Platform Guards Irrelevant?

Hamburg S Bahn. No guards required.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqCYA64ZbOE

With the old S Bahn ET 420 (EMU introduced for Olympic games in 72) the driver had to get up as
shown in this video (good for blood circulation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBM4HeS7H-I

Monitors were outside when platforms are curved.

MM

That driver getting up and looking out reminds me of the old H class trams in Adelaide. It was customary for the driver to hold open his door and have one last look before departing each stop.

But what I'd like to see is an example of a driver-only train departing a platform as crowded as Town Hall platform 2 in the PM peak (where half the people don't get on the train, but mill around waiting for their train).

What driver-only systems would compare to that? Have you any videos like that?

G.

Here it is:
Tokyo train at rush hour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMCc-cqsNSg

Clearly a failure of town planning, these mono-directional traffic flows. I knew this since 1972 when
I visited Japan. But no one wants to listen. No more commercial development in the city. If our
economy is still OK after peak oil I predict office space in the city will be converted to residential to
reduce traffic

MM

Yes, yes I've seen that one before.

But seriously, how about something more civil that would be acceptable in
our culture?

And by the way there's a lot of labour tied up in those staff pushing
everyone aboard! :-)

G.

PS Beware moving office space out of the City, it ends up at places like
Norwest - try getting anything like the PT modal share at a place like that!

Quoting G.:

"But seriously, how about something more civil that would be acceptable in our culture?"

Vote for the Greens.
Half hr walking/biking to the next train station will have to be accepted. We had it in the 50s. It will come back. Life goes on, even without cars.

"And by the way there's a lot of labour tied up in those staff pushing everyone aboard! :-)"

Maybe only temporary peak staff

"PS Beware moving office space out of the City, it ends up at places like Norwest - try getting anything like the PT modal share at a place like that!"

Consider yourself lucky the jobs are there in the West for the Westies. Peak oil will impose a massive re-organisation of traffic in cities. People will have to move closer to work. Abolish the stamp duty in such cases so that job mobility can increase. But the budget doesn't allow that. So we are running out of options no matter how you look at the problem. And our politicians haven't even discovered it.

It is very urgent that revenue comes from new productive sectors of the economy and not from
taxes on swapping property titles or exploiting harbour views.

MM

You know, with peak, hundreds of thousands of jobs for big boofy boys will disappear from the car economy. And a lot of them will go very quickly. I wouldn't think that getting rid of hundreds of guards jobs would be very helpful under those conditions. How come the Metro LR people can have two staff on every tram and still be happy?

Also, I really, really worry about emergencies on trains with 1000 people aboard and only one staff member.

FM GG

The Railways have a record of featherbedding particularly with train crews (just look at the row that the AFULE went through in the 1980's trying to keep 'firemen' on the XPT's) so I wouldn't look at it simply from an employment point of view.

There can be better use made of staff who no longer have a necessary role.

For example in the off-peak periods at least, when loads are lighter, where Costa (remember him?) cut train frequencies by 50%, you could actually restore the frequencies at no increase in operating costs by replacing one 8 car 2 man train every 30 minutes, with two 4 car one man trains, i.e. a train every 15 minutes.

BTW, on MLR the second person is for revenue purposes not safety.

G.