Bring on the new guard

Rename and retrain to create a post that puts passenger welfare first

“Somehow, many guards have been trained or been given the impression that their job is to sit in the back cab, open and close doors, not collect fares or be available to passengers. Rubbish.”

I read the recent Industry Insider article ( RAIL 833) on the trap and drag incident at Hales and Harlington with great sadness. It reminded me of a fatal accident at St Annes-on-Sea in Lancashire in the 1980s.

I was the area manager for British Rail at Preston when an elderly woman was dragged to her death by a two- car Class 142 Pacer train. It was a dark, wet evening and the platform was fairly crowded with passengers travelling in both directions. The down service to Blackpool South was running late so there were also passengers waiting on the platform for the same train to return to St Annes and pick them up for the journey towards Preston.

Somewhat hidden by the waiting passengers and the darkness of the evening, the woman had reached out for the centre handrail at the front of the train as the doors were closing. The doors closed around her slender wrist, the interlocks worked and the guard received a clear indication and he gave the Right Away buzzer code from the rear doors.

The guard was one of my best members of staff, an ex-military man, always doing his duties to the best of his abilities and well used to the line and the rolling stock.

We conducted many detailed tests afterwards and the Regional Guards Inspector, who was a very well-built man, held his arm on to the centre handrail as the Pacer doors were closed. The soft rubber closed around his arm and the interlock worked. We were shocked, as we had always assumed that interlocks would not have operated in this situation.

One vital aspect of these trains was that the doors were designed for buses in the 1970s, and they were almost always at the front of the bus and under the direct supervision of the driver. When transferred to the rail industry, this supervision became remote and you could theoretically have four, six or even eight vehicles under the supervision of a guard operating at the back end of the train.

Several changes to the vehicles and the rule book were made after this tragic incident - one being that after closing the doors and giving the Right Away signal to the driver, the guard should stand by his door looking out for any signs of alarm given by anyone on the platform and be able to give the Emergency Stop signal to the driver if necessary.

This catch-all change added an extra safeguard but it always seemed to me to be a last-resort reaction.

Technology has improved by leaps and bounds since the 1980s but it still needs to be checked and, where necessary, modified and updated. Doors have to be proven to be well designed and safe, cameras should be the best available, and monitors should be the most up-to- date and kept modernised as technology improves. Cameras installed in the 1990s must be investigated and improvements incorporated at the next major overhaul. They are as important as brakes and other safety equipment.

Operators of Driver Controlled Doors units need to be given every support and I was delighted to see that the latest technologies are being introduced on Crossrail units and platforms when I recently travelled on the service running between Liverpool Street and Shenfield.

But I also recently had a trip on the Sittingbourne to Sheerness branch, where I witnessed dozens of passengers getting away without paying their fares as the guard sat chatting to friends. The barriers were left open at Sittingbourne during offpeak times, too. All the guard did was to open and close the doors of a two-car unit – a job that could have easily been performed by the driver if the correct equipment had been installed on that line.

Somehow, many guards have been trained or been given the impression that their job is to sit in the back cab, open and close doors, not collect fares or be available to passengers. Rubbish.

It saddens me to witness the cavalier way many guards treat their real job of looking after passengers and collecting the fares that would safeguard their employment. Because guards claim opening and closing doors as their work for job protection purposes doesn’t make it the right or safest way of working a train. The unions should stop trying to work as managers and stick to looking after the welfare of their members. It is not their role nor their duty to run the railway or dictate safety policies. That is the responsibility of managers.

Thousands of trains on the rail system and the London Underground are safely worked each day under DOO or DCO conditions and, as technology improves, so does safety. Guards are no better or worse than drivers at operating or supervising doors. Drivers just need to be given good facilities to take on the task.

It is only relatively recently that we even had power doors on rolling stock and I can well remember the hairy sights at Southern Region stations with passengers misusing slam door stock in the rush hours, desperately opening doors to join – even as the trains were accelerating way, with the guard retreating to his van once he had given two beats on his bell.

We have moved on from those days and we now have great facilities available for drivers to safely work their DOO or DCO trains. It is up to the Government and the rail industry as a whole to see that these technologies are readily available for the driver and then for the guard to be renamed and retrained to become an invaluable member of staff, safeguarding revenue, looking after the poorly mobile and the general safety and welfare of passengers.

In other words, a useful member of staff for the 21st century with the post supported by the additional revenue collected.