GOS on rail strikes

From here

The GOS says: ... just a thought about these rail strikes.

All my life I've been OK with the idea of strikes. It's always seemed to me that the decision not to go to work has to be one of the few great freedoms we can exercise - provided we are prepared not to get paid for it, of course. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

But I understand that next week rail staff are withdrawing their labour only between 6 and 10 in the morning, and again between 6 and 10 at night. If that's true, it stinks. That's not just exercising your democratic right to stay in bed of a morning. That's deliberately targeting innocent travellers who have done nothing to you, causing them absolutely the most inconvenience that you can - while still presumably drawing a full day's pay since 10 in the morning until 6 in the evening is 8 hours.

No doubt somebody who knows can write in and correct me if I've understood it wrong, but on the face of it that's vicious, calculating, cynical and unprincipled.

Mrs R wholeheartedly agrees, which is why she's quoted this in full - no point in duplication is there?

And thanks to The Filthy Engineer for pointing Mrs R in the right direction to read Grumpy Old Sod's thoughts.

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Rail safety.

The RMT claims that saving money will risk safety.

Will that be the same sort of safety as caused the Potters Bar rail crash?

Is that the same sort of safety that let a car get on the line in front of a train in January this year - killing the driver? As RAIB says

The RAIB’s preliminary examination indicates that the level crossing barriers were raised as the train was approaching the crossing. There is no evidence that the actions of the motorists or the driving of the train contributed to the accident.

How about this sort of safety, maintenance safety from February 2010, relating to a "high speed derailment of one pair of wheels on train 1F45, the 14:55 hrs service from St Pancras to Sheffield, at about 15:46 hrs on 20 February 2010." when

Train services between the East Midlands and London continue to be disrupted after a train derailed in Leicestershire.

Up to 200 passengers were forced to leave the 1455 GMT London St Pancras to Sheffield service near Kibworth on Saturday evening.

'Nuff said.

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RMT wants to strike too?

Does the RMT want to strike too?

Both leading political parties talk about cost cutting and job losses - to try to balance the books. There are, apparently, to be job losses, or re-deployment, in London Underground and naturally the unions don't like it.

This is what London Underground said last week on 11th March

London Underground (LU) is to axe up to 800 jobs under plans to make savings of £16m a year, the company has announced.

Tube officials said the cuts would include 100 managers, 450 ticket office posts and up to 200 other jobs.

LU said it had completely ruled out compulsory redundancies and would look at re-deploying staff.

The reason for cutting the tickets office posts is because

there had been a "sharp decline" in tickets sold at station ticket offices in recent years, with just one in 20 Tube journeys starting with a ticket office transaction.

RMT's response 15th March, although it doesn't seem to be talking about quite the same thing

The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has given maintenance firm Tube Lines until Thursday to offer guarantees about no job cuts.

The union wants assurances that a funding row over the cost of upgrading the Tube will not impact on jobs, safety and working conditions.

It would be interesting to learn how RMT thinks LU is meant to cut costs without reducing staffing. Do they suggest running fewer of those expensive trains, which would mean less income from fares - but the same wages bill?

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Help for Unions.

Want to know how to organise a rail strike?

Special instructions are over at Mr Eugenides' place

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Lucky Manchester.

Manchester, the city that voted against road charging and whose population are the first in the country to be given the opportunity to try out the nice ID cards, is getting a timely boost to its transport infrastructure.

Increasing the area covered by Metrolink, which had been shelved, is now going ahead. It says so here on the BBC last updated 15/05/2009

Here's an extract giving the background of the scheme and its' funding

The original £520m expansion of Metrolink was first announced back in 2000 and dubbed the Big Bang on account of the scale of the project.

But the plan hit the buffers in 2004 when the Government withdrew over rising costs, prompting outrage across Greater Manchester and the start of the Back on Track campaign.

In 2008, the Government confirmed it would pay a lump sum of £244m for a scaled down ‘Mini Bang’ expansion to Rochdale railway station, Chorlton and Droylsden.
Then, later that year, the full ‘Big Bang’ expansion was made a condition of the congestion charge, which was famously thrown out in a referendum.
But now, after months of negotiations, it seems that the money has been found to help Metrolink go the extra mile with the remainder being found from existing AGMA budgets.

Mrs Rigby wonders if, if her nearest city was given a tram system to make it easier to get around without needing to use a car, she would be interested in getting an ID card. - On balance, probably not!