Tuesday 7 June 2016



When I joined LU nearly 20 years ago as a humble Station Assistant last trains meant that one of us would go down on the platform while another waited at the ticket barriers to call down over the radio if any last minute passengers were on their way.  When everybody was on board the bod on the platform would give a signal to the TOp that it was okay to proceed.  In April we received a new issue of Rule Books and one little amendment seems to have been overlooked. In the last issue of Rule Book 8 "Managing the platform train interface" under Section 3.6 "Last Trains" station staffs’ responsibilities were listed as....
 
"When the last train to a destination is departing you must:
  • hold the train as necessary to maintain connections
  • the announcements to tell customers this is the last train
  • dispatch the train using the appropriate dispatch sign.” 
The first line has now been amended to read "For the last train booked for connection to a destination you must"
 
The booked connections are listed on page 5 of Working Timetable 67, they are the last EPP and HAI at LES, the last WB and EB trains at MIE to connect with the last District Line trains and the last WER and EAB trains at WHC.  Anywhere else the TOp is no longer required to wait for station staff to show up, this seems to have caught out a few people including so I'm told the controllers at Wood Lane and when I got back from annual leave a few weeks ago notices had gone up pointing out the rule change.  No doubt this is another result of FFTF, it just gets better and better……..

10 comments:

  1. I have heard of staff referring to FFTF as FFS. (Clue; the first and last words rhyme!)

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  2. For all you drivers out there....unaware, it (FFTF) is a complete joke at the moment! I am know a lot of RMT drivers are aware of certain events due to the RMT being a "Transport workers union" so all the news is fed down. Staff (including CSS's and CSM's) being sent to stations to work without the correct licenses (lifts or escalators etc.) among lots of other issues. As mentioned below a lot of AM's and above are aware but the usual covering up is taking place. So far LUL has been very fortunate and got away with it!

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    1. This is very true, now we've reached the stage where staff who don't know what they are doing are training other staff as all the previous staff who did know what they're doing have left. Basically we're on borrowed time until there's a major fuck up and all we an do is hope we're not the ones working that day

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    2. Doubting Terrapin9 June 2016 at 17:02

      All of this needs to be made a lot more public than this web-site, and while protecting identities, stations names, dates and detail need to be publicly logged. 'Borrowed time' means the risk of death or life-changing injury, plus endless grief for the families. There ARE means to get this out and protect sources, obviously can't be named here, but PLEASE don't wait for the inevitable accidents when you could have tired your best to prevent it.

      A very concerned TU activist who also has to stay anonymous as I'm too well known...

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    3. With Ramadan just started we have the prospect in a couple of weeks of tired, and dehydrated staff making safety critical decisions, or, implementing crowd control in areas they are unfamiliar with or under trained in. It's an accident waiting to happen. Whereas before they would have been able to swap shifts with people they had worked with for years or used the experience of others around them to avoid errors.

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  3. The requirement to despatch all last trains manually was removed years ago so is nothing to do with the recent changes. Many of us saw no point in being on the platform after gates, cctv, better radio and PA meant is was rarely useful.

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    1. Not according to Issue 3 of Rule Book 8, the wording only changed in Issue 4, April 2016 and the fact that notices went up last month emphasising the change to procedure is evidence that it was still being done until recently. I stopped doing last trains Christmas 2012 and we were still waiting for the "right" back then.

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    2. Yes, that's the 'booked for' wording change you pointed out. The general requirement to 'lamp out' was dropped - I checked today - in 2006. Fully ten years, so why everyone's making a fuss now is puzzling. There is no link at all with the new grades

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    3. As I said I was doing last trains until 2012, it wasn't a lamp, usually they used the baton but we were still having to wait for station staff to give us a signal. If they didn't show we'd call up Wood Lane who'd usually forgotten to tell us that the station was unstaffed.

      Rule Book 3 still has the original wording which applied to all stations not just ones with booked connections, I don't know where you read that in 2006 but why wasn't it in the Rule Books?

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    4. still get lamped out on the pic line on all stations

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