Q&A: Andy Mellors, Managing Director, South Western Railway
This is the first strike on South Western services since privatisation 21 years ago. How can you resolve it? Since our franchise started in August we have had five meetings at a local level, to talk through with our guards’ representatives how we want to operate our new suburban trains which will come in during 2019 and 2020. We want to resume those talks as soon as we can. The RMT union says that means doing away with guards, at least sometimes. True or false? False. We want to retain a second person on our trains. We guarantee to roster a second person on every train. We want to talk to the RMT about the most efficient way of doing that.
We don’t have the ability to run any of our trains without a second person at the moment. In the future, in exceptional circumstances, that might be the case when overall it is in the best interests of our customers, to avoid a cancellation. But that would really be a last resort. Does that mean you would be looking for a deal similar to the agreement with ASLEF on Southern? We are in dispute with the RMT, not with ASLEF. That is the dispute we want to resolve. The way we run our trains is different to Southern. And we want to resolve this in a way that best serves our customers. Nearly all your guards are in the RMT. How many went on strike? One in five of our guards who were due to work on the strike days chose to do so. We had a huge effort from contingency guards that we have trained up in recent weeks. And our other members of staff also had to deal with the amended service. Thanks are also due to our customers, who heeded advice and avoided some of the busier services.