As the article explains, the train managers will strike just the same as drivers do, leaving us in exactly the same situation as before.

Not exactly the same situation. Less wages to pay, less pension debts to fund.

If there are still strikes then it is the same situation. Your plan solves nothing, for reasons both the article and I have outlined already. If we put you in charge tomorrow to execute your plan of moving from £70k drivers to £30k hi-vis vest-wearers, you would cause weeks of strikes, massive disruption and solve nothing.

One of cost of a few weeks of strikes to reduce cost of drivers by over half? Sign me up. Also the unions strikes are selfish in nature, they all team up to support one another to keep remuneration artificially high by holding the transport system to ransom anytime sometime tries correct it. The Tube Mafia would be a more apt name.

How badly paid do you want the people responsible for your safety to be?

A 30K train manager is still more than a 25K bus driver.

And there are a lot more road accidents than train accidents.