Michael, haven't you got some property speculation to do before denouncing similar profiteering as 'immoral' on here?

Or perhaps you could once again spell out the evils of the Tories but follow them verbatim on Europe?

Or perhaps you could just be the typical general, sniping virtue signaller who knows everything but understands little?

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

It's not strange. Your posts are laden with passive aggressive subtext.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

I think that is down to the the terms of the franchise.
Ticket sales go to DFT in some franchises in others ticket sales go to the TOC.
Guards more than pay for themselves... the average money a guard would take through ticket sales is 3-4k per month on commuter routes (correct 2ys ago) although this may have dropped slightly in the past 2yrs as more people buy online, but this could also be offset with the closure of ticket offices, so people buy/renew tickets when on the train.

ToC's will always want a skeleton staff, when I was working there we relied on overtime heavily.
Top management put pressure on middle management to get as much as possible out of traincrew, personally I thought the amount of hours the company let some traindrivers do was dangerous.
The Hidden report was the limits of what a traindriver can work, TOC's took this as a target.

Minimum staff = maximum profit... Shareholders loved this.

If the railway unions had their way there would still be wheeltappers and shunters on the payrolls.

There are still shunters .....

No I'm not agreeing with you.

The TOC's want to cut the amount of safety critical trained staff on trains by 50%, both unions (RMT and ASLEF) have opposed this, the reason they want to do this is so guards can sell tickets (a specific kind of ticket as well) if this goes thru and a guard leaves, they will replace them. It's not a numbers game it's a safety game.

I can not change your view, no matter how many people who have worked in the industry tell you this is bad for passengers, you won't accept this... as it means you are wrong in your view that this is a selfish action by guards to protect jobs and money.