Trivia: Most ridiculous job titles used on the railway.

[Horizon22]

Revenue Protection Officer was a BR grade alive and kicking when I joined NSE in 1992

And I don't think the person the user you've quoted met was a "guard/conductor"; they probably were an actual RPO.

 

[2L70]

GNER win this

Guard - Customer Service Leader
Head Steward - Customer Service Manager

 

[class 9]

Gbrf calling their Drivers Train Managers.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Honestly, who cares? It doesn’t make the trains faster or slower either way. I don’t think passengers north of Banbury on Chiltern are spending their days bemoaning the job titles that have been assigned, they just want their trains back.

 

[railfan99]

LNER have both ‘Duty Customer Experience Managers’ and ‘Customer Experience Duty Managers’!
The former are based in Control (sorry, the Service Delivery Team) and the latter outstationed across the route.

As a passenger on a train, I am most definitely not a 'customer' and never, ever a 'guest' as operators such as Journey Beyond in Australia ('The Ghan', 'Indian Pacific', 'The Overland' and seasonal 'Great Southern') try top call me.

'Customer': yes in a supermarket, but not on a train.

 

[LowLevel]

As a passenger on a train, I am most definitely not a 'customer' and never, ever a 'guest' as operators such as Journey Beyond in Australia ('The Ghan', 'Indian Pacific', 'The Overland' and seasonal 'Great Southern') try top call me.

'Customer': yes in a supermarket, but not on a train.

You are both a customer of the company and a passenger on the train. A fare evader is a passenger, but they're not a customer. We are obligated to do our best to keep all of our passengers at the very least safe, whether they're customers or not.

I am a great fan of railway traditions but one thing I don't have a problem with is referring to fare paying passengers as customers. They're our raison d'etre and some railway workers could do with the reminder of that that comes with the use of term "customer".

 

[AlterEgo]

The customer vs passenger stuff is really grumpy and performative. Of course you’re a customer. Complaining that a five star luxury train experience calls you a “guest” misses the point of what those experiences are supposed to provide. You’re not just a passenger on the Indian Pacific.

 

[bramling]

I was just reading this thread and discovered that Lumo (which itself is a ridiculous name for a TOC) use the job title "Customer Driver" for their drivers:

Incident on 20:27 Lumo train 28th December

Tonight the 20:27 Lumo service to Edinburgh made an unscheduled stop at Grantham to eject a rowdy passenger. A young man had to be removed due to trying to wrestle everyone in the carriage. The Customer Hosts told him to stop although he ignored them and said they couldn’t do anything. The...

www.railforums.co.uk

Customer Driver has to be the most ridiculous job title i have ever heard! I thought that C2C was bad using the name "Train Captain" for their Guards but Customer Driver is taking job titles to a new level of stupidity! I have no idea who thought that Customer Driver was a sensible job title! I can guarantee you that no passenger will ever refer to them as that!

What other ridiculous or poorly named job titles exist on our railway?

In my opinion these are the worst four job titles used:

• Customer Driver
• Senior Conductor
• Train Captain
• Train Manager

Train Manager is used by so many TOCs but sounds ridiculous. It sounds like someone who should be sitting in the TOC head office behind a computer running and managing the train company. When you think of a Train Manager it does not sound like someone who works onboard a train.

Senior Conductor is ridiculous because they get called Senior Conductor even when they are brand new to the railway and have just started the job. Senior Conductor sounds like someone who has been a Conductor for many years and then moved up to a higher rank. Just call them a Conductor instead. Or even better just scrap the term Conductor and call them a Guard like in the old days.

I would be interested to hear your opinions and views on other ridiculous job titles used on the railway?

London Underground in their wisdom managed to create a "Train Operations Standards Manager" grade. Whilst to be fair the title in itself was reasonably relevant, when abbreviated to TOSM it sounded rather unfortunate, and it didn't help that there was some serious politics associated with the grade's creation. These two factors combined meant it didn't last long.

They also at the same time created the mouthful of "Duty Train Staff Manager". Why they couldn't just use the old-school "Duty Crew Manager" is beyond me, but I suppose that sounded too old fashioned. Like its TOSM counterpart, DTSM didn't last long either.

The moral of the story seems to be don’t tinker with what’s not broke.

 

[RJ]

My first role on the railways was "Retail Travel Advisor" which I thought was a bit of a mouthful. I prefer my current title of "Sales Assistant" for the same role.

 

[Ashley Hill]

In BR days we had Quality Leaders, both East and West! Basically they filled the role of the old station managers.
As for me I refer to myself as a Guard. As far as I'm concerned Conductors worked on buses and Train Manager sounds naff.

 

[Vespa]

Heard of train Captain.

I'm surprised they haven't gone as far as to use titles like

Train 2nd Lieutenant
Train Lieutenant
Train Major
Train Lieutenant Colonel
Train Colonel

And a Train RSM in charge of discipline of train passengers..... Oh wait ! that's not such a bad idea !!

 

[Solent&Wessex]

TPE has "Customer Delivery Managers" who are provided to stand on platforms and answer questions, assist with buses during engineering works etc. Whilst they mostly are seen on station platforms they don't play any part in station operations / dispatch and are purely provided just to give out information and answer questions.

 

[Ashley Hill]

TPE has "Customer Delivery Managers" who are provided to stand on platforms and answer questions, assist with buses during engineering works etc. Whilst they mostly are seen on station platforms they don't play any part in station operations / dispatch and are purely provided just to give out information and answer questions.

We used to have Welcome Hosts too under Intercity (or Red Coats if you prefer).

 

[CE142]

In BR days we had Quality Leaders, both East and West! Basically they filled the role of the old station managers.
As for me I refer to myself as a Guard. As far as I'm concerned Conductors worked on buses and Train Manager sounds naff.

The Rulebook uses the term 'Guard' so that is what you are.

 

[D6130]

And a Train RSM in charge of discipline of train passengers..... Oh wait ! that's not such a bad idea !!

Get those feet orf that seat you 'orrible little man!

Wait for it! Wait for it! Doooors oh-pen!

 

[GalaxyDog]

We're senior conductors, but we just refer to ourselves as guards. All our passengers call us guards as well.

As for silliest title - Lumo take the biscuit for the current set up (you can tell that they're trying to ape Virgin's "airline on rails" style) but in the future, it will be by far, the "MultiSkill Operative" that they will be sinking all non-drivers with if it all goes down the pan.

 

[RPI]

And I don't think the person the user you've quoted met was a "guard/conductor"; they probably were an actual RPO.

Must have been a while ago, the RPO grade was done away with in around 2013 in the Revenue Protection "Harmonisation", three grades made into the two we have now, Revenue Protection Inspector and Ticket Examiner.

I used to dislike the term "Train Manager" but it has grown on me and seems relatively universal in terms of what the passengers refer to the person on the train as, though I tend to think it suits long distance trains better, at Exeter now Train Managers seem to have more local work than long distance!

 

[TacoTraveller]

As a passenger on a train, I am most definitely not a 'customer' and never, ever a 'guest' as operators such as Journey Beyond in Australia ('The Ghan', 'Indian Pacific', 'The Overland' and seasonal 'Great Southern') try top call me.

'Customer': yes in a supermarket, but not on a train.

If you've bought a ticket you're a customer and the service they are providing for your money is travel, so you're both a customer on the companies train and a passenger.

 

[bramling]

Must have been a while ago, the RPO grade was done away with in around 2013 in the Revenue Protection "Harmonisation", three grades made into the two we have now, Revenue Protection Inspector and Ticket Examiner.

I used to dislike the term "Train Manager" but it has grown on me and seems relatively universal in terms of what the passengers refer to the person on the train as, though I tend to think it suits long distance trains better, at Exeter now Train Managers seem to have more local work than long distance!

I find Train Manager can work both ways. For some people it seems to work well on Intercity services by empowering them to deliver a good experience for the passenger. However for a small minority of individuals it seems to encourage a rather negative “I’m in charge and I’ll do what I want” mentality.

 

[RPM]

If you'll forgive a minor stray off topic, this kind of comes from the same place. I cannot adequately express how much I hate the term "talent pool", which seems to have taken over from the more traditional "waiting list".

 

[Wave01]

For a short while there was reservations ambassadors at tpe. Due to system issues, Tickets were sold for a period of time with reservations for 6/8 coaches but the services were 3/4 coaches. Kids (late teens/early twenties) were given clipboards to figure out how to seat the passengers with reservations for non existent coaches. Most of the time the guard would tell them not to interfere as they had their own long established method of how to sort short form reservation issues. I’m sure there’s been many made up jobs over the years at tpe.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Customer Ambassador

 

[saracen]

Diversity and Inclusion Managers

 

[Falcon1200]

As a passenger on a train, I am most definitely not a 'customer' and never, ever a 'guest'

Caledonian Sleepers also refer to their passengers/customers as 'guests', although, as a colleague once said when their trains were massively delayed, the word that day should have been 'prisoners'.......

I am a great fan of railway traditions but one thing I don't have a problem with is referring to fare paying passengers as customers.

Same here, anyone buying a product or service is a customer.

 

[Turtle]

Caledonian Sleepers also refer to their passengers/customers as 'guests', although, as a colleague once said when their trains were massively delayed, the word that day should have been 'prisoners'.......



Same here, anyone buying a product or service is a customer.

No. I disagree. A customer is someone who chooses to give his/her custom to a provider, for example to say Waitrose or Sainsbury. This does not usually apply on the railway where a single TOC is a monopoly e.g. GTR on the Brighton main line where passenger has no choice of service provider.

 

[43066]

You are both a customer of the company and a passenger on the train. A fare evader is a passenger, but they're not a customer. We are obligated to do our best to keep all of our passengers at the very least safe, whether they're customers or not.

I am a great fan of railway traditions but one thing I don't have a problem with is referring to fare paying passengers as customers. They're our raison d'etre and some railway workers could do with the reminder of that that comes with the use of term "customer".

As you say passenger has a meaning which is distinct from and more accurate than customer in this context.

The whole “passengers are customers” thing is itself a fairly long-standing railway tradition that started under BR (IIRC it’s specifically mentioned in Old, Dirty and Late). I’m honestly not sure it makes the slightest bit of difference - it’s more like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic at the moment.

Same here, anyone buying a product or service is a customer.

Yes and, crucially, not every passenger has necessarily bought a product or service.

 

[D6130]

Rodent Control Operatives (Leading Railcats Felix/Felicia and Bolt....employed by TPE at Huddersfield station).

 

[TheVicLine]

Many years ago I managed cleaning contracts on LU and was called an "Ambience Manager", the title still exists I believe.

 

[Falcon1200]

This does not usually apply on the railway where a single TOC is a monopoly e.g. GTR on the Brighton main line where passenger has no choice of service provider.

The passenger has a choice of whether they make their journey by alternative means.

 

[BrummieBobby]

The passenger has a choice of whether they make their journey by alternative means.

Before I joined the railway, I worked for HMRC; in recent years they have taken to calling tax payers "customers" (As if they have any choice where to send their tax dollars to)

In answer to the question, I go by the Rule Book definitions; "Train Operatives" are drivers, "Conductors, Managers" etc. are guards.