In December 2019 the RMT union called a strike by guards on South Western Railway (SWR). It is entirely possible that it escaped your notice. The reasons for that, and for its calling, are worth exploring in detail.

The strike started on Monday 2nd December and the RMT union effectively called on the guards not to work for the entire month of December 2019 and the start of the new year. In contrast to a superficially similar strike on Southern a couple of years ago, this did not become a near-daily news item. Even on the first day of the strike reporting was limited – as if the event was not something particularly out of the ordinary.

In general, the strike seems not to have caused the same level of enraged anger amongst commuters that the Southern strike caused. This is despite the fact that the number of trains run was nominally cut to around 50% of the normal level of service. although in fact quite a few extra trains were run. Furthermore, trains tended to be formed of the maximum number of carriages possible, meaning that overall capacity was reduced by considerably less than 50%.

A silver lining, not obvious to passengers, was that SWR were able to take advantage of the spare drivers and spare train paths to carry out interference testing of their class 442 stock, which had been banned in service due to the train interfering with signals. This has now been rectified and proved to be working. If it hadn’t been for the strike, we probably would have been many months away from seeing these trains back in service.

There may have been many factors that affected the lack of news coverage of this dispute but a crucial one may have been that the service that had been run was generally running pretty reliably and on time. So no new news to report and at least passengers knew where they stood – although they probably were standing rather than seated. Another factor limiting press coverage could have been the air of resignation about the whole thing. A third could be that the the strike didn’t seem likely to (and didn’t) drag on for months unlike the Southern dispute.

Tactical mistake?

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the dispute, tactically this strike does seem to have been a bad move by the RMT. It failed to attract attention beyond the area affected and it did not get much publicity (or attention from MPs in the middle of a general election). Furthermore, either the RMT union either had to drain its coffers to pay sufficient compensating strike pay or it expected members to forego an income at the very time of year when people are at their most reluctant to have their income cut. More to the point, the strike had a limited effect as the level of service run throughout the duration of the dispute demonstrates.

Not the same as the Southern Dispute

Superficially, this strike shared some similarity with the Southern dispute, but there were some major differences beneath the surface. The exact reasons for that strike were never clear, but a claimed reduction of safety standards, a fear that guards (recategorised as onboard supervisors) would in future be made redundant and deep unhappiness about the principle of any increase in the number of trains run without a guard being present regardless of the circumstances, were all key issues.

As with the Southern dispute, on SWR, here the RMT union argued that having the doors opened and closed by the driver on SWR is less safe than having the guard in charge of this. Also, as with the Southern dispute, management in this latest dispute vehemently denied that safety would be compromised. At heart, the RMT are opposed to any operation of trains on SWR without guards under any circumstances, but the SWR appear to have withdrawn any such proposals quite a while ago. So this dispute now seems to have largely revolved on who opens and closes the doors. Or, as we shall see later, just on who will close the doors in future.

Reasons left unsaid

Never stated in either dispute but at the top of many people’s thoughts is the idea that these disputes are really about industrial muscle. If the trains doesn’t need a guard then any future threat of industrial action by the RMT union would be largely ineffective. Effective action would be limited to the withdrawal of labour of the few train drivers who are members of the RMT union rather than ASLEF.

In the Southern dispute, the RMT insisted that there was a hidden agenda to get rid of the guard’s job, but in the SWR dispute the management have assured the union that this isn’t the case. Nor are the union claiming this is the intention of the current management. Of course the current management can’t answer for the next operator of the franchise, who would potentially be in a position to get rid of guards if they wanted to– or (more importantly) were mandated to do so by the DfT.

Past reasons left unresolved

In the earlier dispute, one could well ask why Southern was so determined to have the drivers close the doors, if there was no intention of getting rid of the guard (opening themselves up to the accusations of a hidden agenda). The answer is that Southern Railway were severely hampered operationally by having to have a guard on board. They wanted to be in a situation where if a guard was unavailable for any reason, they wouldn’t have to cancel a train. As well as having a shortage of guards on occasions, Southern relied on trains being joined and divided to maximise capacity on their network which brings an added level of roster complexity . A train waiting at a critical platform for want of a guard for a portion of the train could – and did sometimes did – bring an entire route to a halt. Southern were anxious to eliminate this unnecessary risk.

As noted earlier, SWR (unlike Southern) have agreed to have a guard on every train. Officially, the outstanding issue in the RMT’s dispute was (and remains) that having the guards no longer closing the doors compromises safety. The RMT union clearly regards this as a fundamental part of the guards’ job and say that without this the guards are merely “glorified porters”.

THE SWR CAPACITY PROBLEM

Over the past 30 years there has been a massive expansion of commuting into London, which has required more capacity on just about every route into the capital. On almost all of the major routes into the city there have been major schemes aimed at resolve this situation. So for example, Southeastern has been augmented by HS1 services. Great Western and Great Eastern lines will get some relief from Crossrail and the Great Western line also benefits from electrification. Southern and the Midland Main Line have benefited from Thameslink. A scheme is also in preparation to enhance the Brighton Main Line and remove the critical bottleneck for Southern there. Euston station is being expanded for HS2. Meanwhile King’s Cross is having two extra tracks just north of the station reinstated, which will further increase capacity when combined with the benefits of Thameslink.

Unfortunately, the South West Main Line has also experienced considerable growth (especially long-distance growth) but there has been little done to accommodate it. Options are limited. There is only one terminus served and this means there is little opportunity to ‘mix and match’ different solutions. There really has to be one solution to fit all circumstances. The only alternative option that was available, re-opening the former Waterloo International Terminal for domestic trains, was implemented in 2019.

The only real hope for significantly increasing capacity by increasing the number of trains coming into London on the South West Main Line is Crossrail 2. Unfortunately, it is hard to see how Crossrail 2 could be open before 2035 at the absolute earliest and a solution is needed for South Western Railway now.

SWR – definitely sub-optimal

SWR has a number of inherent problems with its current set-up and these problems have dogged and them and their predecessors for years. A lot of it is down to the rolling stock on the line. A variety of different classes of train are used, which hinders many aspects of operation but, in particular, it hinders performance optimisation. Incredibly, some of the line’s new class 707 trains were even under-specified in terms of future performance required, meaning they will be withdrawn in the next year or so.

When the older trains were conceived in the 1980s, minimising dwell time was not a fundamental design consideration. They have insufficiently-wide doorways and have vestibule areas not planned around actual passenger behaviour in doorway areas. The problem is that the design of doorways and the vestibule area becomes more critical as trains get more crowded and have a greater number of standing passengers.

Worse still, there have been issues with the designed length of the trains themselves. Suburban stock into Waterloo used to generally be only eight coaches long when many train operating companies were already operating twelve car suburban trains. This has been partially rectified by the introduction of some 10-car trains.

Another problem with SWR is the timetable. This was recast a few years ago and a key objective was to increase dwell time (stationary time at a station stop) so that it was more reflective of reality. Unfortunately, as trains get more crowded, dwell time increases disproportionately. One cannot keep increasing dwell time though, as that then eats into overall capacity as one cannot then run as many trains.

Seconds really do matter

We can’t emphasise enough at LR Towers how critical dwell time really is on the modern railway. We generally despair when people suggest that a few odd seconds here and there won’t make much difference.

Just to give a few examples from the recent past, we have reported on how a vision was created for a Victoria line with trains every 90 seconds and where “every second counts”. More recently we have seen the reality of how this laudable objective hasn’t quite been achieved and a train every 100 seconds is the best that can be attained. This is largely because it is currently impossible to reduce the dwell time at King’s Cross southbound platform.

We have also criticised the former junior transport minister, Steven Hammond, who himself criticised Network Rail’s proposed plans for Thameslink with the comment “This would cause considerable inconvenience and disruption all because that would allow Network Rail some marginal seconds in efficiency gain”. In fact the marginal seconds were critical.

Just to show how critical marginal seconds are, in a different scenario, the plans for Thameslink were altered at a late stage to send trains to Gillingham rather than to Tattenham Corner when it was realised that a set of particular junctions north of East Croydon could not be made to work with the proposed timetable. This late change of plan turned out to be extremely disruptive. In this case “a few [extra] marginal seconds” would have made all the difference between a working timetable and a non-working one.

We will look at why seconds really do matter in an SWR context later.

The SWR capacity solution

Fortunately for the beleaguered commuter, the future capacity problem on what is now SWR was recognised years ago and the problem was comprehensively addressed. It was recognised that a large part of any solution that did not involve a multi-billion pound spending and major reconstruction plan lay with having the appropriate trains.

Arguably, the biggest problem on SWR was that the trains were too short. If you run 8-car trains then you can increase capacity by 25% just by adding an extra two coaches. This is the obvious big-hitter solution that does a lot to solve your problems in one go.

The obvious first problem with having longer trains is that you need extra coaches. The next problem, not quite as obvious, is that you need more power because the trains are longer. You also need extra storage capacity in the depots which means longer sidings in existing depots – or new depots entirely.

The issues do not stop with the trains. Signalling is generally optimised for a particular length of train. Whilst a lot of trains (longer distance ones) on SWR are 12-car there will be portions of the network optimised for 8-car trains. Without a lot of careful planning, there could be locations where longer trains foul junctions if brought to a stand.

If all that wasn’t bad enough, to lengthen the trains you need to lengthen a lot of platforms. Platform lengthening is generally a time-consuming and expensive process, as some of it can only be done when trains aren’t running. To cap it all, some of the critical platforms for suburban services at Waterloo were only long enough for 8-car trains.

New trains

It might seem from what has already been suggested that lengthening trains is a potentially good idea even if it is expensive. It turns out though, that it actually more cost-effective not to lengthen the existing trains but to buy new longer ones instead.

There are a number of reasons for preferring to buy new trains. You can reduce the number of driving cabs now that trains aren’t lengthened and shortened daily to the extent they used to be. Fewer driving cabs not only creates more capacity and reduces maintenance costs but also reduces dwell time as passenger doors are more evenly spread along the train. Those passenger doors can also be wider and the vestibule areas can be designed to discourage people from blocking doors. Fewer cabs also save a lot of money as they are a significant portion of the train-build cost.

Another measure can increase capacity to an even greater extent. You can design the longer train so it has more standing capacity in proportion to seating capacity whilst keeping or increasing that absolute number of seats.

Benefits of new trains aren’t limited to what passengers can see. You can have a homogeneous fleet with the same acceleration characteristics and you can take advantage of state-of-the-art traction control (which have advanced spectacularly over the past 30 years). Modern trains also have a lot of self-diagnosis features and these can be used so that maintenance is done when needed rather than after a given number of hours. This both reduces the time needed for maintenance and also the likelihood of a breakdown.

Not just new trains – a new fleet

It is not enough to simply replace the trains that ‘need’ replacing. A homogeneous fleet means consistent dwell times, acceleration and retardation curves. All this further increases capacity but it means prematurely retiring any recently-introduced stock. Fortunately for those set upon this course, leasing, rather than outright purchase, of the existing fleet makes this proposition more feasible.

Having just one variety of train also reduces driver training costs and the potential for accidents due to different driving techniques and cab layouts on different stock. On the maintenance side too it reduces costs as fitters only have to service one type of train and there is a smaller pool of spares required.

With new features

What you can also do with new trains is have new features that aren’t practical to retrofit in old trains. These will not be limited to features for the passenger such as better customer information displays or USB sockets. The big plan for future trains, for which passive provision is being made in trains built recently, is something called Automatic Braking and Door Opening (ABDO).

Automatic Braking and Door Opening

ABDO is one of the big new ideas for the future on suburban lines. This would only apply for stopping at stations and is something that is designed to produce a lot of the benefits of automatic train operation at a fraction of the cost. The idea is that fixed transponders on the approach to a station would enable a train to stop there accurately and in the correct position, without requiring any action from the driver. Since you are only stopping a train, the safety challenges are considerably reduced over automating an entire line.

The automatic braking is done optimally in conjunction with the wheel-slip protection system (ABS for trains) which is already fitted. The big benefit of this is it ensures not only that any potential sliding is eliminated but also that optimal and consistent braking performance is achieved. Once automatic braking is implemented, trains should automatically stop in the correct place on the platform. As soon as it is detected that the train has stopped in the correct place the appropriate doors can be opened.

Apart from saving time, there are enormous safety potential benefits with automatic braking. Instead of concentrating on bringing the train to a halt, the driver can instead concentrate on making sure that if someone falls or jumps onto the track in front of the train they can apply the emergency brake promptly.

Automatic Door Opening

The DO of ABDO stands for door opening and takes the concept of automatic braking one stage further. It (unsurprisingly) enables the doors to be automatically opened. Here too there are distinct advantages. The doors will be opened on the correct side of the train and only the doors that are in the platform will be opened. Whilst one can argue as to whether it is safer for the driver or the guard to release the doors for opening, it is difficult to argue against it being safer still for them to be opened automatically with all the different additional safeguards that this brings.

There is a further operating advantage with automatic door opening in that the doors will be released for opening at the earliest opportunity. This already happens on Thameslink in the central area. One can also, a bit cynically, state that, by having the doors open automatically, you effectively kill any argument as to whether the doors should be opened by the driver or the guard.

Implementing the plan

The good news is that the capacity plan developed for SWR is coming together with practically all aspects in place. The main item missing is the new trains, which are behind schedule but are now due to be phased in from summer 2020.

The order for the trains consists of 60 10-car sets and 30 5-car sets. They are expected to have ABDO capability, although this may not be initially present. What they do not have is guard’s panels for guards to operate the doors, other than a facility to prevent the doors being closed. This is in case the guard is on the platform assisting mobility-impaired passengers, for example. Clearly, if the driver cannot close the doors, the train cannot depart.

Other aspects of the plan have been completed or are underway. The 8-car suburban platforms at Waterloo were extended to 10 cars a couple of years ago, a major task. Other platforms that needed extending have already been extended. Some of these, such as at Feltham station, have been a major challenge.

The power supply has been upgraded. A new stabling depot is being built at Feltham on part of the site of the old Feltham marshalling yard. Waterloo has been resignalled (admittedly not without long-term issues) and Feltham signalling area is in the process of being resignalled too.

Seconds really count on SWR

For many years now SWR and its predecessors have been plagued by needlessly long dwell times. One way of reducing dwell time is to introduce driver only operation (DOO) so that the guard does not have to confirm to the driver that the doors are closed before sending the start signal to them. DOO schemes on the lines into Waterloo have come and gone leaving DOO mirrors and monitors unused for many years, before finally being removed.

SWR and the DfT have really focused on reducing dwell times in order to increase capacity in terms of numbers of trains that can be run. Hence one of the reasons to almost completely replace the rolling stock with something more appropriate. One factor that was tackled was to minimise the time taken for the door opening and door closing sequence. This will eventually be improved further by ABDO. The closing sequence time will be tackled by transferring the task of closing the doors to the driver. The difference between the latest attempt to do this and all such exertions in the past is that the proposals currently on the table make no attempt to remove the guard from the train.

The RMT case

As management have given ground it is inevitable that the RMT union have shifted their case. They seemed to recognise that it is going to be hard to argue on safety grounds against the doors being automatically opened, if all the appropriate safeguards are in place. If the guard is present on the train then any arguments about the plight of mobility-impaired passengers are also hard to make. This is especially true as the guard will be able to ensure the train physically cannot depart whilst assisting a passenger on the platform – something that is not actually true today.

The RMT state that:

It is our view that adding three or four seconds dwell time at each station to ensure the safest method of working and despatch is surely a small price to pay to guarantee the safety and accessibility for all, which is the issue at the heart of the dispute.’

From this statement we can see that the RMT:

Claim only three or four seconds are added

Have stuck to their line that having the guard closing and opening the doors is the safest method of working

Refer to ‘accessibility to all’, which is a red herring if the guard is present

Agree that this is the heart of this dispute.

Is it worth those extra seconds?

We have covered the issue of whether it is actually safer for the guard to close the doors in our previous report on the Southern guards dispute. Once this argument is removed, we are left with the issues of how long extra the procedure takes and whether this is, in fact, ‘a small price to pay’.

We are also left slightly unclear as to whether the RMT are happy for the doors to be opened automatically. If not then it is hard to see how they think that the extra time taken for the guard to open and close the doors can be anything like three or four seconds.

Even if it only applies to dispatch, this low figure would doubtless be disputed and it is hard to see how it can be as little as this given the actions the guard must take:

See that it is safe to close the doors

Checks the signal (if present) has a proceed aspect

Close all the doors except their own

Check again now the doors are closed

Close their own door

‘Ding-ding’ the driver to confirm it is safe to depart.

After all this, the driver then has to ding-ding the guard to acknowledge the signal. Only then can the train depart.

Compare the above procedure with the situation where the driver closes the doors which is that the driver:

Checks that the signal (if present) displays a proceed aspect

Checks it is safe to close doors

Closes doors

Checks it is safe to depart (no-one stuck in doors or leaning against train for example)

Departs

Industry insiders suggest that the second approach results in a minimum saving of six seconds and potentially a typical saving of ten. Note that once the guard has closed their own doors, he or she cannot see if it is safe to depart. So this check can only be done by the driver anyway.

Why those seconds really matter

A major issue in this dispute is that SWR are desperate for any increase in capacity until Crossrail 2 comes along. If running 20tph on a suburban stopping route, then an additional six seconds saved per train amounts to two minutes per hour. Ten seconds per train amounts to over three minutes per hour. This is roughly the equivalent of being able to provide an extra high-density 10-car train per hour.

As an example, consider Earlsfield, the only station between Clapham Junction and Wimbledon and a station where passengers physically cannot board the train in the morning. Sources suggest that SWR believe that if guards are not involved with closing the doors, they can provide an extra four trains in a three hour peak period on top of all the benefits already planned.

Earlsfield might be the best example of a station to benefit from such a change, but it is almost certainly not the only one. Even if, elsewhere, it does not lead to an increase in capacity, it will lead to an increase in reliability and punctuality.

It’s always about the money

Apart from any wider issue about the desirability to increase capacity for the health of the general economy, it makes a lot of financial sense to run a more frequent service. This is because the suppressed demand on SWR extra trains can be filled. The conventional argument is that commuter services don’t make money because of the infrastructure needed to provide for them for only a few hours of the day. However this argument is only valid if you have to provide new infrastructure. If you already have the infrastructure and the rolling stock then squeezing additional trains into the peak when they are full of season-ticket holders can be very profitable indeed. And it is almost all pure profit.

It is also probably easier to achieve than trying to save an equivalent amount of money by eliminating guards.

What does the RMT union hope to achieve?

With the Southern dispute it was hard to see what it was really about. With the current SWR dispute it appears to be quite clear exactly where the sticking point lies. Ignoring for the moment any rights or wrongs of the dispute, it is hard to see what the RMT have been trying to achieve by their action.

The problem for the RMT is that historical precedent suggests that they will always lose a battle of attrition if the other side is determined enough. This is especially true when the other side is financially compensated for any losses by the DfT – as was almost certainly true in December.

Whilst some commuters have suffered enormously, there is little evidence to suggest that they are blaming SWR, perhaps down to SWR being able to get their message across. Furthermore, on most lines SWR demonstrated it was able to run its limited-capacity service using ‘contingency guards’ – management trained up in the guard’s role.

If A further strike is called…

If the RMT were to call a further strike of a month’s duration it would seem almost certain that SWR would keep going and provide a contingency service – as they have done on a number of occasions in the recent past.

On Monday 6th January 2020 a new managing director started at South Western Railway. He has made it clear from the outset that he will not give in to union demands. The Times reports him as saying that caving in would “sacrifice our ability” to improve punctuality. The new managing director, Mark Hopwood, comes from GWR where he has presided over changing in working practices as a result of replacing HSTs with state-of-the-art Hitachi Inter City Express trains. Mark is a well-respected, practical railwayman who knows how to run a punctual railway. He knows he cannot give away a few seconds per station in order to placate the RMT.

Once the new trains start coming into service, there is the further danger that ASLEF (the main train drivers union) and SWR management might come to some agreement to run trains without guards during the dispute. An agreement has been in place for years that gives ASLEF drivers on the SWR (and predecessors) an increased pay packet in return for agreeing to driver only operation. This was originally introduced to cover an agreement to operate trains without a guard and, based on their past experience with Southern Railway and the law courts, ASLEF might not be keen to breach their agreed terms of that contract.

If the new trains have no guard’s panels, as is the overwhelming likelihood now, then the RMT can be accused of preventing them from being operated. Even if the RMT refuse to work on the new trains, their introduction using contingency guards would mean a significant increase in capacity on suburban services during strike days, due to the trains being longer and having more overall capacity.

The crux of the matter

It does seem that, in the long term, it is next to impossible for the RMT to win this dispute. The recent month-long strike and its failure to bring SWR to its knees shows the struggle the union faces.

In order for the RMT to ‘win’ the dispute, the 90 new trains would have to be retrofitted with guard’s panels and, if that were done, some of the advantages of modernising SWR would be lost. We also need to emphasise that, as with the Southern dispute, the safety case argued by the RMT is disputed within the rail industry.

Just to add to the RMT’s woes, there is a government in power with a large, safe majority and it has no need to hold a general election for almost five years. This government is likely to be unsympathetic to the RMT’s cause and has already talked about legislation to ban total strikes on the railways. We might not be close to witnessing the end of a second crew member on board suburban trains in London, but it looks like the traditional role of the suburban guard is disappearing – perhaps preserved on SWR in name only.

One thing this dispute has highlighted is that modern technology means rethinking the role of the second person on the train (if retained) is now inevitable. What purpose (if any) are they there to fulfil? Until that question is answered we risk having the people with the wrong skills appointed to the job.

The current occupants of SWR guard’s jobs and their union may complain that their job is being devalued, but technology has already done that. So long as the role of guard is seen as the 21st century progression of a 19th century role, rather than one which meets 21st century requirements, we risk an era where strikes are endemic or, at best, a fragile and uneasy peace maintains.

Thanks to ngh, in particular, for providing much and verifying much of the background information. London Reconnections is advert-free thanks to your support. If you enjoy our work, you can buy us a coffee or support us on Patreon.

Cover photo by Andi North.