Do you support the RMT?

I have not read all 277 pages of this thread.
Depending on what you read,the average salary seems to be about £50k per year.
Having seen inside a loco cab there is vey little for the driver to do with safety features covering most aspects.
A bus driver has a lot more to do, including dealing with passengers, pedestrians and other road vehicles yet only earn about 2/3 of a train drivers salary.
In fact running my 12 station, 4 line model railway requires a higher concentration level when I operate it on my own.
The amount of applicants for each driver training position suggests the pay is a lot higher than it would be for a like for like skill in another occupation.
So perhaps yes, the Union is the drivers best friend, but as member of Joe Public I don’t support the RMT and feel their stance is damaging the Industry.
I no longer rely on travelling by rail if I am required to make plans more than two weeks ahead and I am sure many others do the same.
In fact I now use the railways very little as they are unreliable and expensive.
Just a layman’s interpretation and I am the first to admit, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the dispute and the rights and wrongs that some on here clearly do.
 
bluethrunthru said:
I presume its a view of the Flying Scotsman, firemen on the footplate, eggs and bacon cooked on a shovel and an actual dining car with plates knives and forks?
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Yes.

Along with Bernard Cribbins as a station master and the more discerning ones dreaming of Jenny Agutter waving her knickers.
 
halfmist said:
I have not read all 277 pages of this thread.
Depending on what you read,the average salary seems to be about £50k per year.
Having seen inside a loco cab there is vey little for the driver to do with safety features covering most aspects.
A bus driver has a lot more to do, including dealing with passengers, pedestrians and other road vehicles yet only earn about 2/3 of a train drivers salary.
In fact running my 12 station, 4 line model railway requires a higher concentration level when I operate it on my own.
The amount of applicants for each driver training position suggests the pay is a lot higher than it would be for a like for like skill in another occupation.
So perhaps yes, the Union is the drivers best friend, but as member of Joe Public I don’t support the RMT and feel their stance is damaging the Industry.
I no longer rely on travelling by rail if I am required to make plans more than two weeks ahead and I am sure many others do the same.
In fact I now use the railways very little as they are unreliable and expensive.
Just a layman’s interpretation and I am the first to admit, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the dispute and the rights and wrongs that some on here clearly do.
Click to expand...

Train drivers wages are what they are as a direct result of privatisation. Under BR they were average at best. The time and cost it takes to train a driver led to some companies realising that they could save money long term by offering higher wages and poaching fully trained drivers from companies paying less. This led to a domino effect, where everyone was forced to up their pay or face a never ending cycle of training drivers at great expense and then see them leave as soon as the period they were contractually obliged to stay had expired.

Also train drivers have absolutely nothing to do with the current RMT dispute. The vast majority of rail staff who’s jobs are currently under threat are earning mid 20s K.
 
"A bus driver has a lot more to do, including dealing with passengers, pedestrians and other road vehicles yet only earn about 2/3 of a train drivers salary."

A bus driver rarely gets to go over 20 mph and carries at most around 70 passengers.

A train driver has to negotiate taking a train carrying up to 1,500 people on it from speeds of 125 mph to stop smoothly and accurately at the right place for each different station over the network they sign.

Slightly different gravy from operating an HO - OO Hornby set in one's attic.
 
Zubrman said:
"A bus driver has a lot more to do, including dealing with passengers, pedestrians and other road vehicles yet only earn about 2/3 of a train drivers salary."

A bus driver rarely gets to go over 20 mph and carries at most around 70 passengers.

A train driver has to negotiate taking a train carrying up to 1,500 people on it from speeds of 125 mph to stop smoothly and accurately at the right place for each different station over the network they sign.

Slightly different gravy from operating an HO - OO Hornby set in one's attic.
Click to expand...

A pilot should definitely be on less than a bus driver aswell. All those lazy cunts do is stick it on auto drive and get the “secondman” to step in when they can’t be arsed.
 
Zubrman said:
"A bus driver has a lot more to do, including dealing with passengers, pedestrians and other road vehicles yet only earn about 2/3 of a train drivers salary."

A bus driver rarely gets to go over 20 mph and carries at most around 70 passengers.

A train driver has to negotiate taking a train carrying up to 1,500 people on it from speeds of 125 mph to stop smoothly and accurately at the right place for each different station over the network they sign.

Slightly different gravy from operating an HO - OO Hornby set in one's attic.
Click to expand...
Not quite sure stopping smoothly and accurately is anything special, you even need to do that in a car to avoid a shunt.
The train steers itself, the internal alarm warns of the signal status, the dead man’s handle will stop the train so I would have thought the hardest thing to cope within on a train is boredom.
You obviously don’t have a train set.
I have to operate , the trains, beware of derailments, operate the signals and junctions and avoid other trains being on the same track whilst the trains are in motion, all simultaneously, none of these are the responsibility of the train driver on the real thing
Oh and I am none unionised, so my trains are more reliable and run on time.
 
halfmist said:
Not quite sure stopping smoothly and accurately is anything special, you even need to do that in a car to avoid a shunt.
The train steers itself, the internal alarm warns of the signal status, the dead man’s handle will stop the train so I would have thought the hardest thing to cope within on a train is boredom.
You obviously don’t have a train set.
I have to operate , the trains, beware of derailments, operate the signals and junctions and avoid other trains being on the same track whilst the trains are in motion, all simultaneously, none of these are the responsibility of the train driver on the real thing
Oh and I am none unionised, so my trains are more reliable and run on time.
Click to expand...
“none unionised”. And illiterate.
 
www.theguardian.com

The people have spoken, and they want to speak to real live humans, not a rail ticket self-service app | Gaby Hinsliff

Automation is causing many casualties. Technology marches on, but there’s a yearning for moments of precious connection, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

As an aside. The VSS seems to have been pulled back in as some talks with RDG have been pencilled in next week. I'm not expecting anything out of them and have urged our NEC to call more dates to put pressure on them to make it meaningful.

The cynical side in me says it's another delaying tactic by the DFT. I predict more dates called for August Bank Holiday.
 
TinFoilHat said:
Expect more strike dates announced tomorrow.

As expected Mark Harper more bothered about sending his minions out to "promote" propaganda about what the Tories are doing to improve the railways than talk to RMT.
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Keep going lads - show them up for what they are - this and water and to some extent gas/electric are just failed privatisation experiments that need to be reversed
 
bluethrunthru said:
Keep going lads - show them up for what they are - this and water and to some extent gas/electric are just failed privatisation experiments that need to be reversed
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Difficult as the Tories have chosen the railway unions to make their stance, and as there’s profit it in for the networks, by way of the countries people, it suits their agenda.

Said many months back that this would get screwed, hopefully nobody affected by this has even a thought of voting Tory.
 
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