Hello again Adrian,I have managed to read the article which clarifies some aspects of SWR but not all. My apologies if this reply is too long.Firstly, I have not found the answer to who are London Reconnections (by the way, who is/was Mr Thant?). The what, hidden under the shop tag, states:"London Reconnections is a website and magazine dedicated to quality, long-form writing about London transport.Covering everything from the history of the network to current and future transport operations and policy, new content is published weekly online. The best of this, along with some yet-to-be-published articles can be purchased in our beautiful print compendium which is published bi-monthly."It appears to me that the article is more about bashing the RMT and not much said about SWR's responsibility and accountability for the service it provides. The article gladly points out that there was not much publicity about the SWR strike. Causes for this may be:1. Political - Brexit was at the forefront of news reporting2. Political - the general election of 12 December 20193. Reality - exhausted passengers which includes being fed up of a badly-run expensive service and yes, yet another strike against the providers of the service who happen to be the same ones as Southern railways. 4. Reality - the general limbo the country was at.The article states that the service that had been run was running reliably and on time. True, under SWT. As soon as FirstGroup took over in 2017, the disputes erupted. I do not believe this to be coincidental.Also, I seem to remember that the initial strike action was called off because SWR had said guards would remain only to retract this undertaking a couple of months later.The article also extols the virtue of ABDOs and stresses that technology has already taken over the role of the guards. As Elizabeth Balsom said in her post, the gap between the train and the platform at some stations is very big and wonders if she would be seen if she fell under. We have seen on TV children falling into the gaps and true, it is the passengers who pull the emergency break - which is also there for a purpose.It is also interesting to see the fleeting mention of disabled people trying to board the train with the help of guards on the platform. Nothing about the time they need to leave the train....As I mentioned before, I believe the guards perform a very important role to ensure safety - something that a driver looking at mirrors will, by definition, not be able to do. Also, what happens when a passenger falls ill? The driver stops the train there and then to go and see what happens? That will have a knock-on effect on the service that will be counted in minutes, not seconds. The article also states length of platforms, number of carriages of a train, etc. I thought many of the SWR platforms had already been lengthened to take 12 carriages.As you say, many of SWR's problems are down to the way Chris Grayling and the DfT changed what they wanted out of the franchise. It is interesting to read the end of the article which states that RMT members would be replaced by ASLEF drivers as they get a bigger pay packet in return for agreeing to driver only trains. So, it is all about money and profits only and let us forget safety.
Ivonne Holliday ● 2497d