Be Excellent To Each Other

Seriously, why do people still exist in trains? It's a straight line and the other trains are known about. Ignoring squishy humans and logs on the tracks, why do they still exist?

I wouldn't trust a robot train.

I'd be all "Open the train doors"

and it would refuse.

They have very powerful unions.

ask that on uk.rec.motorcycles as there's someone that knows about things like that there

The DLR is driverless, I think.
But I agree. They are pretty much entirely redundant.

Still, aeroplanes are perfectly capable of flying themselves and they have two drivers!

A driver can react to situations and drive according to changing conditions far more effectively and quickly than a computer.

Don't forget that a lot of the railway is still done by hand - many signal boxes are operated by a man pulling levers.

The new thing is 'ERTMS' (European Rail Traffic Management System) which is currently being installed for a trial on the Cambrian line (Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli). ERTMS could well be the beginning of the end for drivers, as it tells the driver how fast he should be going and for how far.

HOWEVER. There's one very good reason why they still have drivers. When the train breaks down, the driver is the one who jumps out, kicks it and gets it going again. A computer can't do that.

No excuse on the underground trains IMO, though. They already stop by themselves at red signals.

I get on the robot DLR every day. Pretty sure it's got a superb safety record, too.

Trains can be fixed by the driver? I've never heard of that happening! Normally they break, stay broken and that's everything screwed for hundreds of miles in every direction. No?

Wouldn't it be an elf and safety issue if he gets out and starts fiddling with it?

Anyway, I'm sure you still would have at least some member of staff on the train, a robot couldn't be programmed to be unyielding and difficult enough to be a ticket inspector

Robots are expensive and people are cheap. Especially the foreigns.

Train drivers are anything but 'cheap'.

Yeah, don't train drivers get paid a rather good salary, and paid for their training too.

Nope. He knows the basics, and jumps out to try and fix it. If he can't, they have people here in the control office who know the units inside-out and talk him through the diagnosis and repair of a problem. It's only when that fails that the train has to limp to the next station and/or be rescued by another train.

Freight train faults in particular tend to be rectified by the driver.



He's wearing hi-vis, he's got his track safety certificate (so he's trained to work safely on the running lines) and other trains can be cautioned if needed.

Who would sell overpriced Mars Bars and bags of Mini Cheddars to peckish and trapped customers?!?

Fair play then. That even sounds sensible.

And also something the ticket inspector could do.

Nah, he's expendable.

Is it wrong to admit that I have often considered getting into train drivery? It seems like a fairly simple way to earn some decent cash, albeit perhaps too simple and rather boring.

A few years ago whilst I was working at Gamestation, myself and another manager were discussing working for London Underground as train drivers. I said that I'd be constantly worried that some twat would dive in front of my train as I'm not sure how I'd deal with knowing I'd killed someone in a fairly grissly fashion. He looked gobsmacked at this and told me that he'd be practically praying for someone to dive in front of him, as it'd be a year off work whilst still being paid for 'stress', a problem he wouldn't have as he didn't think he could feel bad about someone wanting to end their life.

I think he ended up getting a job as an ambulance driver.

Many drivers can't return after they've killed someone. I'm sure if he didn't get a job as a driver he could get a job as the guy who hoses down the station and picks up all the chunks.

Becoming a tube driver is apparently very difficult, because everyone wants to be one. I had it in my head that it was six months for killing someone, though. Like your mate, I don't think I'd have any issues with running someone over.

And yet the unions prevent the logical supply/demand balance from working out how it does in every other non-unionised job.

That may be one of those things where you won't know how you'd feel about it until it happens. I reckon.

I agree. Who's going to add two and two?

Nor I. It's not as if you can swerve out the way, or immediately stop. I don't suspect I'd enjoy seeing someone die, but I doubt I'd feel in any way personally responsible, either. Drivers are just passengers in this respect, but closer to the action; you wouldn't take time off work if you were a passenger on that train, would you, or a hapless bystanding witness?



Probably, aye.

4!

Do I win a prize?

I'm sure someone's tried to take time off because they were a passenger on a train that hit someone.

Hell, we're all getting emails in case we need counselling because we were on duty when that train hit those cars at Moreton-on-Lugg on Saturday.

Really? Jesus.

I dunno, I don't think I'd hold too much of a grudge if a colleague wanted a day or two away from work after seeing a stranger get turned into human paté by a train.

That said, I did once arrive at Watford Junction station for my train home and noticed two odd things on my way to the platform: 1)lots of police; 2) no one waiting on the northbound InterCity platform. It didn't take me too long to click that both of these factors were probably being caused by the tarpaulin covering the tracks for that platform, and the man in a hi vis jacket that kept lifting the tarpaulin and taking photos of whatever lay underneath.

Yup.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/here ... 465412.stm

I've seen the pictures from the scene, they're horrific. I'm not at liberty to say what happened.

We all got offered counseling after someone took the long dive off the 16th floor balcony onto the internal atrium floor.

Mrs Squirt is in recruitment for the trains, and I can certainly forward any questions on to her. The pay is low at first, as you have a load of training but it rapidly gets a lot better, and the benefits are pretty good as well. The hours are strange, if you skip a red light more than once they sack you, and they have a zero tolerance policy towards alcohol and some medicine.

NR's fault, then?

Yeah, the booze limit for rail workers is around half the drink driving limit. Some of the old hands here tell me it didn't used to be that way, no sir...

Oh, absolutely, take a couple of days off. But not six months, surely. I guess it affects different people in different ways, mind. How often does this happen?

What, someone being struck and killed by a train? Pretty much every day somewhere in the country, I reckon.

The DLR has only had a couple of accidents of any form (excluding jumpers). And the stories I'd heard, they were when the train was under manual control (apparently, just before it opened about 20 years ago, a driver reversed it off the island gardens viaduct, before that was a tunnel).

However, at rush hour, it is nearly always under driver control now. I think it is something to do with them wanting a seat.

Not in my rush hour. They must just have to switch to manual because your fat arse overloads the train.

That makes no sense - the extra weight of the fat driver would just make it worse.

The guy's always on there. Sometimes he drives, sometimes he just potters about.

If that thing breaks down, computer's going to tell him to GTFF before he gets anywhere near it with an adjustable spanner

So we're paying £45k per annum for some fat bloke to ride the DLR all day reading The Sun, and he doesn't even have to occasionally press a button?

I doubt they are paid as much as tube drivers, what with the not driving most of the time.

Bet they do, due to Unions.

They aren't tube drivers though. Different job, different firm.

He only has 3 buttons and a joystick. The drivers controls look no more complicated than a C64 console. Crashes as often too.

If Train Simulator has taught me anything - NOT THAT I'VE EVER PLAYED IT, MIND (ahem) - it's that modern trains involve little more than pushing a lever to make it go forward, and then occasionally pulling that lever to make it stop going forward.

Old Man Afterthought was a tube driver, my BiL is a train driver, and another used to be.

So, why do they say trains still require drivers, then?

Play the Birmingham Cross City route in BVE (all freeware) for a much better idea of what it involves.

So what's brought about this Train Driver hate Pod?

Train Driver Hate Pod? Man, Apple are really getting desperate.