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Post by rheostar on May 4, 2014 9:03:14 GMT
Errr.... Gordon Brown hasn't been in office for a number of years. Probably a stupid question but I assume the electricity in the rails is switched off on the walk After the Great Tunnel Disaster of 2010 when 80 people were fried alive down there, then probably yes, they will turn the power off. Took weeks to wash the bodies off the walls last time. The disaster that we're not supposed to talk about did for Gordon Brown. One minute he was walking down the tunnel, the next.....zappppppp....haggis everywhere. |
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Post by domh245 on May 5, 2014 12:42:50 GMT
Well, the upcoming 3 day strike has been suspended by the RMT www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27282596However, I suspect there may be more strikes around June depending on the outcome of the review and what TfL decode to do next |
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Post by whistlekiller2000 on May 5, 2014 14:04:41 GMT
Well, the upcoming 3 day strike has been suspended by the RMT www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27282596However, I suspect there may be more strikes around June depending on the outcome of the review and what TfL decode to do next In the end, and I should stress this isn't necessarily my political opinion, strikes will get the protagonists nowhere. Tfl have already decided their fall back position and it suits them to have a strike, however short, as it paint the unions in a bad light with the publc. History teaches us this. Miners.......for all it was, utterly smashed by Thatcher. The railways haven't half the clout and would be daft to think they have. The strikes will fail and the company will prevail as has always been the case. Very sad, but that's the way it goes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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Post by melikepie on May 5, 2014 14:54:46 GMT
The strike has now been suspended
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Post by whistlekiller2000 on May 5, 2014 15:17:42 GMT
The strike has now been suspended I appreciate that as it's been headline news for some time now, even just prior to my post above. It still doesn't alter the fact that all concerned are playing with fire and only one party will get burned. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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Post by rheostar on May 5, 2014 16:09:59 GMT
It'll be interesting to see the shift patterns being proposed for this. A change of station staff at 3.30 am doesn't sound fun. The shift patterns won't change from what we have now - 07:00 to 15:00, 15:00 to 23:00, 23:00 to 07:00. |
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Post by trt on May 5, 2014 17:03:44 GMT
It'll be interesting to see the shift patterns being proposed for this. A change of station staff at 3.30 am doesn't sound fun. The shift patterns won't change from what we have now - 07:00 to 15:00, 15:00 to 23:00, 23:00 to 07:00. Not sure about your shifts, but I've seen 05.30 to 13.30, 07.30 to 15.30, 09.00 to 17.00, 12.00 to 20.00, 17.00 to 01.00 with slight variations at weekends. No CSAs in the station between around half an hour after lamping out at ~01.30 and first service at ~06.00 |
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2014 22:47:44 GMT
An pink-jacketed individual claimed that a 20 minute service on the High Barnet branch was normal for that time of day (mid-afternoon). Upon being asked if I could see the working timetable in which that was shown, they said that there was no such thing as a timetable on the underground. They call them "ambassadors", office workers put out onto the stations to offer “assistance” during strikes, obviously this one knew as much about the Tube as Boris. In the end, and I should stress this isn't necessarily my political opinion, strikes will get the protagonists nowhere. Tfl have already decided their fall back position and it suits them to have a strike, however short, as it paint the unions in a bad light with the publc. History teaches us this. Miners.......for all it was, utterly smashed by Thatcher. The railways haven't half the clout and would be daft to think they have. The strikes will fail and the company will prevail as has always been the case. Very sad, but that's the way it goes. From what is being reported RMT & TSSA have got what they wanted, protected wages for all grades, no pay cuts in 2018 and a station by station review of staffing. The shift patterns won't change from what we have now - 07:00 to 15:00, 15:00 to 23:00, 23:00 to 07:00. Not sure about your shifts, but I've seen 05.30 to 13.30, 07.30 to 15.30, 09.00 to 17.00, 12.00 to 20.00, 17.00 to 01.00 with slight variations at weekends. No CSAs in the station between around half an hour after lamping out at ~01.30 and first service at ~06.00 Rheostar is quoting Station Supervisor shifts, had LUL gone ahead with their plans to staff Local B stations with CSAs they’d have had those shifts too. |
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Post by rheostar on May 6, 2014 7:56:22 GMT
Apologies, I should have clarified what I was writing about regarding shifts.
Most LU staff in supervisory/manager positions, along with signal operators etc work the 07:00, 15:00 and 23:00 shift pattern, giving us 24 hour cover. There are of course local variations for remote booking on etc.
Other staff, such as CSAs work to local requirements of the station they're based at. With the introduction of 24 hour running I'd expect CSAs at certain locations to be working a similar shift pattern to supervisors.
However, since flexible rostering the poor T/Ops do all sorts of different start times and finishes. That was the biggest upheaval in staff shift patterns in recent history, but I don't remember the station staff supporting T/Ops during the strikes over that issue.
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Post by Tomcakes on May 6, 2014 11:34:22 GMT
I have heard that a strike has been called on 9th-10th by RMT, TSSA and Unite. The TfL site has no information. Has anyone else heard this?
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Post by Dstock7080 on May 6, 2014 13:09:14 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2014 8:36:04 GMT
I have heard that a strike has been called on 9th-10th by RMT, TSSA and Unite. The TfL site has no information. Has anyone else heard this? From my blog, 19 April 2014 "1000 managerial staff at TfL HQ in Victoria, London Overground and travel centres in the big mainline stations have voted to go on strike over a pay freeze and pension cuts; Peter Hendy and more than 50 senior managers earning over £100k will be unaffected. Management have twice refused to go to ACAS but TSSA are still hoping to settle this through negotiation." I guess the other 500 belong to RMT and UNITE. |
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Post by jamesb on Jun 15, 2014 14:50:19 GMT
Is there a possibility that 24 hr running will result in more train failures, especially on the 92ts, during the week? They struggle to keep 92ts working as it is... the poor trains going all weekend non stop they'll be falling apart by Monday morning???
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Post by Dstock7080 on Jun 15, 2014 16:02:39 GMT
Is there a possibility that 24 hr running will result in more train failures, especially on the 92ts, during the week? They struggle to keep 92ts working as it is... the poor trains going all weekend non stop they'll be falling apart by Monday morning??? As with the present New Years Eve running, you will find that the trains that stay out in the early hours, (i calculate about 16-20 running on the Piccadilly under Night Tube), will be changed over in the evening and morning for maintenance, so very few trains, if any, will operate for 24hours. |
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Post by jamesb on Jun 15, 2014 16:30:55 GMT
Thanks, thats a relief! Are there enough trains to maintain peak service levels though? (Im an eternal pesesimist) given that this well be a weekly occurence rathen then once a year... thinking some 92ts might be out of service anyway on top of those from the night before...
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Post by Tomcakes on Jun 15, 2014 21:31:14 GMT
However, since flexible rostering the poor T/Ops do all sorts of different start times and finishes. That was the biggest upheaval in staff shift patterns in recent history, but I don't remember the station staff supporting T/Ops during the strikes over that issue. Interesting - prior to this, were T/Ops on a set of standard shifts (7-3, 3-11, 11-7 or whatever)? As I understand it now, each shift is different, so whilst somebody may have a week of earlies, they might start at (say) 04.30, 04.42, 06.18, 05.21, 05.07 or whatever? |
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Post by domh245 on Jun 15, 2014 22:05:29 GMT
Thanks, thats a relief! Are there enough trains to maintain peak service levels though? (Im an eternal pesesimist) given that this well be a weekly occurence rathen then once a year... thinking some 92ts might be out of service anyway on top of those from the night before... There may be, but it will probably require a bit more thorough maintainace when in for it, as well as a clever bit of timetable rejigging, possibly with less trains out off peak, but with quicker speeds and more intensive running. Alternatively, after a couple of weeks, the 92TS fleet will embarrass itself so badly, that the central night tube will be suspended for a period of time. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2014 22:24:25 GMT
Thanks, thats a relief! Are there enough trains to maintain peak service levels though? (Im an eternal pesesimist) given that this well be a weekly occurence rathen then once a year... thinking some 92ts might be out of service anyway on top of those from the night before... There may be, but it will probably require a bit more thorough maintainace when in for it, as well as a clever bit of timetable rejigging, possibly with less trains out off peak, but with quicker speeds and more intensive running. Alternatively, after a couple of weeks, the 92TS fleet will embarrass itself so badly, that the central night tube will be suspended for a period of time. My fifty quid's on the latter!  Not that they'll suspend it, mind you, just a slow deterioration in Central line service which will, regardless, be advertised as a "good service". Cynical? Me? Dunno what you're talking about, you must be thinking of my mate TLT... |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2014 23:44:17 GMT
However, since flexible rostering the poor T/Ops do all sorts of different start times and finishes. That was the biggest upheaval in staff shift patterns in recent history, but I don't remember the station staff supporting T/Ops during the strikes over that issue. Interesting - prior to this, were T/Ops on a set of standard shifts (7-3, 3-11, 11-7 or whatever)? As I understand it now, each shift is different, so whilst somebody may have a week of earlies, they might start at (say) 04.30, 04.42, 06.18, 05.21, 05.07 or whatever? Apart from Saturdays and Sundays shifts were all 8 hours long although the train work normally finished well before the shift time end, so for example a shif might have been 07.12 to 15.12 but the crew actually may have finished at 13.20. |
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Post by rheostar on Jun 16, 2014 9:09:52 GMT
However, since flexible rostering the poor T/Ops do all sorts of different start times and finishes. That was the biggest upheaval in staff shift patterns in recent history, but I don't remember the station staff supporting T/Ops during the strikes over that issue. Interesting - prior to this, were T/Ops on a set of standard shifts (7-3, 3-11, 11-7 or whatever)? As I understand it now, each shift is different, so whilst somebody may have a week of earlies, they might start at (say) 04.30, 04.42, 06.18, 05.21, 05.07 or whatever? We used to have different start times same as now, but each duty length was eight hours. We'd also do the same shift for the entire week. |
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Post by Tomcakes on Jun 16, 2014 22:19:31 GMT
Thanks both. So I presume that these days a shift may be of a varying number of hours, but over the course of a defined period they average at (say) 36 hours per week. I'd assume it was considered silly to pay somebody 8 hours if they were only driving during the peak and so finished after 4! Interesting about the same shift all week - tho presumably this was interrupted with rest days?
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Post by rheostar on Jun 17, 2014 8:07:34 GMT
Thanks both. So I presume that these days a shift may be of a varying number of hours, but over the course of a defined period they average at (say) 36 hours per week. I'd assume it was considered silly to pay somebody 8 hours if they were only driving during the peak and so finished after 4! Interesting about the same shift all week - tho presumably this was interrupted with rest days? Unsurprisingly, the Underground also thought it was silly paying us for eight hours even though we only actually worked four!! Yep, we'd have one rest day during the week plus a Sunday. After night shifts we had a week of rest day covers - from memory I think we only did Monday to Thursday. It wasn't compulsory to work Sundays so we'd tell the Station Master to give it over to someone else. There were no shortage of takers to work a buckshee Sunday. People say they were the 'good old days', but in reality we had to work six days a week to earn decent money. We had to work 40 hours a week, 5 x 8 hours, plus a Sunday so on average we did a 52 hour week. Despite union protests, in reality the Company Plan actually improved the lot of T/Ops with the majority of us getting a substantial pay rise. |
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Post by revupminster on Jun 17, 2014 11:22:16 GMT
Prior to the Company Plan when each 8 hour duty had a different value due to the time of start or finish taking it into enhanced rates before 0600 and after 2200 drivers and guards would submit changeover forms and the depot clerk would adjust their hours. In the timebook, all done by hand, there would be a plus entry against one driver and a corresponding minus entry with the man he changed duties with.
One Christmas Day I took the books home so I could complete the changeovers so I could have a short Boxing day when the timesheets had to be in.
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Post by Tomcakes on Jun 17, 2014 19:41:51 GMT
Thanks both. So I presume that these days a shift may be of a varying number of hours, but over the course of a defined period they average at (say) 36 hours per week. I'd assume it was considered silly to pay somebody 8 hours if they were only driving during the peak and so finished after 4! Interesting about the same shift all week - tho presumably this was interrupted with rest days? Unsurprisingly, the Underground also thought it was silly paying us for eight hours even though we only actually worked four!! Yep, we'd have one rest day during the week plus a Sunday. After night shifts we had a week of rest day covers - from memory I think we only did Monday to Thursday. It wasn't compulsory to work Sundays so we'd tell the Station Master to give it over to someone else. There were no shortage of takers to work a buckshee Sunday. People say they were the 'good old days', but in reality we had to work six days a week to earn decent money. We had to work 40 hours a week, 5 x 8 hours, plus a Sunday so on average we did a 52 hour week. Despite union protests, in reality the Company Plan actually improved the lot of T/Ops with the majority of us getting a substantial pay rise. Thanks - it's quite interesting. So the rest days thrown up by people having rest days in their Mon-Sat week would be picked up by the people on the rest day cover week? I do remember industrial action on one of the privatised TOCs a while back (Central Trains perhaps?) where drivers are still on a similar system - Sunday working is covered by overtime. It was observed that as the basic salary of a driver had increased, the numbers willing to get out of bed on a Sunday for an extra shift had declined. The wisdom or otherwise of running an essential public service based upon enough people wanting to work overtime is beyond me, but I presume that the task of changing rosters and contracts was deemed too much by the managers of these other companies. |
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Post by trt on Jun 18, 2014 9:21:01 GMT
Are you sure that wasn't London Midland? Their refusal to work Sundays was a one-stop-short-of-union-action in protest at various things, not quite clear what exactly but I seem to recall it involved redundancy, shoddy training and no inflationary pay increase that year.
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Post by dmncf on Jun 18, 2014 20:04:09 GMT
Does anyone know when contactless payment cards will be accepted on London Underground (beyond the limited trial that is currently taking place)? It feels to me that progress on this is probably behind where LU would want it to be, given the discussions about ticket office closures.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 18, 2014 20:15:42 GMT
Does anyone know when contactless payment cards will be accepted on London Underground (beyond the limited trial that is currently taking place)? It feels to me that progress on this is probably behind where LU would want it to be, given the discussions about ticket office closures. Diamond Geezer mentioned the other day that it might be September. That it would put it about 12-15 months behind the original deadline of about six months after the 2012 Olympics! Clearly delays to Fares Revisions have diverted resources away (TfL have said this in their Investment Reports) causing some delay but there must be other issues too. I agree there is a strategic linkage with the ticket office closure issue. Initial reports (on the Londonist site) from those who've participated in the trial suggest to me that TfL have an effort on their hands to fine tune how things work and then to encourage people to swap from Oyster. |
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Post by snoggle on Sept 24, 2014 8:03:53 GMT
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Post by Indefatigable on Sept 25, 2014 3:09:08 GMT
Also a write up in the Evening Standard yesterday - I know as I got a copy
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Post by melikepie on Oct 9, 2014 14:04:04 GMT
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Not that they'll suspend it, mind you, just a slow deterioration in Central line service which will, regardless, be advertised as a "good service". Cynical? Me? Dunno what you're talking about, you must be thinking of my mate TLT... 
