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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/21/guards-train-passengers-unsafe-back-strike-northern
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| Without guards, train passengers like me would be unsafe. I back their strike | Without guards, train passengers like me would be unsafe. I back their strike |
| (30 days later) | |
| This weekend, members of the rail union RMT who work on Northern trains will strike for the 18th Saturday in a row, with the aim of preventing the operator from introducing guardless, or “driver-operated”, services. As someone who doesn’t drive and whose local station – on the busy route between Liverpool and Manchester – is served solely by Northern, the strikes are a pain, but I support them wholeheartedly. | This weekend, members of the rail union RMT who work on Northern trains will strike for the 18th Saturday in a row, with the aim of preventing the operator from introducing guardless, or “driver-operated”, services. As someone who doesn’t drive and whose local station – on the busy route between Liverpool and Manchester – is served solely by Northern, the strikes are a pain, but I support them wholeheartedly. |
| Northern Rail asks Acas to intervene in row with RMT over guards | Northern Rail asks Acas to intervene in row with RMT over guards |
| Anyone who uses Northern regularly knows that to live and work north of Birmingham is to be treated with what feels like contempt. Your rail commute will be uncomfortable and cramped; the toilet will often be out of order or a terrible mess and you will be lucky to get to work on time, or back home in time for the school run. Northern commuters have had to get used to this. But the RMT strikes in defence of guards are necessary in the name of something even more fundamental: passenger safety. | Anyone who uses Northern regularly knows that to live and work north of Birmingham is to be treated with what feels like contempt. Your rail commute will be uncomfortable and cramped; the toilet will often be out of order or a terrible mess and you will be lucky to get to work on time, or back home in time for the school run. Northern commuters have had to get used to this. But the RMT strikes in defence of guards are necessary in the name of something even more fundamental: passenger safety. |
| The union’s pamphlet The Role of the Guard collates its members’ reports of preventing sexual assaults, breaking up fights, administering first aid, keeping rival football supporters separate and guiding passengers to safe exits when doors, and sometimes entire trains, fail. | The union’s pamphlet The Role of the Guard collates its members’ reports of preventing sexual assaults, breaking up fights, administering first aid, keeping rival football supporters separate and guiding passengers to safe exits when doors, and sometimes entire trains, fail. |
| Some of the cases are hair-raising: a guard treats a passenger for a “life-threatening abdominal wound”; another has to keep passengers safe when “a woman commit(s) suicide by setting herself on fire in the toilet cubicle”. A “drunken male” wanders through a train waving a smashed wine bottle; the guard talks him into putting it down. Bear in mind that these events all occur mid-journey, on services that have up to half an hour between stops, while the driver is insulated in his cab. | Some of the cases are hair-raising: a guard treats a passenger for a “life-threatening abdominal wound”; another has to keep passengers safe when “a woman commit(s) suicide by setting herself on fire in the toilet cubicle”. A “drunken male” wanders through a train waving a smashed wine bottle; the guard talks him into putting it down. Bear in mind that these events all occur mid-journey, on services that have up to half an hour between stops, while the driver is insulated in his cab. |
| If you are a woman travelling alone, particularly after the evening rush hour, guards are essential. If you are making a train trip with small children and all the accoutrements they require, guards are essential. If you’re disabled or unsteady on your feet and your local service is a Pacer train, in which the doors frequently jam and open on to platforms a metre below the lowest train step, guards are essential. | If you are a woman travelling alone, particularly after the evening rush hour, guards are essential. If you are making a train trip with small children and all the accoutrements they require, guards are essential. If you’re disabled or unsteady on your feet and your local service is a Pacer train, in which the doors frequently jam and open on to platforms a metre below the lowest train step, guards are essential. |
| Trains, even stopping trains, are not comparable to buses, tubes or metro services. When you find yourself stuck in a carriage with drunk, abusive or threatening passengers, or if the door to your carriage is stuck, you have far longer than a minute or two to wait before leaving the train or receiving help. | Trains, even stopping trains, are not comparable to buses, tubes or metro services. When you find yourself stuck in a carriage with drunk, abusive or threatening passengers, or if the door to your carriage is stuck, you have far longer than a minute or two to wait before leaving the train or receiving help. |
| Northern services are a trial to use. Notoriously, the operator made such a hash of its new timetables last May that it had to implement a reduced “temporary” service that is likely to last a year. | Northern services are a trial to use. Notoriously, the operator made such a hash of its new timetables last May that it had to implement a reduced “temporary” service that is likely to last a year. |
| The patient, friendly conductors and station staff are the only thing that keep the whole operation from falling to bits. What they know, and what their bosses seem determined to dismiss, is that they are performing a civic duty. An available guard is the difference between safety and vulnerability in public spaces. Abolishing the role is tantamount to saying that public space, and the right to move freely in it, with dignity, no longer matters. | The patient, friendly conductors and station staff are the only thing that keep the whole operation from falling to bits. What they know, and what their bosses seem determined to dismiss, is that they are performing a civic duty. An available guard is the difference between safety and vulnerability in public spaces. Abolishing the role is tantamount to saying that public space, and the right to move freely in it, with dignity, no longer matters. |
| • Lynsey Hanley is the author of Estates and Respectable | • Lynsey Hanley is the author of Estates and Respectable |
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