Great Western Coffee Shop

From ITV News (http://www.itv.com/news/west/update/2012-08-22/cleaners-to-be-balloted-on-train-strike/):

From the RMT.

Surely the action of a responsible employeee representative organisation should in such circumstances be to take the employer to court. It is completely irresponsible to to have a go at the public but Bob Crow's outfit's attitude seems to be to threaten a strike at every incident that it is unhappy with. I would not call the RMT a union as it seems to be very ununited. If the current government is going to reduce the cost of running Britain's railways to nearer that that has been publicised as being costs in Europe, there will have to be a lot of cuts in the use of labour on the railways in future years so I imagine the threats of strike action in the rail industry are likley to increase in the future. I think I may have set the cat amongst the pigeons with a statement like this but government and the rail industry seems to always shy away from dealing with these matters for fear of the unions.

A few thoughts:

1. Rubbish on trains is probably deposited by passengers not cleaners.

2. Strikes aren't popular with workers - they lose pay and are victimised by management on return.

3. Shop stewards/reps are usually elected and do low level conciliation - easing operation when management co-operates.

4. The "Servant Problem" turned out to be largely Madam's fault.

5. Perhaps a passengers' "jury" should decide on the dispute between Mitie (what does the acronymn stand for) and its staff.

OTC

MITIE stands for Management Incentive Through Investment Equity, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MITIE_Group#Operations).  ;)

Btline, in the past I've supported you against others who have criticised your posting style, but for the life of me I can't see why you come out with comments like this.  I worked at 2 London carriage depots (as we called them then), and in my experience carriage cleaners (properly supervised) generally do a difficult job well.  You wouldn't believe what they have to deal with, particulalry in sleeping cars.

In my experience FGW trains start the day clean and rubbish-free.  You can't blame the cleaners for what happens after that.

What?? That sounds like something George Orwell would've dreamed up. Doublethink ^ la 1984.

Fair enough, I withdraw the comment. I posted too quickly without thinking.

The cleaners do a good job during the day too.  I was on the 10:00 London Paddington to Paignton today and a travelling cleaner got on at Taunton.  By the time I got off at Teignmouth he had amassed five large bags of rubbish ready to offload.  I am not sure if that was just from the journey from Paddington or the train's previous journey from Plymouth as well.

I always try to take my rubbish to the bins at the vestibule ends but they are not very big and quickly fill up.

My detritus goes in the bins on board, or failing that I take it with me and dispose at the earliest opportunity.

It's good to see that Network Rail and TOC station managers have woken up to the fact that stations need bins. New clear perspex ones are popping up across the network as well as bin lids that hold clear polythene bags.

Has it really taken the rail industry this long to come up with a solution that satisfies the security issues regarding bins?

Saying that, when was a bomb last planted in a bin anywhere in the UK? And if the issue was so acute why did bins not disappear from our High Streets?

Virgin Trains have good cleaners, who go through the train frequently with a bin liner. It's what's needed on InterCity trains.
Between New Street and Euston, they'll pass through 3 times.
Never had this on FGW.

I don't like it when newspapers are binned - except at the END of the day (pay attention LM); or in the case of the Metro, at noon (as the Standard will be available for evening commuters)

I think it is because going back to the 1970s type of threat,  the danger deemed to be posed by bins at railway stations, where people congregate in numbers while waiting for trains, was always considered higher than random bins on the street.  Maybe statistical records are kept.

I don't think it is just the rail industry that makes the decisions though, otherwise why would Southampton have had clear polythene rubbish sack holders for quite a while, but Winchester never did for a long time?  Same TOC, same line, but perhaps some other organisation thinks the long term threat at Winchester is different to that at Southampton?

But the typical bins on high streets have also been changed in design, so that any blast is directed upwards.

Paul

Travelling cleaners usually board West of England services between Plymouth and Exeter and get rid of all the rubbish. Quite often see them get on between Bristol and Westbury on services down that way.

Never seen any on the Cotswold line. Shocking when you consider that some journeys are 3 hrs on filthy Thames Turbos.

The Plymouth service is cleaned at Paddington... The cleaner getting on at Taunton is doing the cleaning run ready for the return 14:15 Paignton-Paddington.

I've seen situations where the cleaners are on the trains on the extreme ends of the journey. Out of area, but on the Birmingham International to Aberystwyth service, they cover Macynelleth to Aberystwyth.  There's logic in this:
a) The train may be quieter for them to get through near journey's end / start
b) Everyone's going to be changing so they can get rid of the old and freshen for the new customers
c) They can be based at a single station and be back at base for supplies, etc, after each trip
d) On a service with some turn around time, they can clean the train unoccupied some of the time, fill loo tanks, etc

But being on the quieter leg of the journey, they're not seen by as many people, perhaps.  I've done a few calculations for Penzance - just over 17,000 arrivals and departures per year, and around 550,000 station entrances / exits.  So that's about 32 passengers per average train to see the cleaners if they operate west from St Erth.   I believe these trains get a little busier as they get further east  :) .

Cotswold line - where do cleaners operate?   Perhaps Worcester to Great Malvern, where they can clean Brighton and Weymouth trains too.  But then you wouldn't see a cleaner heading out of Worcester on the London express!

no one has mentioned but a proportion of FGW Cleaners are directly employed by FGW and nothing to do with Mitie, theses tend to be the overnight cleaners on depot and some of the turnaround cleaners at Stations

I have.  Quite often these days a travelling cleaner will board at Oxford and clean the train and alight at Hanborough to wait for the next service back.  Prior to the redoubling, they used to get off at Charlbury, but it's usually a bit of a risky dash to get over to the other platform now.

On train cleaning has improved hugely since Thames Trains days.  As well as travelling cleaners between Oxford and Hanborough, many of the LTV stopping services are cleaned by staff boarding at Reading and alighting at Twyford (or sometimes Maidenhead).  There's also a dedicated train cleaning team based at Oxford who cover many of the services that layover in the Down Carriage Sidings before heading back to London.  None of that existed before First took over the franchise.  Cleaning at Paddington has also improved in its consistency.

There are still areas where things could be improved though.  From my observations, late evening and weekend cleaning is far more patchy with Turbos sometimes not getting cleaned at Paddington after arriving on a service from the Cotswold Line, and then going all the way through to Great Malvern without being cleaned, and it then seems to be pure luck as to which Conductor is on board as to whether they will try to give it a bit of a clean before it runs back to London.

Ditto the evening services, which often don't get touched after about 9pm, so a couple of runs to Reading and back and they're filthy.

As 'OTC' mentioned though, rubbish is left by the passengers, and it seems society cares about tidying up after themselves less and less as the years go by.  Be it orange peel left all over the seats, weekend papers with supplements just chucked on the floor, half eaten sandwiches left on tables, or far more disturbing things - passengers really need to help themselves a little!

Lets face it this is a menial job and that is not to decry it as it is an essential job, the staff that go through clearing up behind us go about it quietly and without fuss.

Is a strike the right way to go about resolving the issue possibly not but often the staff are left with little choice

It is not the cleaners we should blame for the low standard of cleanliness but FGW management for not monitoring or paying for a high level service (I suspect paying for is the main reason)

I agree completely with II's comments on Cotswold Line trains cleanliness and would refute BTLine's comments. The standard of FGW trains on the CL is far superior to that of the former Thames Trains. However when we talk about on train cleaners we are referring, in my experience, to on train litter collectors who walk through the train whilst it is in service and on the move and not actually cleaners who would do the actual cleaning overnight at a depot armed with a vacuum cleaner and tools. I think there would be complaints if a cleaner went down the train with a vacuum cleaner operating whilst the train is in service. Travellers want the litter removed and some of our Worcester based conductors also do this at quiet times and are to be commended.  As II says, I frequently see litter collectors working the CL trains between Oxford and Hanborough but just as frequently back to Charlbury and Kingham sometimes. I do sometimes wonder if the Turbos on the CL have in fact had their proper overnight cleaning and that all that has been done has been to remove the litter but this possible lack does not change the fact that CL trains are generally cleaner, both inside and out, than in the Thames Trains days.