On 20 Feb, 09:32, "Lüko Willms" wrote:

Am Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:13:47 UTC, *schrieb Mizter T
*auf uk.railway :

* As an old unionist I'm of course always on the side of the union,
but I have some questions on this London Overground issue:

It seems the question of whether or not there'll be guards on the new
trains is one issue - this is a quote from the piece:
"The union also claims that rail bosses have failed to confirm verbal
assurances that new trains will be staffed by guards."

* Are there guards on London Underground?

No. There used to be, but when the last of the "1959 tube stock" was
withdrawn from the Northern line in 2000, guards became a thing of the
past.

There's a webpage all about the last day if its operation he
http://www.squarewheels.org.uk/rly/1959final/

London Overground (LO) has guards on the North London Line and West
London Line services. On the "DC Lines" between Euston and Watford
Junction the (same) trains are driver only operated (OK there might be
three class 508 trains still used, not sure, but they are very
similar).


However it sounds as though that's not the only issue - facilities, or
rather the lack of them, at the now far more comprehensively staffed
stations seems to be an issue too. I recall talk of how at least some
new such facilities were on the cards so as to cater for all the new
staff - perhaps what they've got doesn't equate to what they thought
was promised in the bright new shiny orange future.

* "All the new staff" -- former guards can be used here, isn't it? If
they are not retrained to become drivers. *

Former guards could indeed be retrained to become drivers, as LO will
be increasing the frequency of its services in coming years as well as
starting services on the new extended-East London Line (the old, un-
extended line was a London Underground line) - indeed I understand the
plan is indeed for guards to be offered driving jobs.

However there have been lots of other new staff taken on recently
since TfL took over these routes from Silverlink Metro (and renamed
them London Overground) - in large part these are new station staff,
the idea being that all stations are now visibly staffed whenever
they're in operation. This is one of the things that lots of research
has said is a very popular move amongst passengers and potential
passengers.


* Besides that, LOROL should hurry to build the facilities for the
staff. Where's the problem with that?

I've no problem with that at all. Paul C's post upthread suggests that
more comprehensive improvements to facilities were always scheduled as
part of the "phase 3 works", so perhaps the underlying issue here is
the pace of these improvements, with staff thinking they're coming
along too slowly.