West Coast weather warning to and from Scotland for Friday 30/12/2022

[Moonshot]

Then you are one of 0.00000001% of passengers.

Bit more than that......both services were reasonably busy but certainly not full.

 

[uww11x]

LNER ARE now accepting Avanti West Coast tickets between Edinburgh and London.

As for why most services are being spun round at Preston, and cannot continue on to Carlisle, it’s because of train crew issues.

I don't think so. Cashing in the TDA from NR

Realtime Trains | 9S53 0816 London Euston to Preston | 31/12/2022

Real-time train running information for 9S53 0816 departure from London Euston to Preston on 31/12/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[thedbdiboy]

Is anyone able to confirm.

Does issuing a “do not travel” notice absolve TOC’s of their responsibility to provide (at their expense) meals, hotel accommodation (where possible) and alternative means of transport under regulation 1371/2007, and as outline in the NRCOT?

Heard mixed views so would be helpful to know the official stance.

Regulation 1371/2007 as transposed from the EU legislation has never applied where external events are the cause - e.g. weather. None of the European railways or their Governments were willing to accept that sort of liability.
The NRCoT is actually more generous in that respect with regards to stranded passengers and delay repay - but realistically there are limits as to how it can be observed during extreme weather. Ministers were quite happy to be seen to be cracking the whip on Evil Private Sector Operators when the political wind suited, but once Government ended up paying the bills themselves it's remarkable how they have started to recognise the - ahem - 'limits' to liability.

 

[Class15]

Bit more than that......both services were reasonably busy but certainly not full.

I meant that most passengers get cancelled

 

[JamieL]

Bit more than that......both services were reasonably busy but certainly not full.

Which services were you on?

 

[RochdalePioneers]

The ongoing utter chaos - and we don't care approaches from various operators - is great news for the government. We know they want to cut services and costs, so what better way to do this than make the railways generally unusable...

 

[Moonshot]

Which services were you on?

Euston/Manchester

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Dec 2022 ==

The ongoing utter chaos - and we don't care approaches from various operators - is great news for the government. We know they want to cut services and costs, so what better way to do this than make the railways generally unusable...

The service is unusable today..... because of a landslip. No train will be getting past that.

 

[JamieL]

Euston/Manchester

...which sort of explains why you didn't see the issues. The flooding was on the WCML in Scotland and the issue was exasperated by the Avanti turnaround at Preston. Both issues north of your location!

 

[Moonshot]

...which sort of explains why you didn't see the issues. The flooding was on the WCML in Scotland and the issue was exasperated by the Avanti turnaround at Preston. Both issues north of your location!

Yes I know......and the advice is ( or was ) do not travel. Simple message as far as I'm concerned. No doubt however that those passengers who had planned to travel into Scotland on WCML will find alternative ways of getting there.

 

[jagardner1984]

Given this thread was started a day before, wouldn't logically some effort have been made to terminate Thursday's services early at Carlisle, and lodge some of the crews there, so allow some level of service on the Friday.

Thinking back to Thunderbird operations and remembering during an ECML blockade (north of Newcastle as I recall) seeing a 91/Mk4 set at Carlisle having been dragged there via some route, it's not particularly that anyone is suggesting the stack of situations weren't horrendous for Avanti yesterday and today .... it just seems so little effort goes into thinking how to then get people from A to B. Like that is no longer the main focus.

It is hard to come to a conclusion other than "managed decline" as to the levels of service, staffing, and most crucially resilience which are now to be found on parts of the network, and the WCML in particular.

 

[exbrel]

The ongoing utter chaos - and we don't care approaches from various operators - is great news for the government. We know they want to cut services and costs, so what better way to do this than make the railways generally unusable...

and now from the outside looking in, with the invaluable help of mr lynch, their fifth column...

 

[Bill57p9]

There certainly appears to be a lack of either creative thinking or motivation to overcome adversity.
Almost certainly a drive from the top to "trim the fat" to minimise cost. The Thunderbird drags are a classic example: it's cheaper in the short term to remove this service resilience but does it make long term business sense? If you're simply being paid a management fee, quite possibly...

 

[Oxfordblues]

Travelling along the WCML, especially in Cumbria and the Southern Uplands, I'm often struck by the lack of trees on the surrounding hills. What were once native oak forests are now bare pastures for sheep-grazing. Heavy rainfall runs immediately into steams which soon become raging torrents. If only these areas could be rewilded with woodland which would absorb rainfall and act as a sponge to hold-back the floodwaters. I can't see it happening in my lifetime, but why I wonder are the livelihoods of a few sheep-farmers deemed to be sacrosanct? After all, when you go in the local supermarket you often find the lamb's from New Zealand!

 

[Hans]

I think the sheep farmers of Cumbria would beg to differ that their employment should be scrapped to plant trees for railways. The rail companies and infrastructure companies have far more financial means than hill farmers so they should maybe think about ensuring better drainage systems are in place? Many trees are removed in order to ensure leaves and branches do not block lines in adverse weather - which is it to be trees or no trees? A rhetorical question of course but nothing is ever black and white. For every flooded line which trees may have stopped, the following week services may be disrupted due to tree branches blocking the lines!

A couple of points picked up from the posts today, my wife was due to travel on the WCML today, it was actually a "give them one last shot at providing the service we paid for" plan obviously the journey hasn't happened. I do however have to give Avanti some credit on previous trips problems have meant an unplanned change at Crewe onto a train which Avanti advised would no longer stop at Penrith, only Oxenholme (only communicated after the train had already left Crewe) and passengers should travel to Carlisle and then travel back south to Penrith. What Avanti failed to initially advise was all southbound trains had also been cancelled. So to give them their credit, the TM did listen to a number of passengers on board who requested a stop at Penrith. Eventually it was realised by Avanti it solved more problems than it caused and most importantly passengers, including myself, were happy and left with a positive opinion (on that day) of Avanti rather than a negative one.

I find it interesting reading on here the views from those of you working for the TOC and/or are very knowledgeable about railway ops in general, the current situation where replacement bus services cannot be provided makes me ask the question, hoping someone can answer, how far would Avanti, in this instance, go to source replacement road transport? I know there are always finite resources available especially on NYE but is it a cost issue, is it availability, is it Avanti make one phone call only to their preferred bus company and if no availability they stop looking? The reason I ask, I work in another transport industry and if looking for a replacement service there would always be a concerted effort to find alternative transport, not at any cost but sometimes at a considerable cost in order to provide the customers with the transport. Good PR would ensue. The company also knows the cost upfront, not providing any alternative would open up claims for other costs from passengers which when paid may be far in excess of the cost of the alternative provided.

 

[janb]

I find it interesting reading on here the views from those of you working for the TOC and/or are very knowledgeable about railway ops in general, the current situation where replacement bus services cannot be provided makes me ask the question, hoping someone can answer, how far would Avanti, in this instance, go to source replacement road transport?

The TOC will have a contract with a company that organises replacement transport. In the case of Avanti with First Travel Solutions (https://www.firsttravelsolutions.com/rail-transport-solutions). Other TOCs use Arriva (https://www.arrivarts.com/pre-planned-emergency-rail-replacement/). So the TOC would contact their supplier, then the latter would do the ringing round in line with a service level agreement that will be in place.

I was once in a situation with a (not Avanti) TOC a few years ago where we had a stranded passenger in the middle of a very bad storm that did a lot of damage, conventional methods had failed to get a taxi so the TOC control asked me to ring round the local taxi firms to see if one would agree to do the job. After a few refusals, thankfully one agreed. Obviously with one single passenger in one location that sort of thing can be done but not at a larger scale.

 

[GordonT]

Apologies if this has already been explained elsewhere. What was the compelling reason for Avanti not adding in additional stops at Penrith and Oxenholme where this would have been manifestly helpful to do so?

 

[Lewisham2221]

I find it interesting reading on here the views from those of you working for the TOC and/or are very knowledgeable about railway ops in general, the current situation where replacement bus services cannot be provided makes me ask the question, hoping someone can answer, how far would Avanti, in this instance, go to source replacement road transport? I know there are always finite resources available especially on NYE but is it a cost issue, is it availability, is it Avanti make one phone call only to their preferred bus company and if no availability they stop looking? The reason I ask, I work in another transport industry and if looking for a replacement service there would always be a concerted effort to find alternative transport, not at any cost but sometimes at a considerable cost in order to provide the customers with the transport. Good PR would ensue. The company also knows the cost upfront, not providing any alternative would open up claims for other costs from passengers which when paid may be far in excess of the cost of the alternative prprovided.

TOC's generally have little direct input on sourcing replacement buses. They usually appoint a third party company, who then take care of all things bus. First, Arriva, Stagecoach and NatEx all have (or had) Rail Replacement coordination arms.

It is these third party firms who do the sourcing, usually inviting bus/coach operators to apply to be a "approved provider" or such. That would include providing details of the number and types of vehicles you may have available, hours that you may or may not be able to provide a service etc etc. There may be certain specifications that have to be met, such as toilet equipped vehicles, maximum vehicle age, nothing to have 3+2 seating, no school bus livery and so on. You would then specify if you wanted to be considered for pre-planned work, emergency work, or both. You would also indicate what your "emergency" rates would be, although I believe with some firms this was more dictated the other way.

For pre-planned work (due to engineering work mainly) you would be sent details of all upcoming jobs and be invited to put in a bid for any which took your fancy.

For emergency work, they would simply call as and when the need arose. Presumably they would call all of the "local" operators on the list until they found someone to take the job. Quite what distance what be deemed appropriate, or not, to bring in an operator from, I'm not sure.

Once they'd exhausted their own list, I wouldn't imagine, in most circumstances, that they would try "looking through the yellow pages" as such. If the operator wasn't already on your books, they probably aren't interested and don't have either the desire or resources to drop everything at short notice. That's not to say that an operator they do contact, who declines, won't point them in the direction of someone else who might help. Despite being competitors, coach/bus companies can quite often be quite helpful and cooperative in such situations.

It might also be worth noting that in the past 10-15 years, there has been a considerable "race to the bottom" with regards pricing for rail replacement (as with school contracts, local authority tenders etc) with much more of an emphasis on price rather than quality. That in itself has made the work rather less lucrative for operators than it used to be, which also no doubt has an impact on sourcing operators.

 

[hexagon789]

Replacement coaches operating Glasgow-Carlisle (I'm on one). G&SW via Dumfries is also closed.

Glasgow Central - Edinburgh trains rammed and turning passengers away.

 

[Hans]

Thankyou @janb and @Lewisham2221 for your info on how replacement services are sourced. Every situation is different and I suppose the area of the country will play its part as to how much alternative transport is available.

 

[DanNCL]

Thinking back to Thunderbird operations and remembering during an ECML blockade (north of Newcastle as I recall) seeing a 91/Mk4 set at Carlisle having been dragged there via some route, it's not particularly that anyone is suggesting the stack of situations weren't horrendous for Avanti yesterday and today .... it just seems so little effort goes into thinking how to then get people from A to B. Like that is no longer the main focus.

It used to happen for four weekends every Autumn, two return trips a day would be 91+Mark 4 sets dragged via the Tyne Valley Line. The 67 would drag a set from Newcastle to Carlisle, wait there for an hour or two then take another 91+Mark 4 set back to Newcastle, and the same would be repeated again later in the day.

Occasionally it happened during disruption too. A 91+Mark 4 set would head from Edinburgh or Glasgow (sometimes direct) to Carlisle, if there wasn't already a 67 waiting to take the set across the Tyne Valley passengers would be transferred to Northern to head across to the ECML, and either the Mark 4 set would return to Scotland, or a 67 would run light from Newcastle to retrieve it. It was avoided where possible though, and that sometimes led to HSTs being sent to Glasgow when they had no booked work there.

Even now occasional last minute diversions via Carlisle happen with 800s, but it doesn't seem to be as often as previously

Of course it's easier to drag a 91+Mark 4 set than it is to drag just about anything else that runs Intercity routes in the UK these days, but not impossible as Virgin demonstrated with the 390s several times.

Many trees are removed in order to ensure leaves and branches do not block lines in adverse weather - which is it to be trees or no trees? A rhetorical question of course but nothing is ever black and white. For every flooded line which trees may have stopped, the following week services may be disrupted due to tree branches blocking the lines!

I do have to wonder if there's been an increase in landslips since the line side tree felling program began. Wouldn't surprise me if they hadn't realised some trees were stabilising embankments until they'd already felled them.

 

[jagardner1984]

It used to happen for four weekends every Autumn, two return trips a day would be 91+Mark 4 sets dragged via the Tyne Valley Line. The 67 would drag a set from Newcastle to Carlisle, wait there for an hour or two then take another 91+Mark 4 set back to Newcastle, and the same would be repeated again later in the day.

Occasionally it happened during disruption too. A 91+Mark 4 set would head from Edinburgh or Glasgow (sometimes direct) to Carlisle, if there wasn't already a 67 waiting to take the set across the Tyne Valley passengers would be transferred to Northern to head across to the ECML, and either the Mark 4 set would return to Scotland, or a 67 would run light from Newcastle to retrieve it. It was avoided where possible though, and that sometimes led to HSTs being sent to Glasgow when they had no booked work there.

Even now occasional last minute diversions via Carlisle happen with 800s, but it doesn't seem to be as often as previously

Precisely, concerted effort going into maintaining a service, where "try the other lot", or "come back tomorrow", or "bus company aren't coming" are all much easier responses.

It would seem to me at the very least, Avanti as a brand are surely mortally wounded by the shambolic last few months. For all we might say about the Government (and I have plenty to say), I'd be astonished if they aren't working up plans to take it off them in some way or other. LNER west anyone ?

 

[TUC]

I am currently on 1E10 https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C11849/2022-12-30/detailed


At Darlington the TM announced that all standing passengers must get off, and also that every seat was reserved and anyone sitting (except in the unreserved coaches) without a seat reservation must get off. At that time 1Z11 was still planned to arrive 10 minutes later. He then repeated this and stated he would not let the train depart with any standing pasengers. A number of people sitting in my coach but not with their own reserved seat (because the reservation holder did not sit there) got off the train. It looks like they may still be waiting for the next southbound service 2.5 hours later.

Did some refuse? There's no reason why anyone with a valid ticket should be required to leave a train. If some passengers had refused as it would be interesting to see what the TM would then do. It's hardly a BTP matter for a passenger with a valid ticket to be standing peacefully on a train on which they were already travelling. I do hope the TM's bluff was called.

 

[zero]

What possible justification could he have for saying he wouldn't allow the train to depart with any standing passengers? Standing on long distance services is common at this time of year and when there is disruption it is inevitable. Unable to move might be considered a safety risk but no standees at all?

Agreed this is unacceptable - @zero did you see if any standing passengers remained at all? Did the TM walk down the train and tell anyone to get off? I hope any passengers left waiting for that amount of time put in a complaint as that's ridiculous.

Did some refuse? There's no reason why anyone with a valid ticket should be required to leave a train. If some passengers had refused as it would be interesting to see what the TM would then do. It's hardly a BTP matter for a passenger with a valid ticket to be standing peacefully on a train on which they were already travelling. I do hope the TM's bluff was called.

The justification was that there was going to be another empty train following 15 minutes later. As I mentioned, it did not run in the end, but he didn't know that it would be cancelled as it had just been inserted into the timetable as I saw on RTT, using the path of the through train from Aberdeen that got delayed 2 hours around Fife.

He specifically said passengers standing in unreserved carriage C should get off, but there were no standees in my carriage either before or after the announcement. However some people in my carriage did get off at Darlington after the announcement, and their seats were quickly taken by people walking through the train looking for seats.

The other justification was that he needed to be able to walk down the train in an emergency, but I've certainly been on many ECML trains (for example after the Fringe) which were so full you couldn't move from where you were standing in the aisles such that people wanting to get off at Peterborough were unable to and had to return from Kings Cross

 

[43096]

I do have to wonder if there's been an increase in landslips since the line side tree felling program began. Wouldn't surprise me if they hadn't realised some trees were stabilising embankments until they'd already felled them.

I thought it was the other way round: that trees destabilise the embankments.

 

[gabrielhj07]

The other justification was that he needed to be able to walk down the train in an emergency, but I've certainly been on many ECML trains (for example after the Fringe) which were so full you couldn't move from where you were standing in the aisles such that people wanting to get off at Peterborough were unable to and had to return from Kings Cross

May be right in theory, has he ever been on the ECML before?

 

[Facing Back]

May be right in theory, has he ever been on the ECML before?

if that was right in theory then surely all trains should not allow standing passengers?

 

[gabrielhj07]

if that was right in theory then surely all trains should not allow standing passengers?

The point being made:

he needed to be able to walk down the train in an emergency

In practice it seems a little over the top.

 

[Facing Back]

The point being made:

In practice it seems a little over the top.

lol I missed your irony in my rush to avoid burning a turkey

 

[uww11x]

Now closed till 7th January

 

[30907]

What does it matter what the loadings were like? People had to wait up to 2 hours for a train on a route that should have 3 trains per hour and was open. Why are you trying to make out it was acceptable?

I wasn't aware when I posted of 2-hour gaps in service between LAN and PRE when Avanti, TPE and Northern were all running.
Having checked, I now see that there were serious issues first thing Friday morning.

And having checked again, it seems to have been dire at CAR today.

Happy to retract in the light of further info.