Has anyone seen that TFL are wanting to name the London overground lines?

[Dinopawus]

Saw this earlier. I don't think it's an official consultation as such but it sounds like interviews will be held with the travelling public.

I'd really like to see women represented (although not holding my breath). When I hear that Sadiq Khan wants diverse representation, I tend to assume that doesn't mean women.

Who would you like to see nominated with links to London? Rosalind Franklin,
Ada Lovelace, Cicely Saunders, Marie Curie, Millicent Fawcett, any number of suffragettes, Rhaune Laslett, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, all spring to mind but there must be hundreds of other brilliant women worthy of the honour.

tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/naming-overground?intcmp=73299#on-this-page-1

They DO pay their staff properly.

"The typical London Underground Train Driver salary is £63,000 per year. Train Driver salaries at London Underground can range from £59,000 - £64,961 per year. This estimate is based upon 21 London Underground Train Driver salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical methods" - Glass door.

The Underground song comes to mind...... which I think was written by two medical students

They pay well and there are many other perks as well.

"Rewards

• Final salary pension scheme.
• Free travel for you and a nominated partner/family member on the TfL network.
• A 75% discount on National Rail Season Ticket and interest-free loan.
• Minimum of 29 days annual leave plus public holidays.
• Private healthcare discounted scheme - optional.
• Tax-efficient childcare payments."

The old East London line should really be the Brunel line (not a woman I know).

Far more useful to keep the names focussing on the location of the line. They are already well used, so no need to fix something that isn’t broken.

If they want to name something then do what the trucking company whose name ironically escapes me (!) and name individual trains by putting a name on the driver’s cab.

I know why those train driver salaries are so high.
Every time they fancy a pay rise they can hold the entire city of London to ransom.

Their salaries are so high because they have a very demanding and responsible job requiring very great skill and powers of concentration, and they have the safety of hundreds of people in their hands.

Bus drivers get about half that for arguably a harder job. Underground drivers don’t have to deal with customers of traffic!

It’s also the final job on that promotion ladder. TFL try to recruit their drivers internally from experienced station staff.

Bus driver: training is about 6 to 8 weeks. Tube driver: six to twelve months.

Experienced station staff? What exact experience makes someone who works at a station more suited to a train driver job than an outside candidate?

Knowledge of the railway, and railway ways of doing things, perhaps. This is not exactly widespread.

Oh FFS. Decent wages is one thing. Artificially high wages based on the threat of nuisance by causing disruption is something else.

Yeah…

I’m struggling to notice any knowledge in anyone working at my station. Their answer to anything you ask is invariably “I don’t know”.

Have you ever driven a train?

Makes no sense to me. They already have names.

No. And?

Do you ever have views on the work and rewards of merchant bankers and, if so, have you ever been one?

Not sure why the issue of underground train drivers has come up, but they seem to be in line with salaries paid by various national rail lines.

Personally I would have thought they would get more because of the work conditions ie being underground all day (apart from the few lines that go outside of the inner London sprawl).

Not forgetting that many trains no longer have guards, so the driver has over all responsibility for the safety of passengers.

Another factor, and really unpleasant to think about, is the number of suicides each year by people jumping in front of trains. Apart from the family of the person who died, the impact on drivers is long lasting. And even if as a driver it never happens to you, at every turn or tunnel entrance, at the back of your mind this must be something that preys on your mind. Apparently there are over 250 suicides each year on railtracks, and around 40 of these are on London underground.

Deffo!

I live fairly near to Theydon Bois and am amused at the various pronunciations. Love Theydon Boyz. Less keen on the noveau Theydon Bwahh.

Not sure why the issue of underground train drivers has come up, but they seem to be in line with salaries paid by various national rail lines.

Achieved by the same approach to striking.

OK, sack them all, recruit people on minimum wage, and then when we have a Harrow and Wealdstone or a Moorgate, deny all responsibility and try to pin the blame elsewhere? Like Tories always do?

How DO you pronounce Theydon Bois...?

Or invest in driverless trains.

Oh no! Not the provably safer option of not employing ASLEF or RMT members to drive trains! Like on the DLR.

You’ll really upset people now.

It’s been possible for 30 years to taxi, fly, land and park a passenger plane by computers alone, with no safety risk. But we need drivers on trains…

It’s been possible for 30 years to taxi, fly, land and park a passenger plane by computers alone, with no safety risk.

I think you are confusing the repetative tasks that auto pilot can carry out compared to the skills needed to carry out tasks that require split second decisions based on sudden change in circumstances. Do you really think a computer could have landed a plane on the Hudson river?

Added to which who with any sense would hand over their safely when travelling to a computer given the level of sophistication of hacking? Not forgetting the NHS and some councils in the UK being held to ransom, there was the region in the US that lost all it electricity because the computer supposedly automating supply got hacked.

It seems to me that a lot of these comments are based on snobbery about what are considered blue collar jobs getting the salaries near the same as some pen pusher in Whitehall.

If you want to have a go at inflated salaries, look at some the money being taken from rate payers to go to totallly unecessary Mayors, many in poverty stricken boroughs.

I agree about the mayors.

But I’m baffled by the snobbery comment.

We don’t need train drivers any more. Driverless trains are just as safe. Driverless trains have been used on the DLR for decades. If a job becomes extinct - like town cryers and lamplighters - it’s not snobbery to say that we shouldn’t be required to continue to rely on people doing these jobs.