The Drivers’ view… as told to Paul Clifton

“Can I have a word?” asked a driver quietly, as my cameraman and I waited for coffee at Horsham station on the day the overtime ban resumed.

“Every driver at the Horsham depot has been working driver-only for six months. This is not about the money - the pay is good. It’s about the strings attached to it. We cannot accept those.

“Have you seen the cameras on the old Class 377s here? The company lets you film CCTV on the new trains for the telly, but the company doesn’t show you how shockingly bad these cameras are. You really can’t see the doors safely.

“And they want to sweep away conditions of service that we’ve spent years putting in place. These are the reasons why we’ve not signed a deal.”

He was the fifth driver to get in touch in as many hours. If Southern thinks the ASLEF union membership will crumble in the face of an extremely generous pay offer, it may be mistaken.

“What incentive does the company have in keeping conductors on trains?” asked another. “It has already depleted platform staff, ticket office staff and conductors. I’m not against companies making money - GTR is only doing this because that’s what its contract requires.

“What about the extra 200 drivers the company said it would employ? It is cancelling one in four services because of our overtime ban. That tells me there are not enough drivers.”

I’ve spent a lot of the past 15 months on station platforms on strike days, standing in front of a TV camera. It is clear that any last drops of public sympathy for either side have evaporated.

There is no respect from passengers for a company that is incapable of striking a deal with its own staff. Nor is there respect for unions that are often perceived as Luddites fighting the inevitable changes created by new technology.

The railway is bogged down in debating which member of staff presses a button to open the carriage doors. Readers of RAIL appreciate the dispute is much more complex than that, but it is the wider public perception that counts.

The once-rapid growth in passenger numbers in the Southern region has stalled. The industrial action must be at least partly to blame for this, because the growth has slowed by more than on neighbouring franchises - the trust of passengers is hard to earn and easy to lose.

Whichever side you happen to support in this polarising, bitter and endless dispute, you’d have to agree that this is very bad for the railway.