This....what would be the service increase if drivers suddenly went to 40hrs per week? It would be an extra 1-1 and 1/4 hour per day and would make negligible difference to the actual rostering and would essentially lead to a little bit more ‘padding’ in the diagrams without much more, if any productive driving.
It would result in an equivalent 20hrs pay per driver per month so around an extra £500 a month perhaps.
Seems a big cost for a minimal commercial benefit
Not correct, in reality, in fact the opposite. none productive time remains the same, booking on and off, meal breaks etc. productive time increases by the full amount of the extra shift length, this is why many companies use rostering with banked rest days.
But if you aren't driving until Preston why do you need a reading allowance before getting on a train and sitting on it for 2hr? If there is the regular driver, qualified for Blackpool, driving the train as usual until then, there doesn't seem to be a need for this. I don't doubt that is what the agreement says, it is just another example of how ludicrous and inflexible the whole thing is. As you are only learning the new Preston - Blackpool layout, not back to Leeds a 10hr shift would be worth 3-4 7hr jobs.
Ro move the reading time to be included in journey time you need to
A) have someone in the office to ensure that enough copies of said notices are printed ana available, and
B) give the driver time to check that he/she has all relevant notices with them to read, and I am not sure how you do that unless you provide a list of all included notices to the driver concerned
So you end up paying the driver to collect and check they have the needed bits of paper, and if anything goes wrong they might have a wasted journey, and therefore a wasted day.
I do agree that it should be possible to negotiate something beneficial to company and employees concerning the 7 hour training day.