London Underground's destructive urges continue unabated, with their latest effort - getting rid of emergency stop plungers on platforms.
They initially wanted drivers to operate them, so they could get away with having no station staff in the vicinity. Then drivers and union reps pointed out that this would involve drivers leaving the cab and walking along the platform at a time when an incident may well be kicking off (which could very well be the reason the plunger was pressed in the first place). This was obviously unsafe.
Unable to come up with a clever answer to that unanswerable point, management said, in their best yah-boo-sucks voice, that in that case, they would take them away altogether.
So if LUL gets its way, and you are on an ATO line, and station staff or passengers have a good reason to hit the plunger and so stop the train by destroying the track codes ... you won't be able to!
It's another example of how London Underground is prepared to compromise safety in its never-ending search for pretexts to cut staff. And another example of why drivers should oppose threats to station staff jobs.