Cycling UK Forum

How about none at all. Imagine - all those level straight routes, ready to be surfaced for electric vehicles and bikes.

[XAP]Bob wrote:

tanglewood wrote:18 months training! What on earth are they doing for 18 months? Teachers are trained in 9 months!

That might say more about our attitude to training teachers than it does about train staff

Or it might say more about some peoples attitude to the truth.
I think post graduate can be done in a year, the non graduate route is 3 - 4 years.

PH wrote:

[XAP]Bob wrote:

tanglewood wrote:18 months training! What on earth are they doing for 18 months? Teachers are trained in 9 months!

That might say more about our attitude to training teachers than it does about train staff

Or it might say more about some peoples attitude to the truth.
I think post graduate can be done in a year, the non graduate route is 3 - 4 years.

During my degree I learned nothing at all about teaching. That was done on my PGCE which was done in one year, September to July.

The non graduate route spends the same amount of time on learning to teach - it's just you also get three years to get to graduate level of expertise in your subject. My sister did that route. It certainly wasn't 4 years of teacher training.

(What do you mean, attitude to truth?)

PH wrote:For anyone like me struggling to understand the issues, this article by Railfuture seems (To me) to be impartial
http://www.railfuture.org.uk/article169 ... aff-duties

It looks to me like there's a lack of honesty on all sides, but the reality is that the dispute is very much between the unions and the government rather than the train operators. Either we have a nationalised railway or a privatised one, this hybrid isn't working and never will.

Railfuture seem pretty much on the government side. That article makes many unsubstantiated claims, such as "Passengers would rather that a train ran with just a driver than not run at all" while I think I'd rather wait up to 30 minutes for another train with a safe staffing level - if trains are more frequent than half-hourly, probably the route is busy enough to require two crew members for safety anyway - am I unusual in that?

The article also seems to ignore an elephant in the room: what happens to passengers in an incident if the driver is the only safety-qualified worker on the train? Must passengers pray that an off-duty eligible driver or guard happens to be aboard? I know there have been incidents where the guard has led passengers to safety while the driver was busy alerting other trains and so on, as well as when off-duty railway workers have been unable to help officially because they'd had a drink after their shift as their next day(s) were off. OK, incidents are relatively rare, but how many more people is the nation willing to sacrifice on the altar of greater train operator profits?

(edited to rephrase a bit to avoid a repeated word... what's another word for thesaurus?)

tanglewood wrote:How about none at all. Imagine - all those level straight routes, ready to be surfaced for electric vehicles and bikes.

Maybe make the electric vehicles 30m long for maximum carrying capacity, powered by electricity from overhead lines and running on a low friction surface?

[XAP]Bob wrote:That might say more about our attitude to training teachers than it does about train staff

And about why UK schooling isn't up to the standards of other nations

hamster wrote:

tanglewood wrote:How about none at all. Imagine - all those level straight routes, ready to be surfaced for electric vehicles and bikes.

Maybe make the electric vehicles 30m long for maximum carrying capacity, powered by electricity from overhead lines and running on a low friction surface?

So they couldn't run off the road and crash,which of course would need fully trained and responsible operatives to both drive them and other operative to help with passenger safety,etc

reohn2 wrote:

hamster wrote:

tanglewood wrote:How about none at all. Imagine - all those level straight routes, ready to be surfaced for electric vehicles and bikes.

Maybe make the electric vehicles 30m long for maximum carrying capacity, powered by electricity from overhead lines and running on a low friction surface?

So they could run of the road and crash,which of course would need fully trained and responsible operatives to both drive them and other operative to help with passenger safety,etc

If 30m long vehicles that don't leave from where you want to start your journey, and don't go to where you end your journey, and don't leave when you want to leave, and don't go to some parts of the country at all, hardly run at night, cost thousand of pounds an inch to build their track, and turn into busses most Sundays, were such a good idea, we wouldn't have to subsidise them so much.

mjr wrote:I think I'd rather wait up to 30 minutes for another train with a safe staffing level - if trains are more frequent than half-hourly, probably the route is busy enough to require two crew members for safety anyway - am I unusual in that?

I'd be perfectly happy on a driver only train. The local train service around Glasgow (journeys up to 2hrs) have been driver only for many years. I can't recall any time I missed the presence of a guard. There are random ticket collectors on some services. More at peak hours and less at off peak. Very often only the driver. The union workforce seem happy with it. It's never been raised as an issue by passengers. No reason Southern can't do the same assuming rolling stock is suitable. Electric doors and some sort of CCTV presumably.

However the latest offer which the ASLEF union supported dropped driver only trains. Not quite sure what else the drivers want.

Simon Weller, Aslef’s assistant general secretary and member of the general council of the TUC, which brokered the controversial agreement, said: “We have achieved significant gains. There will be a [second] safety-critical person on every train.”

He said that original plans for driver-only trains — without a guard or second person on board — had been dropped by Southern.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transpor ... 60131.html

reohn2 wrote:

[XAP]Bob wrote:That might say more about our attitude to training teachers than it does about train staff

And about why UK schooling isn't up to the standards of other nations

This negativity is so tiresome! Cheer up! PISA results show UK is the 4th best country in Europe for science, and 15th in the world. Ok, behind Estonia, Finland and Slovenia, but beating Germany and Netherlands, and all the beloved Scandinavians. Sweden is down in 28th place. Sweden beats us by 2 points in reading and in maths - but their results in the next round will show the effect of what is new for them but what we have been dealing really well with with for many years - many pupils with the classroom language as a second language. When Stockholm has 300 languages in its schools like London does, let's see how they do.

Rejoice in the excellence of our teachers and our kids. It's not an easy job, and it is being done brilliantly.

tanglewood wrote:

reohn2 wrote:

hamster wrote:Maybe make the electric vehicles 30m long for maximum carrying capacity, powered by electricity from overhead lines and running on a low friction surface?

So they could run of the road and crash,which of course would need fully trained and responsible operatives to both drive them and other operative to help with passenger safety,etc

If 30m long vehicles that don't leave from where you want to start your journey, and don't go to where you end your journey, and don't leave when you want to leave, and don't go to some parts of the country at all, hardly run at night, cost thousand of pounds an inch to build their track, and turn into busses most Sundays, were such a good idea, we wouldn't have to subsidise them so much.

Shsssh! It's a matter of faith. Don't introduce logic. In Edinburgh they spent the best part of a £1 billion to built a one line tram service that is slower than the bus despite running on a dedicated track much of the way.

irc wrote:

tanglewood wrote:

reohn2 wrote:So they could run of the road and crash,which of course would need fully trained and responsible operatives to both drive them and other operative to help with passenger safety,etc

If 30m long vehicles that don't leave from where you want to start your journey, and don't go to where you end your journey, and don't leave when you want to leave, and don't go to some parts of the country at all, hardly run at night, cost thousand of pounds an inch to build their track, and turn into busses most Sundays, were such a good idea, we wouldn't have to subsidise them so much.

Shsssh! It's a matter of faith. Don't introduce logic. In Edinburgh they spent the best part of a £1 billion to built a one line tram service that is slower than the bus despite running on a dedicated track much of the way.

"MONORAIL"

Is there any form of transport that doesn't get some subsidy or tax break now?

And does that mean all transport is a bad idea?

Or just that it's usually more efficient for the baseline to be public?

mjr wrote::lol: Is there any form of transport that doesn't get some subsidy or tax break now?

And does that mean all transport is a bad idea?

Or just that it's usually more efficient for the baseline to be public?

The 2009 Transport Select Committee report, Taxes and Charges on Road Users, calculated the total taxes and charges on UK road users as £48 billion per annum. The report quoted the typical annual expenditure on roads as about £8-9 billion.

tanglewood wrote:

mjr wrote::lol: Is there any form of transport that doesn't get some subsidy or tax break now?

And does that mean all transport is a bad idea?

Or just that it's usually more efficient for the baseline to be public?

The 2009 Transport Select Committee report, Taxes and Charges on Road Users, calculated the total taxes and charges on UK road users as £48 billion per annum. The report quoted the typical annual expenditure on roads as about £8-9 billion.

Please don't plagiarise, especially from a page making the exact opposite point to that you seem to be: http://ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as ... -motoring/

"a report commissioned by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions result in a higher total cost figure of £71-95 billion (in 2006 prices). This excludes the costs of physical inactivity and other as yet un-monetised costs such as severance effects and loss of tranquillity."

In other words, each pound in tax from motorists costs us two pounds!