(20 Nov 2016, 8:58 am)northern156 wrote DOO is not the way forward. Any number of things can happen on a train; fully-trained guards carry out the protection of the train in some circumstances. This leaves someone on the train to look after passengers.
Remove this guard and everything then goes down to the driver - hardly more safe?
In the recent derailment at Watford Junction luckily these services were not DOO so passengers were seen and treated promptly by the guard whilst the driver did all other necessary tasks - ordinarily these would have come before passenger safety.
Ask yourself this. If a driver becomes incapacitated, such as the recent incident at Barking where a driver sadly died, it was only down to another train nearby stopping to check and investigate. Had a guard been on board things would've happened much faster and potentially his life could have been saved.
Operation of train doors (this seems to be the only 'petty' thing that the media love to report on because they're 100% unbiased) is a task that is safer in the hands of a guard - it's only natural that the driver is in charge of driving the train; not continuously checking to see if anyone is trying to make the train they've just missed, slipping and ending up underneath it. A guard would see this, shout to stand back, or if something unfortunate happens, stop the train.
Removing all of this for the sake of cost cutting is absolutely ludicrous; as well as putting dozens of people out of jobs (or degrading their workers' rights which have been hard earned) needlessly.
Southern aren't proposing to go DOO - they're proposing to downgrade the guard's role to customer care assistant. This would remove operational duties such as door operation but they would remain onboard to assist in any emergency/first aid situation. Of course this reclassification would mean a change in pay and conditions for those who are currently guards. It's the RMT's purpose to campaign against such changes but they're hiding behind safety issues in order to win public favour as passengers wouldn't stand for so many unreasonable strikes when every other sector in the economy has faced cost-cutting already.
The link you provide is as much an argument for DDO as against it. In the most extreme of circumstances, the process in place worked - the train stopped itself and so were others around it and a person was sent to investigate. It's pure speculation to suggest the driver could have saved by a guard's presence. But while we're talking about c2c; they're the holder of a British Safety Council Sword of Honour - not bad for a guard-less operation.
https://www.c2c-online.co.uk/about-us/la...d-for-c2c/