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Trains, Planes, an Automobiles, Well maybe Trains and Planes ?


oldypigeonpopper
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Hello, as above, Due to COVID the major Airlines in UK shed 1000s of jobs despite the furlough payments the government gave them to hold jobs,  and now they cannot get people to fill all the vacancies , I wonder why ? , Now we have a dispute on the railway networks, the government has put in Millions of £s to up grade lines, trains, and stations, fares are an all time high, more people are needing to travel by train ,  Network rail wants to shed 1000s of jobs , will safety be compromised ,they want to change work patterns and pay,  HS2 is millions over budget,  just to take off 30 minutes journey, have the railway workers a genuine case to strike ? or is it another Tory way to stop the big unions from getting members decent pay and conditions , is labour sitting on the fence or falling over themselves to bash Grant Shapps , is it time for ACAS ? any thoughts PW ??

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I get the impression that very few people, in the greater scheme of things, actually travel on trains. Out of everyone I know, only one travels on a train. He works in advertising and works World wide from home on a computer but just occasionally has to attend a meeting in London. Nobody else that I know would go near a train for transport. 
Aeroplanes main function in the World is to take people on holiday. So they’re not important then. 
And as Tightchoke has said, they already have good pay and conditions. So the strikes/disruption is just for greed. What we need is another Maggie Thatcher, she knew how to deal with bolshie unions.

Yeah, I’m a grumpy old ***!

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5 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Mick Lynch made it quite clear that he would not discuss it with a Tory Government and appears to blame David Cameron for the problems.

Hello, not we are all in this together David Cameroon ? , Oh does he want the strike to continue until Labour win the next election 🤔

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Watched news night. 

It was said the average wage on the railways was £40000.

Train driver on £60000 +. 

Union chap on there didn't disagree with the figures. 

Just think how much they were paid on furlough and now they want more. 

Just greed. 

 

 

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I have had two jobs that I got to by plane - Munich and Jersey - commuted weekly.

I have commuted to London by train daily from Chester for two jobs - first one worked out at just over £30 per day (months season ticket) - the second it was £45 a day (on a months season ticket ).

My job now means I can catch a train from the local station to Liverpool with one change - that is £8.30 a day and takes an hour each way (plus driving and walking) with a change but I have only been going infrequently - but now we are starting to have to be in all together one day a week - I think it is so we can do Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses together 😁 but it is definitely the most cost effective way - as there are tolls and £7.50 a day parking. If I drive to the change station it still costs near £5 and it is a 10 minute train ride - but the fuel would cost me about £10

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Two reasons, one is pure Greed, the second and main one is purely  political.

They are well paid but still operating as if it were a low tech world with excessive staff numbers.

Simple example a tram of 4 cars operates safely with 1 staff member on open roads for some of the route, a 4 car train operating on closed areas, according to the union, requires 2.

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With every strike and disruption to rail services the general publics attitude towards automation of the rails changes and not for the benefit of those who drive the things or check tickets. 

Rails services locally are generally a complete mess with lots of delays, disruption, old rolling stock and infrequent services. 

The local TOC (who also run the country) have decided to retire a lot of old rolling stock (without it's replacement being anywhere near ready) and replace them with new rolling stock which has either the same or less capacity (the routes are usually jam packed at peak times and trains rolling straight through stations as they are full isn't uncommon) and with similar or less performance than the old rolling stock so rotations can't be increased to increase capacity. 

They were forced to retire the old stock as it didn't meet the required specification for accessible users (small toilets etc) but the new stock won't even have toilets as they are now multi use tram/ trains and not heavy rail as per a usual train and aren't required to meet the same specifications. 

All this at the cost of 100's of thousands of £'s to the tax payer for no conceivable benefit? 

I'm not a rail buff but someone who likes to read the local (online) rag and I really hope that I'm wrong but it all seems like a bad joke that keeps getting worse. 

Edited by Poor Shot
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I've taken this from elsewhere. Looks to me like it's the unions pulling strings as always. 

 

Let me explain the basis of this as a 40 year railway man.
BR was perfectly efficient. They did after all invent the tilting train and the HST, which still holds the world speed record for diesel traction. However, successive Governments have been pressurised by the road transport lobby into making the railways inefficient, much the same as they're doing to the NHS right now. That way, their mates can invest into a large slice of the pie.
Franchises... Well, that's interesting. If you or I wanted to buy a Bargain Booze franchise we'd need a premises and approx £150,000 to hand to Bargain Booze, then we'd be supplied by them, advertised by them and carry their branding. Any profits would be ours minus a small percentage to them.
Railway franchises work differently. Beardy Branson and his ilk were paid to take on certain lines. Put it this way, you see the books and it was costing say 700 million quid a year to run the West Coast Main Line. So you go to the Government and offer to run it for less while improving the traveller experience, buying new trains and being nice to people. So the Government give you 600 million quid a year, great, but not exactly a franchise as you're being paid to run it. Then the problems come, after so many years the Government want their money back, so THEY set the fare increases and YOU look bad. Every year they increase fares and blame it on the operator.
As for salaries, yes it's good, but how many of you could throw a dart at a clock face and have it land within a minute of a time when one of your shifts start? And I mean Sunday 01.00, Monday 02.48, Tuesday 03.26, Wednesday 00.55, Thursday 04.00, then the next week is just as bad but 12 hours on into the afternoon shifts. Add to that the number of drivers killed on duty, I can count at least 6 in the last few years and it's no job for the feint hearted. I've spent entire weeks wondering what time to go to bed without ruining family life. Then there's the suicides, they increase year on year. 30 years ago if there were 200 train drivers in this town, about 4 of them had hit a jumper, now out of the 64 drivers working under me it's 18 suicides between them.
If you can pass the psychometric testing and several interviews, then 18 months training to know exactly where you are and what to do even in pitch black darkness you're welcome to apply. We don't have road signs, so stopping at a station in the middle of nowhere from 125 mph is a skill, not to mention reductions in speed where we could end up in your front room if we don't know where we are.

 

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What gets me is what we pay ministers mp etc for aurguing like school kids in a playground and everybody saw how bad it was for the nhs during covid then they offered the nurses a misery offer after saying they would stand by them 

Its fine being on £60.000 a year holding the country to ransom to get a rise but then all other prices go up so your no better off 

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1 hour ago, London Best said:

I get the impression that very few people, in the greater scheme of things, actually travel on trains. Out of everyone I know, only one travels on a train. He works in advertising and works World wide from home on a computer but just occasionally has to attend a meeting in London. Nobody else that I know would go near a train for transport. 
Aeroplanes main function in the World is to take people on holiday. So they’re not important then. 
And as Tightchoke has said, they already have good pay and conditions. So the strikes/disruption is just for greed. What we need is another Maggie Thatcher, she knew how to deal with bolshie unions.

Yeah, I’m a grumpy old ***!

I'll attest to that but still one of the good guys.  See you on the 3rd.

We live under the flight path of a lot of stuff making it's way out from London and Europe across the Atlantic and the sky normally prior covid would be streaked with con trails. Today we see about two a week.   Traffic does appear to have dropped or they are all going a different way.   The strikes are just anit Boris to to boost the possibilties of a Labour Government.  ALL of those involved in particular the Union bosses are very well paid and should get on with the job, if they don't like it, then go find another one, preferably in France.

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On East Midlands Railways, which used to be East Midlands Trains, which used to be Midland Mainline, which succeeded British Rail the carriages being used on some trains are ex-British Rail stock! No matter how they are dressed up with new livery, paint jobs, cloth on the seats and etc., etc. the aluminium frames on the doors that you pull down to grab the exit handle have "BR" stamped on them!

I've little sympathy as such with the rail staff but I for sure know that saved costs from reducing staffing will NOT be reflected in cheaper ticket prices but only in better dividends for the companies that now run these routes. The problem is we are trying to run a railway for the 21st Century using 19th Century (and in some cases as far back as the 1860s) lines and stations that were built for trains only capable of 60mph.

Any improvements are mere "tinkering". We don't try still to run our road system with modern lorries on roads exactly as they were in the 19th Century. We don't fly planes from runways as they were in the 1920s. Yet we still run trains on and old system. In France they stopped "tinkering" and made radical change (wider trains so new platforms). We either "pay to play" and do it right or do it cheap and get an expensive yet outdated system. It's either a modern railway or it's not.

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...we don't run our roads  in the 19th Century......... suggest you come and have a look at some of the lanes around Leicestershire and even main roads.  Thousands spent on yellow paint to draw lines around them by some unnecessary overpaid employee whn it would probably better to have a couple of trucks with two man teams roaming the lanes and PROPERLY REPAIRING the many huge potholes not just dumping a bucket of filler and levelling it off, no undercut etc etc for a proper job.

 

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8 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

I'll attest to that but still one of the good guys.  See you on the 3rd.

We live under the flight path of a lot of stuff making it's way out from London and Europe across the Atlantic and the sky normally prior covid would be streaked with con trails. Today we see about two a week.   Traffic does appear to have dropped or they are all going a different way.   The strikes are just anit Boris to to boost the possibilties of a Labour Government.  ALL of those involved in particular the Union bosses are very well paid and should get on with the job, if they don't like it, then go find another one, preferably in France.

Nev, contrails don't always show, they need specific atmospheric conditions!

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1 hour ago, mellors said:

Watched news night. 

It was said the average wage on the railways was £40000.

Train driver on £60000 +. 

Union chap on there didn't disagree with the figures. 

Just think how much they were paid on furlough and now they want more. 

Just greed. 

 

 

Hello, have to agree , it's not like the average salaries of millions in UK, 

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Hello, I think this Union leader has his own agenda , I can remember the likes of him at the front of many disputes, back then there were discontent in a lot of industries , I always thought ACAS sorted out very well so why not this dispute or does he think they will recognize that his members don't do to bad in the work place, one thing I do agree on every running train should have a guard in the rear carriage which I believe rail track want to abolish this position, ?

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Is there a school where union leaders go to where they learn union speak? They all sound like they’re straight from the 1970’s and have just left the Wheeltappers club. 
All these strikes ( nurses and teachers next ) all we need now to complete the ‘70’s scenario is a few power cuts and we’ll be there! 

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