Anyone who has tried to travel through the East Midlands by train will know it is an acutely frustrating experience, characterised by patchy service, sluggish speeds, constant cancellations – and now, it appears, critically faulty trains.
Starting 1 August, the RMT has called for its members working for East Midlands Railway (EMR) to strike on three consecutive Saturdays, with action short of strike until further notice.
Off the rails
The strike is in response to the rollout of a new fleet of unsafe trains, which – after a three-year production delay due to repeated safety concerns – EMR are pushing into use despite knowing they are likely to fail mid service.
These faulty Aurora Class 810 trains regularly require staff to institute an ‘aux off / aux on’ reset in order to restore essential functions after certain system failures.
An RMT statement explained how this process takes approximately 20 minutes and leaves the train with “no active safety systems” – in effect cutting off the driver’s means of communication with signallers, and on-board communication with passengers.
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These constant resets cause widespread delays across the service, leading to an increased risk of dangerous ‘uncontrolled evacuations’: where passengers try to leave the train without the aid of train staff or the tracks being secured.
Of course, EMR insists that all these trains are perfectly safe and being rolled out only when they meet “rigorous safety standards”. Accordingly, they have been dragging their feet engaging with the RMT over these safety concerns since the dispute first started in April.
‘Nothing to see here’?
Such claims that there is ‘nothing to see here’ fall flat in light of last month’s resignation of the company’s now former managing director, Will Rogers. His departure followed a particularly long stretch of services plagued by back-to-back delays, timetable cuts, and general chaos.
These claims are even more dubious given that this strike is in the wake of the deadly EMR train crash near Bedford in June. This involved an Aurora Class 810 train and saw one driver killed and 160 injured.
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Whilst the exact causes of the crash are still unknown, one thing is clear: more unsafe, faulty trains being pushed into service will only lead to a greater frequency of such crashes and near misses.
No doubt those now jumping ship from EMR, like Will Rogers, were reluctant to have another disaster weighing on their conscience – or holding them back from securing future six-figure management roles.
Not a wheel turns
No amount of resignations at the top will change the logic of profit seeking in the railways, however. Unless workers collectively hit them where it hurts and bring the flow of money to bosses’ pockets to a halt, these rail CEOs will continue to prioritise their profits over our lives and our safety.
Even with just a handful of isolated strike days, RMT members already have EMR management wincing. The company has been forced to significantly reduce inter-city services, warn passengers to only make ‘essential journeys’, and open first class to everyone due to a lack of space.
Imagine what would be possible if this struggle was widened out to involve all those staff still operating local services and to the train drivers organised in ASLEF; or if the strike action was extended to hit busy mid-week travel!
Such a development would grind train services in the East Midlands to a halt. It would completely expose the EMR bosses, making clear exactly who runs the railways – and who should therefore get the final say on whether trains are fit for service or not.
