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> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid This is in fact an interesting by-product of privatisation: train drivers became ra

• RobinL 11mo ago
  Is that true? My understanding is they command very high wages because their unions are strong and they have a lot of leverage: by striking they can impose extremely high costs on the wider economy (not to mention bad press for politicians).
  • thesuitonym 11mo ago
    These two things are related.
  • cedilla 11mo ago
    Labour shortages makes finding scabs hard.
  • fergie 11mo ago
    Yes. This was literally a case study for my Sociology degree in the '90s. (I would also mindfully say that there is a lot of subtle political propaganda in the UK around this issue- the powers that be want the public to blame train drivers for the failures of privatisation)
    • terminalshort 11mo ago
      That doesn't convince me. Companies commonly handle situations like this just fine. I know because I have seen it. I think you are the one who fell for the propaganda here.
      • fergie 11mo ago
        Your informative, water-tight argument has convinced me.
        • qcnguy 11mo ago
          But you haven't made an argument, so you're in no position to criticize. You asserted that "train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them" and then didn't back this strange claim up, just said "I'm right" in different words. A sociology degree isn't convincing btw.
      • toyg 11mo ago
        > I know because I have seen it Companies may or may not handle strikes properly. If it were that easy, industrial interests (and their emissaries, like Reagan and Thatcher) would not have spent more than a century trying to break unions.
        • terminalshort 11mo ago
          You missed the context. I am agreeing with you. This is the argument I'm responding to: > train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them
  • Workaccount2 11mo ago
    Our ports in the US, which affects the cost of endless goods, are still running with 1950's level tech because the unions are so strong (and have heavy mob ties).
    • dh2022 11mo ago
      What is stopping other ports in the US from adopting 2025 tech and growing to the point where existing ports have to get new tech or become obsolete?
      • Workaccount2 11mo ago
        The mob part.
        • thaumasiotes 11mo ago
          The mob used to be a major issue in American politics. Today it isn't. Are you arguing that it's grown more powerful with that change?
          • Workaccount2 11mo ago
            I'm arguing that if you are someone who tries to bring change to the ports, like the developer contracted by the government to do an assessment, you will get a visit, most likely at your home. They won't kill you or rough you up, but they will tell you what your assessment will find. And reiterate that they are at your house, where your family lives.
      • renewiltord 11mo ago
        You try it, you get a visit. Same way it's always been.
        • thaumasiotes 11mo ago
          > You try it, you get a visit. Same way it's always been. In that case, there's no obstacle. This is exactly what happened with containerization, and guess what? The ports that did containerize, including some ports constructed from scratch specifically because existing unionized ports blocked containerization, replaced the ports that didn't.
  • phatfish 11mo ago
    I want someone who cares to be driving the train I'm on. They also require in person participation which make outsourcing hard. I'm fine with self driving when the line is designed for it. It will be a very long time before existing lines are self driving, and its not because on unions. Not really sure why people like moaning about train drivers. Are they jealous a train driver is making more than them? While in the case of tech workers they sit quietly and watch their £65k jobs go to India.
  • BurningFrog 11mo ago
    Unions that can shut down important parts of society can and do get paid about as much as they want. This is much more like blackmail than doing right by the working man. Did the train drivers somehow not have this power before privatization?
  • insane_dreamer 11mo ago
    If that's the case, then it would be the case whether the railways are privatized or not (making the case for nationalization vs privatization).
• tialaramex 11mo ago
  The idea is usually to de-skill workers and also to try to make their contractual terms worse. In one very small way I actually sympathise on the railways, let me be specific, this is a long story: The person driving the train clearly needs to learn how to drive that particular model of train, I think that's likely true basically everywhere. The UK's railway systems are however also reliant on drivers knowing the route. A driver must be familiar with exactly the rails their train will pass over to get from A to B, knowing what to expect ahead for some distance at all times. So it's possible that Jim, who is sat in a coffee room right now can drive a 450, but he doesn't know the Waterloo to Portsmouth via Southampton crazy bypass that's in place due to track work, so he is not able to drive the Portsmouth train that's right there, full of passengers and will now instead be cancelled because the scheduled driver did not arrive. In many of the world's railway systems route knowledge is not crucial (it might be good but it's not required). However, because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding-ding,_and_away https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding-ding,_and_away the modern rulebook also requires that the Guard have route knowledge. In contrast to the driver this is much less valuable, but it means that now your Portsmouth train maybe has to be cancelled because although the driver intended was available or the standby could do your route, the only available Guard knows the ordinary Portsmouth route, not the weird one. I think this is a situation where we should fix systems instead rather than hoping that route knowledge for guards makes it work. But this means the guard is arguably de-skilled and less valuable than before.
  • amluto 11mo ago
    That ding, ding and away issue seems straightforwardly solvable with a small amount of technology (the train could refuse to go without the signal saying it’s okay) or something like the Japanese pointing and calling system, or even both. Frankly, something like positive train control or the European Train Control System should be table stakes at this point. It should be difficult or impossible for a driver unfamiliar with a route to cause a crash.
    • thaumasiotes 11mo ago
      > It should be difficult or impossible for a driver unfamiliar with a route to cause a crash. This is a question that's occurred to me in a different context. In Shanghai, there are subway stations where the passenger area is separated from the tracks by a floor-to-ceiling wall, making it impossible to drop something onto the tracks, fall onto the tracks, or get pushed onto the tracks. There are also stations where there's no wall, and anyone can just shove you onto the tracks at any time. The presence of a wall is highly predictable: newer stations have them, and older stations don't. Should the older stations be renovated? That would be an increase in safety. It would also be a pretty substantial expense to address a mostly nonexistent problem. The wall is a good idea and it makes sense to include it when you're constructing a new station. But that doesn't mean it makes sense to add it to an existing station.
• glenstein 11mo ago
  Definitely an interesting wrinkle. I wonder, though, if it's still cheaper to have extremely overworked but well paid staff, and few of them, versus adequate staff and normal pay.