YP Letters: Manning stations is costlier than a train guard

HUGH Rogers (The Yorkshire Post, July 24) is completely wrong when he states that trains do not need guards.

Their very name says it all really. However to replace one “expensive” guard by manning the stations would be completely uneconomical.

On the line from Gilberdyke to Selby, there are three unmanned stations.

These would need to be manned during train operating times, say 6am to 11pm, as an example.

That is 17 hours, and the good old EU working time directive would rule out any chance of one man doing 17 hours, even if you could get someone to do 17 hours on a regular basis.

So that is at least two men per station, six men for these three stations so far, then of course there are rest days, so that would mean two more men per station to cover these days. That is 12 men to cover this section of line.

Four per station, multiply that by the number of unmanned stations to be covered, and the number of station staff required would be many times more 
than the guards who you are getting rid of, and very uneconomical.

The guard currently does all the jobs Mr Rogers mentions for every unmanned station that his train passes through, plus selling tickets on the train.