Flash and Dash? No Thanks!

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

There is a very good reason that we check in person that trains are empty before taking them into sidings or depots. It is only through staff physically checking that the train is empty that we can guarantee that it is, and thus prevent overcarries and the accidents and assaults that go with them.

Making an announcement then switching the saloon lights on and off a few times - the notorious 'flash and dash' - is no substitute. And yet LUL management, having been forced by industrial action to withdraw this plan five years ago, are now trying it on again. Perhaps they would like to tell us what will happen to those passengers who do not hear the announcement and either don't notice the lights flashing or don't know what it means: the sleepers, the headphone-wearers, the non-English speakers, the engrossed in somethings, and the others. What has happened to them in the past has included clambering out of the train and getting killed.

So, what are management up to? Saving money by cutting staff, of course!

Five years ago, we stopped a determined management plan to impose the flash and dash on the Bakerloo line. RMT and ASLEF drivers took industrial action together, insisting on physically checking trains when detrainment station staff were withdrawn. The combination of the impact of the action on the service, and the public support that the unions mobilised was enough to force the company to back down. It is exactly that sort of response that will stop them again.

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