Equalities

Battling bigotry and inequality on the railway.

Access Needs Staff

The Disability News Service (a reliably good source of information on all matters concerning disabled people) has revealed a report that Thameslink is inaccessible to many disabled people, and that much of the rail network has the same issue.

Crucially, it points out that improvement to physical...

Network Rail: do black workers matter?

Network Rail has just published its ethnicity pay gap report for 2020. The results are a bit better than Network Rail's first report last year but still show big problems.

The ethnicity pay gap is the difference in the average hourly rate of pay for workers from black and ethnic minorities compared...

Mind the Gap

It is a depressing fact that although women are 51% of the population only 16% of the current rail workforce is female; this figure falls to a shocking 6.5% amongst train drivers.
A recent report into railway recruitment, ‘Back on Track’, noted that 43% of women rated flexible working opportunities...

The Story of Colour Bars on the UK Railway

Speaking at our online meeting in September, Janine Booth tells the story of the period after the end of the Second World War when black people came to Britain but met opposition from some white workers, until the 'colour bar' was defeated in 1966.

Rail workers say: Black Lives Matter!

Off The Rails supports the global protests against police brutality and racism.

The issues raised by the protests are not just problems in the USA. They affect us too. Britain has its own history of police violence against people of colour, with campaigns like the United Families and Friends...

Making equality more than a buzzword

This article, by rail worker Becky Crocker, was first published in the Solidarity newspaper, here.


In recent months I have become increasingly aware of the lack of diversity in my workplace, a Network Rail office in London.

My suspicions about Network Rail were confirmed when I read in its 2019...

Action for Accessibility - not Victimisations!

The railway system is notoriously and shamefully inaccessible to disabled passengers. And while painfully slow progress is made with physical accessibility, the employers' cuts to staffing make it harder for us to help disabled passengers. Moreover, the companies provide precious little training for...

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