Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) has said it is ‘highly unlikely’ it would send a train out without a second member of staff under its plans to change the role of conductors (guards) on Southern Rail.
The operator has not however ruled it out, highlighting the faultline in its dispute with the RMT union.
The RMT has held two three-day strikes this month in the dispute and plans to hold three further strikes, in November and December.
Two weeks ago face-to-face talks between GTR chief executive Charles Horton and RMT general secretary Mick Cash broke up over GTR’s insistence that it would, in ‘exceptional circumstances’, seek to run trains without a second member of staff.
The company has repeatedly refused to make its list of exceptional circumstances available, raising fears that it may include common occurrences such as the non-availability of train crews.
In response to an inquiry from Transport Network, a GTR spokesman said: ‘We anticipate that it would be highly unlikely that we would send a train out without a second person on board due to staff availability as there will be more [on board supervisor] staff on trains than there are today, and we have the flexibility to allocate trains as required (no route knowledge necessary).’
Paul Cox, the RMT’s regional organiser, told Transport Network that the union had not seen the GTR list of ‘exceptional circumstances’, but had previously told the company that it would discuss ‘everything’ and had offered to put in place contingency provisions so that cancelling trains because a second crew member was not available ‘would become almost non-existent’.
GTR is still operating the reduced timetable it introduced in July, although it has since restored some services. It blamed its inability to run a full timetable on 'issues with train crew availability' such as 'unprecedented levels of train crew sickness' and 'unwillingness among others to work overtime'.
However it also appears that GTR has been more reliant on rest day working to cover absence than other operators’ ‘occasional’ use of the practice.
A GTR spokesperson said: ‘Assuming all members of staff were available all the time then we would have enough to resource our rosters if sickness were at normal levels. The point is that staff are taken out of operation for a variety of other reasons as well, such as training, medicals, route learning, competence assessments and operational reviews and we help cover this with rest day working. This is a normal and efficient method of working.’
A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, representing train operators, told Transport Network: ‘Some train companies occasionally use staff who will volunteer to work on their rest day as a means of covering the absence of staff due to holiday or sickness.’
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