Guards

I for one am very grateful that SWT does still have guards, as the driver of the train I fell under would have been unlikely to see me do it. (To this day I have no memory of how I ended up there).

What causes the 'delay' on a conventionally crewed train is due to silly policies such as jumping out first to check the train is in the platform and the addition of policies like this by management. This could be simply solved by having a car marker that lines up with middle/rear cabs when the train is fully platformed or like London Midland have done on the Redditch line, paint a second line along the platform edge to indicate that the train is fully platformed. These policies and also modern rolling stock designs seem to all go against conventionally crewed trains.

Southern's Class 377s are one of the worst for this, although there are door close buttons away from the drivers desk on a 'Guards Panel' next to the cab doors they are not wired up and to work a train from a middle or rear cab the Guards have to use a very time consuming bell code system. This is, pressing 1 - 2 for the driver to close the doors, the driver repeats it back and presses his door close button, the Guard observes the doors have closed fully, closes his cab door and then signals the 2 bells Ready to Start code which the driver repeats back. This compared to the driver simply closing the doors and observing he has the pilot light and looking in his monitors makes the crewed train seem the unnatractive option.

When the Class 375, 377s and most recently the 378s were introduced, another job was removed sneakily from the Guard from these trains, the drivers on all crewed Electrostar trains are responsible for opening or 'releasing' the doors instead of the Guard. This has resulted in many wrong side door openings due to human error which could have been easily avoided if the Guard was in control of door openings.

Train Operating Companies will argue that having the driver in control of the doors allows the Guard to concentrate on customer service jobs such as walking up and down the train assisting passengers but let's face it on a packed peak time commuter train you won't be able get through and everyone knows where theyre going anyway. Even if the Guard was to control the doors from inside the train like most TOCs want them to do nowadays the Platform Train Interface is neglected as the Guard is unable to see the train in and out from a droplight window with his/her head out of the window.

Basically everything goes against crewed trains and it will only take a major accident for crewing to be looked at on the modern railway. Till then it's cheaper just to risk the lives of the general public than try to avoid deaths in an accident.

There's no 'O' in Piers' name

He's a good chap so will probably forgive you

Whoops - sorry about that Piers

For your convenience [not you Piers] I have included part of Piers's coments on the value of guards et al as Piers explains it far better than I could:

"A few years ago, the Underground tried an experiment in recruiting drivers "off the street". A 22-week training programme was devised and a batch of hopefuls was put through it They were called "DROPS" (Direct Recruit OPeratorS). It was not a roaring success. The failure rate was high and subsequent performance was not always as good as hoped for. Now they are trying again. With over 200 new drivers needed to cover the training and expansion associated with new train delivery and line upgrades, a recruitment campaign started in March was overwhelmed with 10,000 applications. Needless to say, they had to close the campaign rather quickly and they are still trying to process the applications. By all accounts, the recruitment process is complex and counter-intuitive. In one case, a former driver of good standing was turned down after waiting 6 months to hear the result of his application to rejoin.



Why do I say "counter-intuitive? Well, not unreasonably, the modem focus is on "customer care". New station staff are recruited on their willingness to deal with people and help others in trouble, plus an apparent ability to sooth angry or puzzled passengers, not get upset when abused and to cope with various forms of safety and evacuation processes. Most train staff are recruited from "Customer Service Assistants' (CSAs). This is not usually the type of person who is happy to sit alone in a cab, content amidst the flashy control technology of the train, testing his braking skills at each platform, watching the road ahead for hours on end in the dark and generally waiting long periods for something unusual to happen. From this, it might be thought that people inclined towards train driving skills would not necessarily be the same sort of people who would be happier coping with hordes of lost Eurostar tourists at King's Cross, helping people with white sticks up the escalators at Oxford Circus or coaxing drug users out of the toilets at Baker Street.



This paradox might explain the increasing number of strange incidents of the past few years, where trains have been driven in the wrong direction, lengthy train failures have disabled services and train operators have made errors which are completely at odds with their training and with railway operation generally. Mindful of this problem, a possible solution presented itself to me after a conversation with someone working for c2c -the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway to you and me.



The L T&S operates trains of 4, 8 and 12-car formation. The routes are all equipped for DOO (Driver Only Operation) for up to 8-car trains but they have to employ guards on 12-car trains because of their length. My friend was engaged in a plan to get rid of these guards because of the expense of keeping them. I told him I would keep them. "Why?" he asked. "Because: I replied "You have a pool of new train drivers there. The guards get train operations experience, they will develop some experience of the technology and of rules for train operations, they will understand the issues which occur during disruptions, they will understand depots and how they interface with trains. They will learn something of signalling and control issues and they might even learn a bit about train failures and how to help handle them. You keep your guards" I told him, "It will ultimately be cheaper and safer than recruiting and training people off the street"."

This comes from Chapter 40 of "The Underground Electric Train" published initially [around 2008] in Underground News  - The monthly journal of the London Underground Railway Society.

Arun

Generally they are, but it does depend on the guard. Sometime's your still stood there forever waiting!

My tip (for the Red 'Metro Route' Class 455 stock) is to just push and hold the button once the train is stopping/has come to a stop, as unlike some other stock they don't need to be pressed after the button has lit up for the activation to be recognised, and therefore open immediately upon the guards release - you can really save yourself a milli-second or two!!!

Most TOCs use guards - it's only a few running inner suburban services really which don't. In most areas guards are key to collecting revenue as stations do not have sufficient ticketing facilities.

I think the phrase guard is only used by a couple of TOCs. If I remember correctly, SWT have Guards and Commercial Guards (these collect revenue). East Coast have Guards (apparently) the others tend to go for Conductor, Senior Conductor and Train Manager. The difference between these terms can easily be a long debate!