Pretty dangerous to assume everyone will buy a ticket, just ‘cos they should! You need barriers or ticket inspectors + punishments at some point.

GWR have barriers at all the access points on most stations AFAIK, the occasions I’ve used the train recently I’ve bought my ticket via Trainline, which puts a QR Code onto my phone, which is scanned at the barrier, and cardboard tickets go into the slot. The barriers are all manned as well. That’s not to say all stations have that, the three I’ve used do, that’s Westbury on the single line down to Weymouth, and Chippenham and Bath on the main London-Bristol line. I’ve no reason to think that all the other stations are any different.

The trains do have a guard who checks tickets as well, digital and analog, but I can’t imagine many people manage to bypass the system.

Does anyone know if there are strikes planned in late Jan and early Feb?

I need to go to London for a few days for work

but I can’t imagine many people manage to bypass the system.

Just for balance, Sheffield doesn’t have barriers and it is rare that the tickets are checked on the train. I could buy a cheap ticket just to get through the barriers at the other end and it would probably stack up to cheaper than the occasional fine when they do spot checks in the station. I don’t though.

I think most Northern stations do not have barriers. A lot of the discussion is done though the perspective of people in the SE where they have a very different train infrastructure. Go to West Wales, rural Shropshire etc and it’s a very different set-up

Leeds does, Huddersfield does, Harrogate does but none of the smaller stations in between do. Checking on the train is sporadic at best, rare at rush hours.

Occasionally there were some ticket checkers at the small stations, but I don’t recall seeing any since covid kicked off.

most if not all of the stations on the main line Glasgow / Edinburgh do not have barriers.  Many of them no ticket offices either. tickets are usually checked on the train but on a busy service the guard does not always get to the end of the train.

With tickets/fares, the bigger issue is complexity, rather than fare-dodging. There must be over a hundred different combinations, even staff don’t know which is which.
it could be made much simpler, without greatly affecting revenue.

National Teacher strikes in Feb and March

Do they drive trains?

😜

New strikes on Feb 1st and 3rd

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64303591

Thread resurrection time. As a disgruntled user of trains. It seems we are a year on and just going in circles here.

1. What is the pay and conditions offer that has been made? I cannot seem to find it.
2. What is the pay and conditions offer the RMT and ASLEF would like? I cannot seem to find it.
3. What are the key issues that the unions are objecting too in terms of contracts or working practice?

You won’t find it because it isn’t a good news story so I ’ll tell you what was made to the drivers.

4% backdated 2022 + 4% 2023

in return I have to give up some allowance of sick pay and annual leave, which won’t be accepted.

That was the second offer.  The first was all the above, plus the union cannot have any further input into pay reviews or terms and conditions

Basically they are making offers they know will be refused, so they can turn round and say we are greedy.  Oh and certainly every driver at the TOC I work for doesn’t earn what papers say we earn.  I earned more as a Police Officer

in return I have to give up some allowance of sick pay and annual leave, which won’t be accepted.

Sorry to look for this detail, but @Kato – what are the sick pay and annual leave allowances and the reduction that is currently being proposed as part of this deal?

The first was all the above, plus the union cannot have any further input into pay reviews or terms and conditions

That seems very nasty!

Oh and certainly every driver at the TOC I work for doesn’t earn what papers say we earn. I earned more as a Police Officer

Is there any figures on national pay scales or mean/average of pay?

You won’t find it because it isn’t a good news story so I ’ll tell you what was made to the drivers

So was the offer to folk other than train drivers a better offer?

Sorry to look for this detail, but @Kato – what are the sick pay and annual leave allowances and the reduction that is currently being proposed as part of this deal?

“here, have a below inflation pay rise so you’re poorer in real terms, also you can’t be sick or go on holiday as much as you used to”

Doesn’t really matter how much is lost it’s still a kick in the face right?

Pretty much destined to happen when the entire network relies on overtime/goodwill from drivers to operate a normal timetable.

Why didn’t the govt support hiring of another 1,000 drivers 10 years ago?

Oh and certainly every driver at the TOC I work for doesn’t earn what papers say we earn.  I earned more as a Police Officer

I mean, you would hope so really. Same for nurses and firefighters…

“here, have a below inflation pay rise so you’re poorer in real terms, also you can’t be sick or go on holiday as much as you used to”

Doesn’t really matter how much is lost it’s still a kick in the face right?

Yet most other folk in the current climate have accepted a below inflation rise. Teachers, nurses, most folk I know in charity or private.

For me the issue here is the erosion of your rights to holiday and sick pay – but again, I am intrigued how that compares with other jobs. What holiday and bank holidays do you get? What ‘reduction’ in sick pay is it – from a full year on full salary down to just a fortnight? I know nothing.

I afraid that I become quite irritated when I hear people going on about only accepting above inflation pay rises. I’m not sure what people consider realistic (in terms of pay rises), but a pay increase above 8-10% doesn’t seem in any way realistic to me. and the doctors request of 35% just has me rolling my eyes in despair. I don’t know how anyone can be expected to take a 30% pay rise request seriously?

Im absolutely not an economist, so maybe I’m completely wrong about this – but I’m hoping that inflation will come back down, along with oil prices and eventually food prices, and then hopefully typical pay rises or 3-4 % won’t seem like such a terrible, insufficient thing.

In my part of the private sector, I’m not sure anyone, except for very dramatic exceptions, are seeing anything about 2, 3 or 4% pay rises.

In my part of the private sector, I’m not sure anyone, except for very dramatic exceptions, are seeing anything about 2, 3 or 4% pay rises.

Agreed.

I hear that the issue is around T&C’s, not just salary though.
What I don’t see / hear is any clarity around what is being lost – what is the starting point, how severe a cut etc.

Inflation will come down, as everything went up 10% a year ago, and if prices stabilise, then the rise in the last year is low. Never mind the 10% its just gone up.

Thats the cumulative effect the doctors based their demand on, and why the public sector as a whole, after 13 years of austerity, are so **** pissed off.

As for the trains, its things like doing away with guards and ticket offices – those pointless folk who help vulnerable people who can’t sort out journeys and tickets online, or who help disabled people in and out of trains, or might be the deterrent to an idiot harassing your daughter on a late night train home.

A lot of railway staff are still private sector employees – especially drivers…

That 10% decrease in the value of money doesn’t just disappear if inflation comes down. Everything will still be 10% more expensive, plus whatever it inflates by in the future. Unless we have deflation I guess.

In my part of the private sector, I’m not sure anyone, except for very dramatic exceptions, are seeing anything about 2, 3 or 4% pay rises

In your part of the private sector, can people leave to a better paying company? I doubt it’s so easy if you’re a train driver especially given train companies are geographical.

But again, accepting a decrease in pay is one thing, a decrease in pay AND erosion of t&C’s is another entirely. How many in your private sector are accepting that?

Yet most other folk in the current climate have accepted a below inflation rise. Teachers, nurses

Teachers are striking on Wednesday and Friday this week so that’s not a great example and nurses are they still striking?

I mean, you would hope so really. Same for nurses and firefighters…

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

You funny!

I afraid that I become quite irritated when I hear people going on about only accepting above inflation pay rises. I’m not sure what people consider realistic (in terms of pay rises), but a pay increase above 8-10% doesn’t seem in any way realistic to me. and the doctors request of 35% just has me rolling my eyes in despair. I don’t know how anyone can be expected to take a 30% pay rise request seriously?

You’re clearly not a mathematician either, and I mean that in a non-shitty way.

So if the price of stuff rises at 10% per year then assuming you start at X costing £1 then after a year it’s £1.10, 2 it’s £1.21, 3 it’s £1.33. Now say you’ve had no pay rise for 3 years, would you ask for a 10% rise or 33% rise?

That’s what people are asking for, not the earth, just to be back where they were in relative terms with no erosion of terms and conditions. Is that so unreasonable?

I don’t begrudge any normal working person a cost of living increase just because I haven’t got one, I  consider it intolerant hatefulness to do so. I find it incredible how the 1%ers control of the narrative has moved society from “I’m all right Jack” to “If I’m not all right then nobody else should be either”.

The past 40 years where wealth has increased but earning have struggled to match inflation, had already left a large minority of working people just living paycheck to paycheck, and the later you joined the workforce in that period the more likely you have been to suffer. The past 2 years inflation have now meant most of those now just cannot afford to live, they are reliant on increasing debt and foodbanks just to survive.

Families are breaking up, children are being brought up without hope to become the next generations underclass, parents are committing suicide as the strain becomes too much.

And this isn’t a necessity, it is a political choice driven by greed from the richest, and it surprises me that anyone could look at the current situation and blame the victims fighting to not take a pay cut. But I shouldn’t be surprised really, most people have been lapping up and voting for neoliberal dogma for my whole adult life.

Squirrelking nails it, when someone demands a pay rise after years of stagnation and real term losses, it’s tempting and commonplace to see it as “OMG 10% this year!” but in reality it’s a couple of percent over a bunch of years, it’s just that it didn’t happen. This is obviously pretty problematic, because it means unless you actually really stop and think about the maths, the immediate kneejerk reaction benefits the people who’ve managed to not give reasonable increases in the past, and disadvantes people who’re just trying to fix it.

Supply + demand. There aren’t enough drivers to meet timetable requirements, so they can make wage demands. It’s a massively unionised occupation, so nobody is going to ‘break ranks’. You can’t bring management or agency staff in either, because the job is so skilled.

In your part of the private sector, can people leave to a better paying company? I doubt it’s so easy if you’re a train driver especially given train companies are geographical.

That’s the career choice at the outset.

That’s the career choice at the outset.

Maybe they should just go further back than that and just decide to be born wealthy?

We don’t actually want train drivers to quit and become influencers, though. If they all obey market forces tomorrow, we are gonna have a really crappy commute for the next 5 years…

The rail industry is just an absolute bag of spanners, the whole franchise thing has cost UK PLC a fortune over the years, and i won’t even talk about the actual leasing ROSCO’s.  The reality is the UK needs rail infrastructure, but would rather pay a fortune to private companies to do the same externally, money that could be going into the infrastructure and pay is going elsewhere every year, mainly out of the UK in dividends and asset ownership.

We need the industry to support the countries travel needs, we need it staffed appropriately, and they need to have a decent wage for their work, pretty much every penny of their wage goes back into our economy, it’s just getting daft now, the rail companies rarely care about strikes as the government will just top up the subsidies, christ we live in a country here HS2 is going up at a rate of £2 billion a year in costs, and offering barely anything to most, yet we can grind the rail network to a halt for pay rises which in this current climate, are pretty much fair.

Maybe they should just go further back than that and just decide to be born wealthy?

The point being it’s about knowing what the pay and pay scales are before you join. Just like any teacher/nurse/police/civil servant/etc.
Yes, I agree a fair wage needs to be paid.
But to suggest that there’s not enough opportunity to work for a competitor and earn more is odd when that’s the career you chose.

They’re not complaining about that though. They chose a heavily unionised career instead, and they’re taking advantage of that on order to avoid being shafted.

The other issue is that % pay rises disadvantage the lower paid, whereas rises in the cost of a loaf of bread or pint of milk or litre of petrol or cu.m of gas are the same for all of us*

So a £25K a year person’s pay rise of 4% puts an extra £1000 ( more like 700 after tax and other deductions) into their pocket. Someone on £60K gets 4% and ends up with double that even allowing for higher taxes.

And can buy twice as much bread and milk as a result.

This ‘all in it together’ is bollocks. We need to allow higher than inflation rises for the low paid to counter the daily costs that everyone is seeing, but the low paid are FEELING far more.

And I don’t count junior doctors or train drivers as high paid, TBH.

* unless you buy artisan bread, fancy organic milk, or drive a big SUV and heat a bigger house so buy more of it – but those are all choices.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>So what’s the deal?</p>

More strikes? I’m travelling via train from Munich to London next week and need to get from London to Essex.

National express?

National express?

Or Flixbus

The other issue is that % pay rises disadvantage the lower paid, whereas rises in the cost of a loaf of bread or pint of milk or litre of petrol or cu.m of gas are the same for all of us*

That’s not an issue, it’s complete cobblers.

Pay rises don’t disadvantage the lower paid. And inflation on consumption goods affects the low paid much more than the high paid, as the former spend a much larger proportion of their income than the latter. Apart from that, a brilliant point, though.

Very reminiscent of the 2010s austerity arguments where the Tories had to unfortunately cut benefits and defund schools because Brenda the care worker got an extra 20p an hour, the selfish cow.

I mean, you would hope so really.

I want the man or woman who’s driving the train full of hundreds of people at over a hundred mph is some cases, to be really really content with his/her lot if I’m honest. I’d be happy if that it’s more than “average wage”

Well hurry up if you want a complicated ticket ‘cos now booking offices are going to be shut!