Lack of station staff

oldrailfan · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:09 pm

How often is the local station say from Belmont to Cronulla and Katoomba areas lacking staff or totally?

Can staff really be reduced when some stations have none anyway it seems?

jmw2508 · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:22 pm

Thats a VERY big area.

oldrailfan · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:26 pm

Well i have been to many stations at various times in my 50years of using the railways and find many of those times (and a lot more recently) either total lack of staff or minmial staffing levels.

Go back to when me was a young lad and you would see many more station staff in jobs..

It seems the culture of today is none or bugger few if any...

It is a shame as staff are needed to help us passengers when we are lost or unsure etc.

Somebody in the WWW · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:28 pm

I see the issue as more being that CityRail is overstaffed.

Typical example - Cringila has a CSA there in the morning who does nothing more than flag off trains.

"The trains at Pennant Hills run roughly every half hour. Nobody in their right mind uses a service that shoddy. That so many do just proves how many dumb and/or desperate people there are in Sydney." - MrPC

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jmw2508 · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:30 pm

These days, most of the work involved in running a station is done by one person, with the exception of larger stations of course. And you can't escape the fact that computers are becoming more and more dominant in our everyday lives, even the railways.

jmw2508 · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:45 pm

We have the same situation at Stanwell Park, All he does is flag the trains off in the morning, stumble back down to his office and answers the occasional question from the odd tourist.

Blackadder · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:32 pm

JatzCrackers · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:37 pm

I'd like to see a computer that can help an old bloke with luggage up the stairs, clean up vomit and broken bottles from the night before, help a wheelchair-bound passenger onto a train, track down lost property by calling the next station along the line or answer those really curly questions.

That's part of what your common-or-garden-variety Customer Service Attendant is supposed to do. Any difference between your local CSA and the picture on the box he came in is the responsibility of his supervisor to tweak with an appropriate screwdriver.

Personally, I'd like to see more of them, not just in the morning, but all day round.

Sir JatzCrackers, Lord High Chancellor of the Evil Empire of Lithgovia Drunk

Last edited by JatzCrackers on the nones of sextember Anno Domini LXIX prima luce; edited iii times in toto.

Inspector · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:41 pm

One of the problems, of course, is that a lot of CSA's don't have that long a "shelf life". Every so often, we grizzled veterans in the trenches (i.e: stations) are assured by the High Command (AKA management), that reinforcements are on the way (i.e: another batch of CSA's is being trained up). In due course, the newcomers arrive, we show them the ropes, they serve their probationary periods to everybody's satisfaction, and THEN - they vanish without trace!! Shocked

. After a while, some reappear, but we find most of them have fled - to become guards, drivers, transits, etc.......and we that are left have to battle on as best we can (12-hour shifts, anyone?)........... Mad

Special delivery - a berm........a BERM??!!!?

OLE (Order of Lithgovian Empire), Lithgovian New Years' Honours, 2008.

FieldShunt74 · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:05 pm

CSA is pretty much an entry level position for most people, and they move on when they can. Sure, some are happy at this level, stay on long term, and do a great job. I believe the process for advertising, interviewing, appealing, and maybe eventually appointing into any of the station staff grades is the most drawn out and dysfunctional process for filling vacancies I've ever seen. Between that and the management meddling in the form of job redesigns and failure to fill all positions, it's a wonder there are any station staff at all.

Speed · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:38 am

Two comparisons of interest are:

In this thread, a poster complains about station staff cleaning instead of selling tickets. In this Melbourne thread, a poster calls for more cleaning staff and fewer staff in station offices.
In this thread, it's suggested that some station staff have a job that consists solely of flagging trains. At the same time, we a thread about removing guards.

It's quite possible that the two cities' rail systems have different standards of cleanliness. I expect that the cleaning of railway stations could be done by regular cleaners as a regular job.

TE2815 · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:16 pm

Blackadder · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:49 pm

JatzCrackers · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:55 pm

Yet public demand for jobs on the stations from the public is quite high. Hmmm.

Sir JatzCrackers, Lord High Chancellor of the Evil Empire of Lithgovia Drunk

Last edited by JatzCrackers on the nones of sextember Anno Domini LXIX prima luce; edited iii times in toto.

Blackadder · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 4:37 pm

Indeed if the jobs were advertised Cityrail would have no problem filling the positions.

Here or there