Inner city and suberban routes, where you have frequent stations you could do without a Grd.
On longer distance routes where you go 30 kins, half an hr without a second compentant person and your are putting the passengers safety at risk.
If an incident happens on the journey, the Drivers job is to be responsible for the train. That would leave no one to assist passengers, and provide information.
The incident maybe a unit issue or the train might have hit a tree and worse a person. The passengers will want assistance, support, information and in any/all of those cases tbe Driver will be be able to provide it
But this strike isn't just Grds.
I've said before but it's what makes it so hard for poeple to understand everything RMT want
Network Rail signallers and perm way staff are striking, over pay/conditions but also over changes they feel will impact on them doing there jobs safely.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the Clapham Rail disaster, the cause of which was poorly installed/maintained signalling which was due to a poor health and safety culture (which workers knew and managers ignored)
Do we really want to risk something like that happening again?
It also shows why decent pay is important for Rail Staff, and Nurses and anyone invoked in safety.
Prior to privatisation rail staff (Inc drivers) were pretty poorly paid and worked every hr they could to take home a decent wage. The signalling tech "responsible" had worked every day for the last seven weeks. Staff that are skint, that will try and cram all the overtime in to pay their way are not going it be as effective as fully rested staff.
Luckily nowdays they are many safety systems in place to prevent errors (and rules around the hours someone can work), but I still worry when poeple work the "legal" 13 out of every 14 - especially when the shifts we work are more knackering in the first palce
