MORE rail strikes were announced yesterday with a 48-hour walkout now scheduled for a fortnight’s time.

Conductors on Southern lines will refuse to work from 00.01am on Wednesday, September 7, until 11.59pm on Thursday, September 8, in response to what the RMT union called the “bulldozing through” of new operational arrangements.

Meanwhile a group of protesters from Seaford delivered a petition to Whitehall calling for the reinstatement of a full timetable, reduced because of ongoing disputes, serving their community.

Beginning on Sunday, franchise owner Govia Thameslink started a phased introduction of the new “on-board supervisor” role which will allow drivers to take responsibility for closing train doors.

Some ticket inspectors have had their responsibilities changed but conductors’ jobs have not yet been affected – and the company has assured them job numbers will not change.

After a meeting of the national executive committee, the RMT union announced the new strikes, blamed Govia’s moves to introduce the changes and cited safety concerns.

Southern passenger service director Alex Foulds responded by calling the action “unnecessary, unjustified and futile” and stressing that safety concerns were unfounded.

She said: “The independent rail safety body has said so and nearly half our trains run without conductors already.”

Earlier in the day his department had received a petition hand-delivered by Seaford protesters calling on Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to step into the dispute for the sake of Seaford and Newhaven residents.

The two seaside towns have had the number of trains stopping on their branch line reduced by over 80 per cent following Southern imposing a reduced timetable and almost 2,000 people have registered their concerns.

The “temporary” timetable was originally intended to run for four weeks but more than six weeks after the July 11 start date there is still no word from Southern on when it might end.

Protester Fiona Lewis, 37, said: “We wanted to send a clear message that Chris Grayling and the Department for Transport can’t keep passing the buck to Southern Rail or blaming the RMT.

“This situation is affecting the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people and suffocating our local economies.”

The group of eight protesters also handed letters to the Department for Education, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to make the point that the poor transport links are threatening the economy of the community.

With autumn term approaching, students’ learning opportunities could also be affected.

BOSSES SAY CHANGES WILL BE PHASED IN

RMT members will still have the power to affect commuters’ journeys despite the introduction of driver-only operation (DOO) trains.

The migration of staff on board trains to their new roles of on-board supervisor to allow for the introduction of DOO started to be phased in on Sunday.

However no conductors have yet switched roles, meaning their presence on board is still necessary for the safe operation of the service.

A spokesman for Govia Thameslink, which owns the Southern franchise, said it would be possible to switch all services over to DOO but the company was carrying out a phased implementation in an attempt to bring staff with them as much as possible.

“We want staff to be on board with us – literally,” he said.

Although the rolling stock is physically prepared for the switchover, in some places station lighting still needs to be improved in order to make sure that the driver’s CCTV feeds can accurately capture images allowing them safely to close all the train doors.

Meanwhile company bosses may be warily anticipating the results of a ballot of Aslef train drivers.

Although secondary strike action has been illegal for 30 years, there are concerns drivers would cite safety concerns and refuse to man trains without a second member of staff on board.

Further strikes were announced yesterday.

WHEN WILL MADNESS END AND LIFE GET BACK ON TRACK?

By Fiona Lewis, Seaford commuter

09.45 We gathered at Seaford Station, cheered on by town councillor Philip Boorman and members of the public, while drivers showed their support by honking their horns. We made conversation with one of the replacement bus drivers who told us we should just “put up with the buses”. We were even more surprised when the driver refused to answer a question from a lady with two suitcases and abruptly shut his doors and drove off with no passengers.

10.15 Fortunately another bus arrives fairly quickly and the driver seems more cheery. But we worried when he asked if all passengers were going to Lewes – they weren’t – and we had to remind him that passengers might want to get on at stops along the way – they did.

The bus was like a sauna and I felt sick by the time we reached Lewes. On the journey we met a nursing student who told us tales of nurses’ nightmare journeys to work placements. We also met a woman who had started a new job the day the emergency timetable came in and found she had to leave her house 20 minutes earlier than she expected every morning.

10.45 Our bus actually arrived bang on schedule, though it took 15 minutes longer than the train would have. We were “lucky” that the London train was delayed by eight minutes so all of our group made it to the platform in time. The train was deliciously cool despite being packed as a cancellation of a preceding train had resulted in only four carriages so we had to stand for half an hour.

Fellow passengers clamoured to sign our printed-out www.change.org petition which whiled away the time as we faced more than 20 minutes’ delay due to signalling problems.

12.30 We finally arrived at the Department for Transport. We were told only four of our party could come in to the reception and we couldn’t bring in any protest banners.

A member of staff from Chris Grayling MP’s office agreed to speak to us as Grayling and Maynard were apparently not in.

He seemed genuinely surprised at the extent of the cuts on our line. We handed over our nearly 2,000-strong petition and requested a formal written response from the minister’s office as well as a public apology and announcement of a timeline for reinstating our services.

He was very non-committal but it felt good to make him aware of our plight.

13.00 We went on to the Department for Education, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Communities and Local Government and handed in letters about how the situation is affecting these aspects of our lives.

14.00 Our journey home continued to be beset with difficulties with another 20-minute delay to our train. At Lewes some people were turned away from the rail replacement bus and those standing had a rough time when we did 60mph on the country lanes. We were pleased the driver was putting his foot down but things slowed at Newhaven. It took 15 minutes to get through town.

16.30 As we neared home our moods darkened hearing of further RMT strikes are planned. When will this madness end? We can only hope that the Department for Transport will see sense and start intervening in this dispute so we can get our trains and our lives back on track.