So it looks like the London tube drivers are striking again!
Another week of misery beckons in November! What’s wrong?? £60,000+ salary, 49 days paid holiday, private healthcare and final salary pension not good enough??😡😡
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Question:- Just how much is "enough" for you to sign up to drive a machine of death in London???
They might call it "transportation" or "transit" but every time you get in that cab, you don't know if you'll ever get out of it again. You might roll your eyes and say "It's the Underground, some of the slower trains in the country" - but speed doesn't prevent you from being squished like a blackcurrant when things go wrong.
Even on the Underground, some of the most watched tracks in the country... there's nothing to stop people from jumping/falling onto the tracks. Can you imagine looking out of that window and using valuable stopping distance to determine if that thing ahead of you is a baby or a shopping bag that has been chucked onto the tracks???
Some drivers are better able to come to terms with a death/suicide than others... for some people, it ends their career.
Just imagine climbing into that cab a few weeks after somebody died in front of a similar train to this one that you were driving at the time, you've probably got PTSD - but you have to go back to work or resign from your job.
If you are lucky, you might manage to avoid all that - but you are still stuck dealing with the Saturday night crowds.
Sometimes, it's better to have no opinion at all if you can't put yourself in the shoes of that train driver and see and understand things from his/her angle.
I know that this isn't a job that I would want, even with "all those benefits" you described. If you're lucky, you might manage to avoid all the horror until you are old enough to retire or put in for early retirement - but you're still going to be seeing your friends and other good drivers leaving the station for the last time simply because they are too sick to continue with the job that they used to do.
They might call it "transportation" or "transit" but every time you get in that cab, you don't know if you'll ever get out of it again. You might roll your eyes and say "It's the Underground, some of the slower trains in the country" - but speed doesn't prevent you from being squished like a blackcurrant when things go wrong.
Even on the Underground, some of the most watched tracks in the country... there's nothing to stop people from jumping/falling onto the tracks. Can you imagine looking out of that window and using valuable stopping distance to determine if that thing ahead of you is a baby or a shopping bag that has been chucked onto the tracks???
Some drivers are better able to come to terms with a death/suicide than others... for some people, it ends their career.
Just imagine climbing into that cab a few weeks after somebody died in front of a similar train to this one that you were driving at the time, you've probably got PTSD - but you have to go back to work or resign from your job.
If you are lucky, you might manage to avoid all that - but you are still stuck dealing with the Saturday night crowds.
Sometimes, it's better to have no opinion at all if you can't put yourself in the shoes of that train driver and see and understand things from his/her angle.
I know that this isn't a job that I would want, even with "all those benefits" you described. If you're lucky, you might manage to avoid all the horror until you are old enough to retire or put in for early retirement - but you're still going to be seeing your friends and other good drivers leaving the station for the last time simply because they are too sick to continue with the job that they used to do.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@HootyTheNightOwl Very well put.
My connection with any public transport is only as a passenger: buses frequently, the overground railways occasionally (speeds routinely up to 70mph on some, and up to 100mph on other routes), London Underground very rarely.
I have known over the years a few railwaymen.
One commented to me that the lamps on the front, when driving at night, at best only show you what you are about to hit, even with the modern passenger-train lamps that look to me like car headlights. Their primary purpose was always to indicate to others the presence of the train, and by their pattern, its type. Not to illuminate the track ahead, though in British practice the lines are all fenced from the land alongside, and after a few years of those desperately hazardous, European type, half-barrier poles, most level-crossings have been reverted to having full-width gates. You can't stop all trespassers and suicides though.
Another, an HST driver, explained that you have to be able to maintain the booked 100+mph, and know where you are, in all conditions, even when you can't see the rails in front on very dark and foggy nights. In years past, fog was a major disrupter of services.
I have also known personally two people who committed suicide by stepping in front of trains - one on London Underground, one on the main overground (British Rail as it was).
This is extremely distressing and shocking for the poor driver. It is also the most common cause of service delays and disruption. Each incident of suicide, unintentional death of a trespasser or indeed fatal accident to an authorised railway employee, needs a relief driver finding, the body recovering, the Police and other authorities investigating the scene.
A few years ago someone told me he was almost killed when caught unawares at a level crossing between his home and his local pub.
Wheel-chair bound, he was nearly clear when the bell started ringing, lights flashing, barriers descending, then one wheel dropped into rough ground alongside the pavement. Something gave him the immediate instinct and strength to grab a post and pull himself clear as the train raced through, catching his wheelchair and hurling it some fifty yards down the line. Luckily a waiting motorist was able to help him.
He told me this when I was visiting him, and I joined him for lunch in the same pub. On our return a similar thing almost happened. I was just able to grab the chair and pull us both back to safety as the barrier closed far to soon before the train passed, at I guess well over 70mph, possibly 90, and of course we had no idea which direction it would approach from.
....
So although I don't altogether agree with some of the claims made in the last year of industrial action on the railways, train staff do deserve high salaries. They are not vacuous TV "celebrities", temporary pop or sports stars and football pundits paid inversely proportionately to technical talent and work-value. Nor are they politicians, paid less than most money-traders, trade-law barristers and large-company directors. They have far greater, far more real responsibilities than any of those.
One point not covered in the reporting of the national network railway disputes, is exactly with whom the staff were in dispute. The livery names are just trade-marks. Few if any of the supposed railway companies are individual entities; and some are foreign-owned. Many are merely regional brands of just one company, the First Group.
My connection with any public transport is only as a passenger: buses frequently, the overground railways occasionally (speeds routinely up to 70mph on some, and up to 100mph on other routes), London Underground very rarely.
I have known over the years a few railwaymen.
One commented to me that the lamps on the front, when driving at night, at best only show you what you are about to hit, even with the modern passenger-train lamps that look to me like car headlights. Their primary purpose was always to indicate to others the presence of the train, and by their pattern, its type. Not to illuminate the track ahead, though in British practice the lines are all fenced from the land alongside, and after a few years of those desperately hazardous, European type, half-barrier poles, most level-crossings have been reverted to having full-width gates. You can't stop all trespassers and suicides though.
Another, an HST driver, explained that you have to be able to maintain the booked 100+mph, and know where you are, in all conditions, even when you can't see the rails in front on very dark and foggy nights. In years past, fog was a major disrupter of services.
I have also known personally two people who committed suicide by stepping in front of trains - one on London Underground, one on the main overground (British Rail as it was).
This is extremely distressing and shocking for the poor driver. It is also the most common cause of service delays and disruption. Each incident of suicide, unintentional death of a trespasser or indeed fatal accident to an authorised railway employee, needs a relief driver finding, the body recovering, the Police and other authorities investigating the scene.
A few years ago someone told me he was almost killed when caught unawares at a level crossing between his home and his local pub.
Wheel-chair bound, he was nearly clear when the bell started ringing, lights flashing, barriers descending, then one wheel dropped into rough ground alongside the pavement. Something gave him the immediate instinct and strength to grab a post and pull himself clear as the train raced through, catching his wheelchair and hurling it some fifty yards down the line. Luckily a waiting motorist was able to help him.
He told me this when I was visiting him, and I joined him for lunch in the same pub. On our return a similar thing almost happened. I was just able to grab the chair and pull us both back to safety as the barrier closed far to soon before the train passed, at I guess well over 70mph, possibly 90, and of course we had no idea which direction it would approach from.
....
So although I don't altogether agree with some of the claims made in the last year of industrial action on the railways, train staff do deserve high salaries. They are not vacuous TV "celebrities", temporary pop or sports stars and football pundits paid inversely proportionately to technical talent and work-value. Nor are they politicians, paid less than most money-traders, trade-law barristers and large-company directors. They have far greater, far more real responsibilities than any of those.
One point not covered in the reporting of the national network railway disputes, is exactly with whom the staff were in dispute. The livery names are just trade-marks. Few if any of the supposed railway companies are individual entities; and some are foreign-owned. Many are merely regional brands of just one company, the First Group.
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