are really a captive audience with no option to use these services however bad they may be. .  or indeed good as they sometimes are.

Meanwhile, back in the 1970s way of thinking, our rail based friends are at it here in Great Western land as shown in this BBC News article.

The upshot is that the unions have cried “Brothers Out!” in response to a problem with the new electric trains which are to be rolled out once we have the elastictrickery installed on our most ancient line.

You see, it is the ‘train manager’ who is responsible for shutting the slam doors on our existing trains, yes readers you read that right. . SLAM DOORS! For those of you near any great town/city a slam door is an antiquated door closing mechanism which as the name suggests requires the door to be firmly closed. Those in big towns and cities simply have to press a button which causes the doors to close and open themselves and costs the door operator (i.e. you) to burn off no calories.

However the new Japanese manufactured trains (remember the unions caused the meltdown of manufacturing in the UK so we can’t make trains anymore) have automatic doors designed to be operated by the driver, not the train manager.

This means that the train manager have nothing to do and so will not be needed according to the unions.

According to the train operator though, there will be more trains so more train managers are needed.

Yeah but no but yeah but no say the unions, what about the buffet services (a.k.a. that nice little earner) which are being dropped?

Childish Bickering

And so there we have it, this level of petty minded child like bickering has caused a return to the 1970s. Rail strikes left right and centre and here we are the ever-patient service users unable to travel on our days off because as I have noted in previous articles, an appropriate service is still not being delivered to us.