to believe Southern trains should hire healthier conductors

[longfingernails]

Or even better, sack the lot?

Don't forget the more mundane but entirely necessary job of selling people tickets Wheatchief.

I thought you were have meant to always buy your tickets before you travel WheatChief?

I think going unstaffed is crap, it's essential to have staff on trains for the reasons listed above

A friend of mine is a man-mountain.

He was recently on a late train home out of London, when some people started messing round with the PA system making offensive announcements etc. The conductor did not feel personally able to intervene in a gang of drunken men, which I can understand - I doubt they get the highest danger money wages going.

So my friend marched down there and threw them off the train at the next stop. It may well have been the last train that evening.

Thank you wheatchief. I love our conductors - they always let us buy tickets on the train and I find it really comforting to know they are there

You sound like the guards on my branch of southern wheatchief - I'm appalled by the way southern management are behaving, not the rail staff. management are making cynical decisions to paint the staff in a bad light and to maximise their own profits. A local solicitor, whose views I trust, pointed out that when they cancel a train they don't have to pay for the use of the track for that service. Not many people bother applying for delay repay, the local buses are accepting rail tickets as a matter of course!

I have been told by rail staff I've known for years that staff have been ready and willing to work but services are still cancelled because of the overtime ban on any worker who took part in the strike action. I'm shocked that this is even legal.

Yes I've been hugely inconvenienced by this - including not being sure I would be able to get back form London at all last week. This week I have not risked getting a through ticket to Manchester for a family event (the cheaper option) because I can't trust that the southern part of the service will run. I'm giving myself 3 extra hours to get to London to get the service from there. I had to drive my DC to airports and non-southern stations this weeks. It's a nightmare. But it's not a situation of the staff's making so I absolutely do not blame them.

As well as getting rid of guards they want to severely restrict ticket office sales. For one thing this will cause huge queues during the time they are open, for another the cheapest options for me to travel ARE NOT AVAILABLE via the ticket machine. Even the off peak option can only be found if you know where to look. They only become visible once it is actually off peak time! Everyone wanting off peak will have to get their ticket from one machine, in a three - four minute window of opportunity before the first off peak train leaves. It's totally bonkers! The machines are also really badly designed.

Totally agree with the ticket machine thing - they are terrible. As you say, you can't buy a ticket for a train after 9am - until after 9am. Not much good if the train leaves at 9am. Or even 9.10am if there is a queue.

And you can't buy a ticket for the day after until after 3pm. Who dreamt that one up? If the ticket office is closed I've had to drive to the next station up the line and hope the ticket office was open there - to avoid queueing the next day.

It would really help if the rail company top brass would actually travel on the railway themselves from time to time.

I commute five days a week from Chichester to East Croydon. I am exhausted - my journey home has taken three hours-plus almost every evening for two weeks or more, with trains being cancelled, being rerouted or just running extremely late. I've only been able to put my son to bed once in the past two weeks and I'm counting the days until I finish this job and start my new one (where I will drive in every day, thankfully).

However - I fully support the guards/drivers and am absolutely appalled by Southern's behaviour and attitude toward its staff.

Whether or not you agree with the motive for a strike, they do seem designed to inconvenience passengers as much as possible. Why do 24 hour strikes start at 6pm, meaning the service winds down from 4pm and doesn't operate the next day at all? Two days for the price of one. I would have thought public support might be better gained by running a full service but announcing no tickets would be checked and opening the gates, effectively running the service for free.

Genuinely DH is on track for a mental breakdown. One of his biggest stressors is having no idea if what time he will be able to get home, if he will need me to come collect him. etc etc.

He is exhausted and I am worried for him.

To illustrate how bad it is, I live 25 miles from central London. Last time I was in the city for a meeting it took over 3 hours to get home. A decent runner would have beaten me. Oh and I am 20 weeks PG and couldnt get a seat either on train or in waiting room when changing trains.

I don't even care whose fault it is at this stage, just sort it out!

~Op is a goady fucker, here to do the goady fucker dance~

Apparently.

You should that little ditty to music, we'd get plenty of use from it

Surely the Govt when it awards franchises should determine if a guard is needed or not. I don't understand why the same stations being served have a guard if you go on a southern train or dont if you go on a southeastern train.

If trains had more carriages they wouldn't be so over crowded and then less chance for getting stuck in a door. In reality is you are late again for nursery pick up you rush to jump in a carriage and may get your bag stuck. I wish TFL who are not for profit could take over Southeastern and southern franchises.

you sound great wheatsheaf, and plainly doing a great job. But I use Southern regularly and I never see a conductor on the train. On the platforms - should conductors be walking through the train and accessible? Where would I find one if I needed one?

I hope conductors remain, otherwise I won't be able to get on the train - I need the ramp.

The OP hates disabled people though so it won't be a consideration to them.

That said the management ban on overtime is causing chaos. I have written to my MP.

DH who has to brave the horror has queried the H&S of having 1 person in charge of 1000 people on a 12 carriage rush hour train.
Would this be acceptable on a statistically safer aeroplane?

It's dirty tactics by Southern, and, with DH knowing a couple of people who work for them, I'm still firmly on the side of the employees. Southern are twisting everything to try and make the public lose support for them. Sadly it seems to be working.

I wonder whether the derailment at Paddington was due to a driver-only train with too many safety checks to make? Apparently it missed a red signal, which triggered an automatic derailment.

YABU

Southern have some long distance and long form trains.

I do not feel safe travelling late at night and would prefer to keep the guards.