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Post by Alex on Nov 28, 2021 22:22:46 GMT
When you pay well in the thousands for your travel each year, and you see people striking for more money when their wages are 50K a year and they get free transport it just screams of total entitlement. More money? This has got nothing to do with pay! What it is to do with, is a unagreed change on something that is binding, non-negotiable and contractual. It doesn’t matter if it’s four or forty-four nights a year, it’s not the actual shifts being worked that’s the issue. It’s the way it’s been organised. While I do get the frustration of the public, sadly sometimes industrial action is the only way to get companies to listen. Personally I’d rather workers and companies everywhere had a set up where they could get along all the time but it’s not always going to happen, likewise I’d like to see workers generally have improved conditions and employment packages. I was hoping the fuel tanker drivers would be the first part of the movement for that, and there’s still time
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Post by Alex on Nov 28, 2021 1:03:43 GMT
]So what makes you think they are doing nothing most of the day. So why should a security person be paid £30k to stand around and most of the day do nothing but watching and waiting for something to happen. There is an endless list of examples I can come up with. Sounds like jealousy from my perspective. That reminds me of the quote I heard once about the fire brigade, someone said of the time when there’s nothing going on and they’re in the fire station - what else would they be doing, looking for fires? I agree there’s endless examples, but what’s the harm? Better to have more people in work doing something rather than nothing at all.
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Post by Alex on Nov 27, 2021 23:51:59 GMT
tangytango.proboards.com/thread/9180/night-tube-delayed?page=6For a bit of background on this see the penultimate post in this thread. It saves me writing a bit more on this one. In short, the dispute is all about LUL not sticking to their own agreements. If the staff have to play by the rules it’s only fair the company has to as well. When an agreement is made it means both sides have to abide by it, not moving the goalposts whenever it is convenient. The issue itself isn’t the addition of NT shifts, but how events recently have been handled, and how many guidelines, standards and agreements haven’t been adhered to. On BBC London News last night the presenter had to ask an LUL director the same question twice (“doesn’t this situation fall at your door because you reneged on your own agreements”) and still didn’t get a straight answer. Tom Edwards from the BBC has made it very clear to his viewers that the issue is agreements being scrapped, and even said a satisfactory solution would have been to have left things alone in the first place. Recent times are very interesting, as issues such as the fuel tanker driver shortage, supply chain driver shortage and other shortages in public transport have made many members of the public change their view. There is a growing acceptance that working people in working jobs, such as driving things, do need decent conditions and wages - the race to the bottom for employees created a lot of the problems we’ve had this year. An increasing number of people are now looking at the faults with the bosses and not the workers. As for wages and comparing to other jobs, I know all about that seeing as my mum and my wife both work for the NHS. In any sort of job role there’s a market rate - and the TfL review commissioned a while ago actually worked out LUL drivers are paid below market rate compared to other companies. Some TOCs have had huge increases in recent times. There’s better contracts within TfL. The Overground and TfL Rail drivers are on more money, for a shorter working week, with more annual leave and better staff travel benefits. Another TOC had a four year pay deal where by the end of it the wages went up 28%. I’ve driven both manual and ATO trains and I can safely say I encounter my fair share of stock defects, work through signal failure conditions, have to get involved with safety procedures to protect people on the track, deal with safety incidents and keep up awareness as much on the ATO side as I have on manual. ATO or not, if you’re in charge of something (in this case S7 stock) which is 380 feet long, nearly 14 feet tall, which weighs 210 tons and does speeds in excess of 50 mph, and can have many people on board it’s still a responsible position. Like most people, I hope this gets resolved soon, but we’ll have to wait and see. The atmosphere is very odd at the moment as a whole lot more changes, much more extreme are being discussed at the moment as well. Never rains as they say……
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Post by Alex on Nov 12, 2021 9:47:56 GMT
I saw it more of a take on the 50 Shades of Grey book title and emojis to me are something you use to jazz up a text message ; /
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Post by Alex on Oct 30, 2021 15:31:14 GMT
Quick vote of thanks for Stagecoach and Visions International for the open day at PD. I couldn’t stay long, but it was a fine effort from all involved. Ensignbus running day next for me, all being well 🤞 Yes, agree. I only went for a little while too (but ended up taking a 177 and 472 after just to relive old times) but it seemed very well ordered and organised. The Stagecoach staff were really getting into it themselves taking photos and chatting to the visitors. There was one incident a little out of the ordinary outside the garage but the staff had that broken up very quickly, and everyone did a really professional job. Even the enthusiasts were sticking to the proper areas and not almost getting run over, which is something I’ve seen on these events before : 0
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Post by Alex on Oct 30, 2021 11:25:24 GMT
Quelle surprise, said no one ever. So the drivers have now got comfortable doing day shifts on the night shift pay and now don’t want to do night shifts. Honestly, the night tube is just more trouble than it’s worth at this point. Kill it off, put the drivers and station staff back on regular day shifts/pay and use the cash to improve the night bus network instead. That isn’t right, at the time of writing (before NT is planned to start again) there are no shift enhancements on LUL for ordinary shifts (there were different arrangements during the Olympics, and for Boxing Day/all night New Years Eve running) and there haven’t been for about thirty years. There was no night enhancement for the NT lines. What happened was, the night service was staffed by a special team of part time drivers who only worked Friday and Saturday nights. This was part of an agreement reached in 2015. Then, once the pandemic started and NT was shelved, the part time drivers were given the chance to stop working the nights and take full time day contracts. Most of them took LUL up on the offer. Fast forward to recent developments, and LUL had a desire to restart NT but - there was no time to recruit and train another whole batch of part time drivers. This would have taken many months to achieve (and LUL wanted to avoid the cost). However the 2015 agreement meant that daytime drivers couldn’t do the NT work. LUL put forward a plan where the NT shifts were tacked onto the full time rosters but with a shift premium. ASLEF ‘high ups’ accepted this above the heads of their members, the vast majority of staff on the ground were opposed to this. Apart from setting a dangerous precedent with guidelines and agreements being changed at the drop of a hat, the resulting rosters weren’t very good. RMT has always opposed this hence the action from that union now. The shift premium is still a saving for LUL, on very basic maths (without allowing for leave, training, above roster coverage - known as the pool), 2 full time drivers (10 shifts) covers the same amount of work as 5 part time drivers. Straight away that’s 72 hours of work with 2 drivers (36 hours a week) against 80 hours (5 x 16 hours a week). Though the part timers worked less hours, there is still uniform, pension contributions, staff travel concessions, training, sick pay and leave to consider which obviously adds up when you’ve only got to provide this for a smaller headcount of staff. It’s still a big saving for LUL. So that’s the RMT concern really, less roles for people overall, no recruitment into the driving grade, agreements being changed with no notice, rosters and arrangements which have been hastily arranged and totally against best practice guidance. Not to mention the problem with non-driving grade staff like signallers, station staff and controllers who also have to work all night on the NT service but with no enhancement! It’s only drivers who have been offered this to get their agreements changed. The situation is a bit more messy than it first seems……
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Post by Alex on Oct 15, 2021 15:41:30 GMT
If my suspicion is right, it's retaliation for my actions last week on the driver's part. That does not mean I'll report him, I can't really as it's not his responsibility that I lost it. However it is fair of me to question his out-of-character actions last night. Have you made an enquiry with the lost property office? It may well be someone did hand it in. Even though it’s cancelled it might be interesting to know if it was handed in or not…. Sorry to hear about your experiences, I’ve been on the receiving end of drivers who I suspect did these things on purpose (one driving past me in Sydenham after the 122 in front turned short - I jogged and caught this up, and another who whizzed straight past my stop when had rung the bell at a sensible time and stood by the centre doors at a sensible time too). Never had anything as bad as this though. It’s worse in your case I’d say as it sounds like the N15 drivers recognise you, the PD drivers wouldn’t have recognised me but I still don’t get why they’d do these things…….
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Post by Alex on Oct 15, 2021 15:32:31 GMT
That is terrible and not the sort of thing I expected to pick up, very unexpected. David Amess was very well known largely due to his appearance in Brass Eye, but I don’t think this was a bad thing - the programme showed him to be a feeling human being. As above shocking news and a very bad business indeed.
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Post by Alex on Jun 10, 2021 11:46:42 GMT
Is it staff shortage, control room issues. You’re in the right area - shortage in the control room. The priority seems to be to cover the daytime weekday shifts, as I understand it today and tomorrow are early close but Saturday is the advertised service (Circle only - no H&C because of engineering work). There’s another ProBoards forum (initials DD) where this has been discussed at length and there’s a lot of info there.
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Post by Alex on Jun 8, 2021 1:57:44 GMT
KGV to Woolwich is the fastest section, can still get a good speed between Westferry and Shadwell/ Royal Mint Street junction Was the speed between KGV and Woolwich turned down a few years ago? I’m certain I remember the trains going faster and swaying all over the place and then one day it seemed more gentle. With the SSR, I came into work today and found the speed limits on the Hammersmith branch mentioned earlier (which have been there since SMA0.5 - Hammersmith to Latimer Road, back in March 2019) have been taken away! Max speed of 43mph was seen, including 41mph between Goldhawk Road and Shepherds Bush Market which is remarkable for such a short section : 0
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Post by Alex on Jun 5, 2021 20:47:28 GMT
Perhaps this is the case on the shared sections, though the Metropolitan line is often very slow on the section between Wembley Park and Finchley Road. The shared bits all have the same running times, there’s nowhere to pass the train in front so the times need to be the same or else trains would catch up other ones all the time! Same goes for the District shared sections with the Circle and Hammersmith & City from Gloucester Road to Barking (and the District services to Edgware Road). The speeds and performance for all lines is exactly the same in CBTC areas, as described before some journeys are faster than others due to late running or a signaller has adjusted things at their end.
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Post by Alex on Jun 4, 2021 23:24:24 GMT
on the DLR our "braking rates" are adjusted so trains start braking earlier when it rains to prevent wheel slip and trains dropping out of Automatic It’s similar on the SSR. Any wheelslip activity is sent from the train to the system and the technical staff monitoring the equipment gets alerts in the control room. Then the technician and control room management agree if the rate should be changed. The wheelslip issue is why the 31mph speed is in on the Hammersmith branch heading east. For anyone wondering about the odd speed amounts, the system works them out in KPH and then converts it back to MPH, the Hammersmith line 31mph being 50kph for example.
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Post by Alex on Jun 4, 2021 22:38:01 GMT
Why is it the majority of the drivers on these trains are so slow. It is irritating. If it is one line I wish to see been turned to ATO is this. The drivers on the Metropolitan line who run over a lot of the same stretch seems to be much quicker, they are quick at opening doors, accelerating up to the limit and getting to the limit. Yes.....I know what you mean. As Paul says the north part of the Circle is already CBTC signalled (so it’s ATO) and a lot of it is to do with using a timetable written when the old signalling system was used. The plan is to launch a new timetable in September with faster running times on that part of the line. However, the way things are currently is pretty irritating as you say. When trains are running on time, CBTC system keeps trains to time at each platform and works out a speed so the train arrives at the next platform when it should do. Some of the results are very slow. Edgware Road eastbound to Baker Street is typically 16mph (all the way), same as Moorgate to Liverpool Street. I’ve known Farringdon westbound to King’s Cross to run at 25mph all the way and also seen 19mph for Great Portland Street westbound all the way to Baker Street. The braking rates aren’t set to be very fast coming into most platforms either, it certainly doesn’t come in Central/Victoria line style. When trains are late, or the signaller has intervened to speed the train up, things do change. Farringdon to Kings Cross hits a maximum speed of 53mph and other parts get to the mid forties. If you’re on a train running on time the journey will seem pretty slow, my guess is that the faster Met trains were running late so got the higher speeds. There’s other elements too, since CBTC was introduced the eastbound line from Hammersmith to Edgware Road is subject to a 31mph maximum speed limit (because of issues with the signalling system when it rains) and the trains start braking earlier for stations than they did before. Hopefully as time goes on things will be tweaked to improve things. Door opening can take a few seconds, this is because the train equipment needs to communicate with the equipment back at base, which then has to communicate with the train again to say it’s safe to open the doors. Beforehand, equipment mounted at the stations indicated to the train things were safe and the process was pretty instant, but the new process is longer.
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2020 13:51:48 GMT
I would leave the Charing Cross branch service (Battersea to Edgware) as Northern line and rename the other as City & South London line, as a nod to the company that built quite a chunk of the route. Had to chip in as this is something I’ve thought about before.....
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Post by Alex on Aug 4, 2020 23:51:44 GMT
I think the first bit of your post is the reason why this particular driver preferred the S stock because once the C stock broke down it was very difficult to fix it yourself whereas for the S stock it's very easy or easier. I guess for most drivers that have been with LU/TfL for a long time then they might prefer the older type because they've got more character whereas the S stock is basically a moving computer but that's the way it's going at the moment. It’s certainly going that way with newer trains but that’s everywhere, the TfL Rail class 345s as an example, a lot of principles on those are similar to S stock (being a Bombardier train). On LUL we’ve got a mixed bag, the Bakerloo 1972 stock are here for the foreseeable future and they’re a tube sized version of a C stock (and yes, I’ve thought about nominating Elephant & Castle depot more than once). On the other side of the coin it’s looking like the Piccadilly replacement will be happening soon-ish (in the grand scheme of things) meaning another modern stock, though manually driven to existing signalling (no complaints on that from me). There are many different personalities within the T/Op grade but I am very much one for a stock which is involved and sometimes makes you get your hands dirty. More complicated stock - more driver knowledge - means our grade won’t be messed about, of course I look at my job beyond that and the main thing is we are treated professionally and deliver the best service we can to the city (sounds corny but it’s genuine, big cities all over the world have a dedicated bunch of workers who want to do their bit, it’s a real interest).
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