DB Schenker restructuring
 

I've just heard there are going to be some changes at DB Schenker. Industrial and Energy are going to be merged and become Industrial, and Network and Construction will be merged to become possibly Network, though I'm not actually 100% positive about the latters name. I've also heard there will be another sector set up called Logistics, but where that fits into the scheme of things, I don't know yet.

I'm guessing logistics will be the NR Test Trains which DBS have got the contract for

Not exactly. I've been told that its going to be the road transport arm, so trains running to container depots will still be part of Network, but the containers on lorries to and from the container ports to the various destinations will be under Logistics.

Running boxes from a railhead into a port is sometimes seen as the cheaper option. GBRf had made plans to run boxes into Felixstowe from the Stowmarket Area due to the scale of charges for Rail Handling. Their proposals hit problems due to planning objections several years ago. Whether the Port addressed this situation or if the plan is still being worked on, I don't know.

Now is that not an absurdly stupid way for things to be ?

I was wrong about one of the sectors. Its not going to be called Network. Its going to be Construction. Maybe Network will now be Logistics. It hasn't been made very clear just yet. It will all come out in the wash though no doubt. :)

EWS/DB spent ages ages making up sectors for the company, and above all getting rid of staff.
Now they are at it again and all that will follow will be job losses all over again.
I was with EWS from day one, and they must rank as one of the worst companies to work for in this Country.
No talking, just imposing rosters and terms and conditions on the work force.
Most of the managers did not have a clue what they were doing, I even saw one person pick up a shunting pole, with the curly bit under his arm and ask what this was used for.
The selling off of the railways has been the worst thing for the rail industry since the
Tay Bridge dropped into the water.

I don't know what depot you are or were at, but its obviously a lot worse than at Thornaby. The lads there are all pretty happy with the job and have very few gripes with their current management.

I speak to people from all walks of life in lots of different industries, and I find that on the whole, the staff where I work are treated a heck of a sight better than a lot of my friends who work for different companies. I'm not saying its all a bed of roses, but to say DBS/EWS is one of the worst is a gross distortion IMHO.

Another thing to remember is that it was EWS who did the initial restructuring, not DBS. Rumours were abound when DBS took over that the sectors would be for the chop straight away, but instead they let them go for a while, probably to see how the land layed for a while. Fair play to them that they didn't go about things like a bull in a china shop and are doing restructuring in a more subtle way.

I can certainly agree with HM181 in his assessment of the situation that arose after "privatisation",I was a Driver at Saltley which was an RfD depot,and to be honest it was a pleasure to come to work(RfD was the last BR TOC)however when EWS took us over in 1998 it all changed for the worst !
It all however revolved around the management, if you can call them that !,the main problem being that nearly all the ex BR/RfD managers either retired or left the company,so did a lot of drivers !Which meant that we were in the clutches of "amateurs"who were only interested in "clawing" their way up the ladder,and personal gain.To call them "managers" is a travesty,so the rot set in,it was no longer a pleasure to come to work and I for one couldn't wait to get out,which I did thankfully by taking early retirement in 2006.
At that time I felt really sorry for the poor lads with a few years to do,and I still do,but possibly now that DBS have taken over things may hopefully improve,they can't get any worse !

My Deopt is by the by, but I worked with mainly Thornaby drivers on a daily basis.
Knowing the EWS managment at Thornaby its not suprising that many people take this view of the type of management that was in play in EWS.
Two of those people did not get jobs in the reformed mess that was EWS when sectorisation came in.
Look as the way the RMT as a whole were treated by this wonderful Comapany.
total derecognition by with the Partnership Agreement torn up for the groundstaff, with ASLEF making cosy deals with management, and RMT members paying for it with thier jobs.
In all my time on the railway, I have had to put up with DOO, Trainmans Concept, last but not least EWS.
Most of the RMT people had 30 plus years service on the railways and were treated with contempt by this company.
We are all entitled to our opinion, you have your and mine is formed by bitter front line experience of the antics of EWS and what eminated from the Doom Dome.

I find it rather ironic that you often tell us you are against privatisation and would prefer for the railways to be re-nationalised, yet two of your biggest gripes, namely Driver Only Operation and The Trainmans Concept, were both introduced by the British Railways Board in the 1980's.

Last week, 22/06/10, I was in London at RMT HQ, for a personal meeting with Bob Crow.
In the conversation Mr Crow said that of all the Railway companies he has to deal with, EWS/ DB are the worst company he has to deal with.
EWS/DB only want to deal with ASLEF, and ASLEF do not care who gets unemployed so long as they massive pay rises.
That has been a true all my railway service.

The RMT are not great too....a lot of local level representation is curroupt and out for their own gain. During my disciplinary I got represented by an ATCU rep (i'm a card carrying member of the RMT)....I respect Bob Crow but the RMT has some serious problems at local level..........

I have represented and advised EWS/DB/ RMT members on many occasions.
With EWS diciplinary hearing were an everyday happening.
I also attended Railtrack investigations on such things as derailments SPADS and other happenings.
I once had to travel down to London Victoria Station for an enquiry into run away train, which smashed into the back end of a Class 66.
This was done in my time at my expense, To me this did not matter as my attendance saved a young shunters job, who is still working on the railway.
That is thanks enough.

I did not mean any disrespect to you, I am a Trade Unionist to the core and will always stick with my Union, The RMT. They may not be perfect, but I'ld much rather be with them than the ATCU!

First off, I don't always have a lot of time for Bob Crow. He may be a personal friend of yours but I've often been unhappy at the stances he's put up, and his latest idea that we should all go on a general strike because of government cuts has really turned me against him. If the government wants to bring in the cuts, then let them do it. The people who voted Tory and Lib Dem obviously wanted them to do it so let them go ahead. If it all goes belly up because of the cuts then fine, but don't give the Torys the chance to turn round and say it only went belly up because the unions were playing up. He isn't the only union leader I haven't had a lot of time for though, including our own beloved Ray Buckton who led us into the stupid Flexibable Rostering dispute in the early 80's. A dispute that did nothing to avert the policy and did nothing more than take two weeks wages out of my pay packet.

Having said all that, I agree that a few staff have been treated shabbily by EWS, but from what I can see, it hasn't been the norm. I'm not involved with union work though so I don't see the other side of negotiations. However, I also believe that EWS were stuck between a rock and a hard place. I used to read Ed Burkhardts interviews and his main philosphy behind creating the company was to have trainload freight in much the same way as Speedlink were doing. That was scuppered initially by Ian Brown poisoning the well when he spat his dummy out at not being able to lead RFD. If he'd left things alone, then maybe yards like Healey Mills and Tees and Tyne and Tinsley might have been able to have a bright future with lots of wagon marshalling to do with lots of staff in employment to do it, but instead, those yards are shadows of their former selves. Almost ghost towns.

Another blow for wagonload at EWS was when the numpties at Wisconsin sacked Burkhardt when his back was turned. That to me was probably the blackest day in EWS history.

Getting back to the issue of how general staff are treated by EWS, it was pretty clear early doors that very few staff other than drivers were going to be required by the company. Ever since the diesels were introduced in the late 50's it was pretty obvious that job numbers were going to be cut in the following years, starting off with the Single Manning Agreement which said goodbye to a heck of a lot of footplate staff, for the simple reason that they weren't required to shovel a few tons of coal every shift anymore. I started as a Drivers Assistant in 1978 and it was clear from day one that I didn't really have a job to do. I'd climb on the loco at the beginning of the shift, and climb off it at the end, and do bugger all inbetween, apart from watch the world go by, crack a few jokes with the driver, and sleep. Sometimes I'd do a bit of driving so the driver could sleep, but that was it. It wasn't until I became a passed man in 1981 that I could say that I had a proper job, and that was only on the occasional day when I was promoted temporally.

The only reason I was employed was so that when the time came, I could step into the driving seat. In those days, it was quite a long apprenticeship requiring 6 weeks in the classroom at the start, and then at least two years riding about on trains to get the full measure of the job before going on a six month MP12 course to get the driving ticket. These days, thanks initially to the Drivers Restructuring Initiative, which you have already said you disliked, but as I pointed out, was actually introduced by nationalised British Rail, the training period to become a driver has been drastically reduced, and rightly so.

So these days, we don't have guards on the trains thanks mainly to the wonders of modern communication systems, and improved vehicle designs. We have little use for yards because there isn't the individual wagonload traffic that there used to be, and on top of all this, EWS has to compete with companies like GBRf and Freightliner and the still nationalised DBS for traffic. The first of those two companies mainly only employ drivers because they are companies who started off from scratch and didn't need to make massive cuts. EWS has had to compete with them and their cherry picking, AND get staffing levels down at the same time. I imagine that Bob Crowe has very little to do with the new companies because very few people who work for them will be in his union in the first place.

It looks to me like its easy to criticise the company who had all the extra baggage on board at the beginning rather than the companies who didn't want to have the extra baggage. Has Bob Crowe been on at Freightliner Heavy Haul and GBRf demanding they should employ people who aren't really needed, or does he only have a go at EWS because they want to get rid of employees that aren't needed? It looks very much like the latter to me. If EWS bowed to his wishes then they'd need to pay out a load more for their staff, which would mean they'd need to increase prices (the companies coffers aren't a bottomless pit you know), so in no time at all they'd end up having no traffic at all and we'd all be out of a job. What would be the point in that? Bob Crowe still wouldn't be any happier because he'd have even less members, unless he feels that demise of EWS/DBS would be a price worth paying.

Mr Crow is not a pal of mine,he is the General Secretary of the RMT Trade Union.
Any comments you wish to put to Mr Crow send them to him not me.
I went down to Unity House to have my long service badge awarded to me. This should have taken place in 2006, but on the day of bob Crows visit to my Branch, I was flying over the Atlantic to Florida, so I got my badge in the Post.
I will repeat my assertion yet again that EWS/DB et al are one of the worst employers on the railway, and that is an assessment reached by myself from bitter experience with the management of this company.
One good thing has happened that the person in charge has gone back to the land of maple leaves and Eskimos. For me that is one of the best moves EWS/DB have taken in the whole history of this nasty led company.
If you have no knowledge of such things, open you eyes and ears you may learn some thing.
You will understand what is going on when they come for you, and like the rest you will become a statistic with good memories shattered by the inept management of this company.
If you want Bob Crows Email just ask me, then you can talk to the horses mouth about level playing field PLC, and how it effects people.

I think its time this thread was locked by the mods,

It started off as a EWS/DBS restructuring and appears to have turned into a slagging match about Bob Crow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:

Les.

p.s As a DBS Driver I have deliberatley stayed out of this,.

Mr Crow handed me my long service badge personally.
If the OP has a problem with Mr Crow, he should take that up with him.
The bait was set and grabbed with both hands.
Why should this thread be closed, as it should represent the full spectrum of peoples views or are we about to burn the books?

The end.

I didn't intend for it to become a slagging match about Bob Crowe. I only mentioned him and stated my point of view because it seemed like because Bob Crowe had said something then it must be right, but I don't see things that way. Now I'm told I don't open my eyes and ears. The point is, I see and hear things and form my own opinions, just like everyone else has a right to do. I was mainly trying to put some meat on the bones of what I believe, but most of the points I've made have been ignored. I don't need to be told what to think or say though.