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Hi all...
My first post on here and I'm heading straight into this firefight, in at the deep end I feel! I don't work for Northern, but I am a guard for a TOC a fair but further south. As far as the overcrowding issue goes, there was a study some time ago which concluded (conveniently) that a train which is packed solid is, in fact, the safest environment to be in, as there is less chance of being thrown around inside the train in an accident due to the cushioning effect of the other people packed in around you. Yep, really! We can all make our own assesments of that, but it effectively means that there is no recourse from a H&S point of view when it comes to a packed train. As has been mentioned already, if you venture down onto the Tube during a busy peak period it gives a whole new meaning to 'busy'!
As for the Guard's responsibilities, TOC's will all say that it is the Guard's decision as to when the train becomes unsafe, but the reality is that it's extremely difficult to police how many people board a train in the middle of rush hour, and cancelling a service or attempting to forcibly offload people is not something that would go down well. Indeed, simply trying to prevent excess loading of pushbikes is often akin to climbing a very steep mountain (more experience in that department only yesterday!). People will pack themselves into a train to a ridiculous degree out of sheer desperation not to have to wait for another service. It isn't ideal to have that situation, but it is, for the time being at least, just the way of things. On the issues of rolling stock, TOC's have no incentive to purchase their own due to the nonsensical system of such short franchises; they simply can't guaruntee a return on their investment. I play with 'Pacers' most days and, whilst I have no working knowledge of Northern's fleet, they are pretty effective at crowd shifting on busy, short routes, and with a bit of money spent they can be fairly passable as a modern(ish) train - though not on jointed track or sharp curves! The 158s are generally pleasant to travel on, but slow to load large crowds due to the door/vestibule/luggage rack arrangements. The 150s are possibly about the best of the old BR era stock for a busy rush hour, though they suffer from slow and sometimes unreliable doors. With the general shortage of stock, some of the problems are caused simply by the 'wrong' trains being put on the 'wrong' routes, but then again anything is usually better than nothing!
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