IT really is time for the RMTW union to wake up and smell the coffee.
No group of workers can be guaranteed a job out of a mis-placed sense of entitlement.
Trains without guards are routinely operated, quite safely, across the UK rail network.
Indeed, the Independent Rail Safety Organisation has stated that with the necessary technical measures fitted, driver-only operated trains are perfectly safe.
In Manchester, the Metrolink LRT tram system has been operating on city streets and urban railways, without guards, since its inception many years ago.
If you get chance, ask the RMT, given the existence of many driver- only trains, where is the evidence they are unsafe?
If we here, are to develop a modernised and sustainable transport system, the vested interests of this Union, clearly stuck in a time warp, must be rejected.
The terms offered to the existing guards are generous, they seem to provide a reasonable way forward whilst minimising the impact of redeployment on those affected.
There are umpteen examples of particular jobs, once thought indispensable, having been made redundant by progress and technical innovation.
Interestingly, in London, the Docklands light railway is fully automated, there no drivers.
G Barlow, Greasby
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