Arriva Rail North DOO

Bletchleyite · 28 Oct 2018

To be fair, the SWR contingency guards indeed aren't getting everything right. The one I had on Saturday scribbled biro all over my Travelcard, though did apologise when I pointed out he had no business to be doing that as I was only using its zone 1-6 validity on his train (together with a BZ ticket which he did correctly scribble on). Fortunately the LNR guards and Euston barrier staff were, as usual, conspicuous by their complete absence later on, so this didn't cause any actual issue.

When apologising he made a comment about being "tired" which would suggest he wasn't well adjusted to shift working and there was a greater than usual risk of him making a safety critical error rather than just a minor revenue protection one.

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yorksrob · 29 Oct 2018

XDM said:
Do you really want to freeze industry to the productivity levels of 180 years ago?

Where would the increase in living standards that we have enjoyed since 1838 come from if people worked as they did 180 years ago!

Live in the real world.
Modern technology has allowed railways all over the world to say goodbye to the guard operated train.
All the countries around us, including The Irish republic which is 100 % DOO, have had extensive DOO for years. There is no problem.

Irish railways are in fact safer than they were with conventional guards.

The specific & immediate benefit on Northern is that trains can run if a guard takes ill. That means the vulnerable, the hard working & tired do not have to wait on a freezing rain swept platform for the next train, which may be an hour away.

Trains not turning up because of a guard being absent, must be a comparatively small proportion of cancellations and a tiny proportion of scheduled services overall. It is simply not worth having a long and damaging industrial dispute about.

Changing door opening practices so that the second member of staff on board has more time to collect revenue and assist passengers may well be.

Have you never heard of "keeping your powder dry" or "choosing your battles".

At the end of the day isn't this supposed to be about us passengers being able to go about our business, something which we are being prevented from doing at the moment.

CN75 · 29 Oct 2018

yorksrob said:
Trains not turning up because of a guard being absent, must be a comparatively small proportion of cancellations and a tiny proportion of scheduled services overall. It is simply not worth having a long and damaging industrial dispute about.

Changing door opening practices so that the second member of staff on board has more time to collect revenue and assist passengers may well be.

Have you never heard of "keeping your powder dry" or "choosing your battles".

At the end of the day isn't this supposed to be about us passengers being able to go about our business, something which we are being prevented from doing at the moment.

The delays cost far more than the cancellations. Put together, it will be in the millions of pounds for performance payments Northern have to pay for late running or unreliability caused by guards, perhaps even up to 25% of the entire cost of the guards workforce cost. Some of it can be mitigated by spare resources, but only up to a point. If a train can run without a guard but pick one up again later, the effect on reliability is significant, which is the priority for passengers and the government.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2018

CN75 said:
The delays cost far more than the cancellations. Put together, it will be in the millions of pounds for performance payments Northern have to pay for late running or unreliability caused by guards, perhaps even up to 25% of the entire cost of the guards workforce cost. Some of it can be mitigated by spare resources, but only up to a point. If a train can run without a guard but pick one up again later, the effect on reliability is significant, which is the priority for passengers and the government.

Reliability is important, however I would still suggest that delays caused by guards turning up late must be a small proportion of delays overall and a miniscule proportion of scheduled services overall, therefore not worth bothering with. These "millions of pounds" are clearly not substantial enough to warrant Greater Anglia having this requirement, so they shouldn't be for Northern.

CN75 · 29 Oct 2018

Twinpipe said:
I find it very amusing that you think that the company can just "implement" DOO across the company.

You seem to be of the opinion that ASLEF will just allow this to happen?

ASLEF have not said or done anything in this dispute yet because they have not been formally approached about DOO by Northern.

ASLEF have not approached Northern and asked them to confirm they will not introduce DOO either - that refusal from Northern was all that was required for the RMT to start a legitimate dispute.

CN75 · 29 Oct 2018

yorksrob said:
Reliability is important, however I would still suggest that delays caused by guards turning up late must be a small proportion of delays overall and a miniscule proportion of scheduled services overall, therefore not worth bothering with. These "millions of pounds" are clearly not substantial enough to warrant Greater Anglia having this requirement, so they shouldn't be for Northern.

The number of guard services on Greater Anglia is proportionately low, mostly on branch lines where any delay has a much less significant effect. Northern has a guard on every train. The millions of pounds partly justified the changes at GTR, which on Southern is now providing the best performance in years, and performance and customer service is the key driver for the SWR changes. In neither case did any guard lose their job or money despite the saved costs by changing their job role.

Why should the North lose out to the South for the amount of effort the government will go to in resolving the TU dispute, and getting a more reliable railway to go with it’s brand new trains?

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2018

CN75 said:
The number of guard services on Greater Anglia is proportionately low, mostly on branch lines where any delay has a much less significant effect. Northern has a guard on every train. The millions of pounds partly justified the changes at GTR, which on Southern is now providing the best performance in years, and performance and customer service is the key driver for the SWR changes. In neither case did any guard lose their job or money despite the saved costs by changing their job role.

Why should the North lose out to the South for the amount of effort the government will go to in resolving the TU dispute, and getting a more reliable railway to go with it’s brand new trains?

Yes, but as I understand it, Anglia have guaranteed a second person on every train which wasn't already DOO, so they're effectively in the same boat as us in that they can't suddenly run a load more trains without another person.

I'm all for changing the job role, however it is not worth the inconvenience to me of having industrial action purely for the few occasions when a second person might not turn up or be late.

B&I · 29 Oct 2018

If Northern were so concerned about making sure trains run, perhaps they could eliminate the bizarre practice of continually shifting crew around between trains.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people on this thread sewm to have Northern mixed up with a company which actually cares about providing a proper service.

pemma · 29 Oct 2018

yorksrob said:
Trains not turning up because of a guard being absent, must be a comparatively small proportion of cancellations and a tiny proportion of scheduled services overall. It is simply not worth having a long and damaging industrial dispute about.

Changing door opening practices so that the second member of staff on board has more time to collect revenue and assist passengers may well be.

Have you never heard of "keeping your powder dry" or "choosing your battles".

At the end of the day isn't this supposed to be about us passengers being able to go about our business, something which we are being prevented from doing at the moment.

The problem with 'no guard available' is the service often runs as an ECS in lieu so it angers passengers to see a train run through that they can't board, especially at peak times. It would be completely wrong to say leave things the way they are just because a union doesn't want change, the union don't run the railways.

Bletchleyite · 29 Oct 2018

B&I said:
If Northern were so concerned about making sure trains run, perhaps they could eliminate the bizarre practice of continually shifting crew around between trains.

I certainly think they need to simplify their unit and crew diagrams, even if that necessitates some frequency cuts. They are a major cause of the poor performance.

pemma · 29 Oct 2018

B&I said:
If Northern were so concerned about making sure trains run, perhaps they could eliminate the bizarre practice of continually shifting crew around between trains.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people on this thread sewm to have Northern mixed up with a company which actually cares about providing a proper service.

Yes. On the Mid-Cheshire we have services which have a Victoria driver due to having to do an ECS via Warrington or Denton, while that's more logical than changing the driver at Chester/Stockport the thing which seems illogical is while Victoria drivers compliment Piccadilly ones on the Mid-Cheshire, it's Buxton guards who compliment Piccadilly guards which seems to make little sense.

pemma · 29 Oct 2018

CN75 said:
ASLEF have not approached Northern and asked them to confirm they will not introduce DOO either - that refusal from Northern was all that was required for the RMT to start a legitimate dispute.

It does seem very stupid for the RMT to be having a dispute when Northern and ASLEF aren't even in talks about DCO. If Northern approached ASLEF and started coming to agreements on DCO but kept the RMT in the dark then RMT strike action could easily be justified. The RMT asking for a guarantee of a guard on every train for the duration of the franchise and immediately calling industrial action if they don't get it is not justified.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2018

jcollins said:
The problem with 'no guard available' is the service often runs as an ECS in lieu so it angers passengers to see a train run through that they can't board, especially at peak times. It would be completely wrong to say leave things the way they are just because a union doesn't want change, the union don't run the railways.

I have been in this position on a couple of occasions, and whilst very annoying, its no where near as annoying as the current situation of never ending industrial action. Old Northern was a 100% guard operation and I experienced very few cancellations. Those that I deed tended to be in particular areas (eg the Cumbrian coast) and were due to insufficient staffing levels at a particular location, rather than the requirement for a second person itself.

pemma · 29 Oct 2018

yorksrob said:
I have been in this position on a couple of occasions, and whilst very annoying, its no where near as annoying as the current situation of never ending industrial action. Old Northern was a 100% guard operation and I experienced very few cancellations. Those that I deed tended to be in particular areas (eg the Cumbrian coast) and were due to insufficient staffing levels at a particular location, rather than the requirement for a second person itself.

Old Northern had a priority system for cancellations. On my line the old 07:17 Manchester to Chester was only cancelled once in around 7 years due to a guard being unavailable as it was a service where Northern would try to nab a guard booked to work another service if the booked guard wasn't available. On the other hand the 16:58 Stockport to Chester went through a period of being cancelled more days than it ran when old Northern had a temporary guard shortage, as that was one of the first services to go if they didn't have enough guards. As the unit for that service came from Newton Heath it also quite often arrived at Stockport with the destination blind showing Chester even when it had been cancelled and then because of available paths it had to leave Stockport in the Altrincham direction whether there was a guard or not.

Tringonometry · 29 Oct 2018

Confused52 said:
Be fair, that is closer to paranoia than evidence. Tweets are unreliable at best and don't require to be squared with other evidence at all.

Let's see what happens, eh? There's other evidence in this thread that they're planning DOO(P).

Robertj21a · 29 Oct 2018

CN75 said:
The number of guard services on Greater Anglia is proportionately low, mostly on branch lines where any delay has a much less significant effect. Northern has a guard on every train. The millions of pounds partly justified the changes at GTR, which on Southern is now providing the best performance in years, and performance and customer service is the key driver for the SWR changes. In neither case did any guard lose their job or money despite the saved costs by changing their job role.

Why should the North lose out to the South for the amount of effort the government will go to in resolving the TU dispute, and getting a more reliable railway to go with it’s brand new trains?

Perhaps they shouldn't now get the brand new trains. Perhaps they should keep the 142s etc so that the guards have nothing to fear.........

NorthernSpirit · 29 Oct 2018

Looking at how the Stourbridge branchline works with the driver and guard employed in dual roles (as they're trained in both driving and revenue protection), why doesn't Northern do the same? Surely the RMT will agree to that.

Train all drivers up to revenue protection and train all guards up to driving level - this way you've still got two members of staff per unit but rather than the staff being in ridged roles you make them flexible so that they can do one or the other.

Robertj21a · 29 Oct 2018

NorthernSpirit said:
Looking at how the Stourbridge branchline works with the driver and guard employed in dual roles (as they're trained in both driving and revenue protection), why doesn't Northern do the same? Surely the RMT will agree to that.

Train all drivers up to revenue protection and train all guards up to driving level - this way you've still got two members of staff per unit but rather than the staff being in ridged roles you make them flexible so that they can do one or the other.

How exactly does that improve costs ?

ComUtoR · 29 Oct 2018

NorthernSpirit said:
Train all drivers up to revenue protection and train all guards up to driving level - this way you've still got two members of staff per unit but rather than the staff being in ridged roles you make them flexible so that they can do one or the other.

Robertj21a said:
How exactly does that improve costs ?

When I first started I had both competencies and there was a degree of flexibility. If I was sitting spare and a service needed a Guard. I could shoot out and work as a Guard (dispatch duties only) There is a cost saving element there as ordinarily the service would have been cancelled and Drivers could act as spare for Guards.

Vice versa wouldn't work as the cost would spiral and you would have an entire workforce that were Drivers and on Driver salary, Driver terms etc etc. They would also see a sudden shift from RMT to ASLEF and you would have a stronger workforce as you don't get divided loyalties.

XDM · 29 Oct 2018

yorksrob said:
Reliability is important, however I would still suggest that delays caused by guards turning up late must be a small proportion of delays overall and a miniscule proportion of scheduled services overall, therefore not worth bothering with. These "millions of pounds" are clearly not substantial enough to warrant Greater Anglia having this requirement, so they shouldn't be for Northern.

The poster above alleges GA have not got a deal that allows more trains to run without a guard.

Au contraire.
A GA ASLEF official reports Norwich Liverpool Street services will be able to run between Ipswich & Liverpool Street with only the driver aboard.
That is a considerable benefit to allow passengers to have their train running if the scheduled guard fails to appear.

But it is true GA did not get the deal they wanted. What they conceded they conceded under the duress of strikes.

It is quite wrong of RMT & its momentum supporters & others to suggest GA chose this compromise deal.
They were forced into it, as was Scotrail, who conceded almost everything to the momentum cadre of RMT.
Merseyrail are likely to do the same, but as feeble TV reporters sign off their reports, "Time will tell"

a_c_skinner · 29 Oct 2018

The whole of Northern is stuck in the 1970s; trains, workforce contracts, staffing levels, management, negotiation, IR, the RMT, attitude to passengers, attitude to change. I know there are multiple reasons for this but we do need to get away from it and move on. What will be best for Northern's workforce is a well run, economic, thriving rail company. It will even make people feel good about working for them. It will be best for shareholders, passengers, polticians, everyone, but someone needs to tell all of them Harold Wilson is no longer in No. 10

Carlisle · 29 Oct 2018

ComUtoR said:
When I first started I had both competencies and there was a degree of flexibility. If I was sitting spare and a service needed a Guard. I could shoot out and work as a Guard (dispatch duties only) .

Was that system of dual competence for drivers discontinued for genuine operational or safety reasons or simply conceded as part of a union agreement.

pemma · 29 Oct 2018

a_c_skinner said:
someone needs to tell all of them Harold Wilson is no longer in No. 10

They've moved on. They think James Callaghan is in and it's the Winter of Discontent.

Bletchleyite · 29 Oct 2018

a_c_skinner said:
The whole of Northern is stuck in the 1970s; trains, workforce contracts, staffing levels, management, negotiation, IR, the RMT, attitude to passengers, attitude to change. I know there are multiple reasons for this but we do need to get away from it and move on. What will be best for Northern's workforce is a well run, economic, thriving rail company. It will even make people feel good about working for them. It will be best for shareholders, passengers, polticians, everyone, but someone needs to tell all of them Harold Wilson is no longer in No. 10

It would really be good to see a step change of the nature of the Greater Anglia one. The justification for not doing is becoming increasingly poor given that other TOCs seem to be pretty much universally getting brand new fleets.

Couple that with a "from scratch" Taktfahrplan, a properly simplified fare system and enough capacity (so 2 car DMUs entirely out except the branches) and people might start choosing rail over car again.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2018

XDM said:
The poster above alleges GA have not got a deal that allows more trains to run without a guard.

Au contraire.
A GA ASLEF official reports Norwich Liverpool Street services will be able to run between Ipswich & Liverpool Street with only the driver aboard.
That is a considerable benefit to allow passengers to have their train running if the scheduled guard fails to appear.

But it is true GA did not get the deal they wanted. What they conceded they conceded under the duress of strikes.

It is quite wrong of RMT & its momentum supporters & others to suggest GA chose this compromise deal.
They were forced into it, as was Scotrail, who conceded almost everything to the momentum cadre of RMT.
Merseyrail are likely to do the same, but as feeble TV reporters sign off their reports, "Time will tell"

I'm interested to know that trains can run between Ipswich and Lpool st without a second person.

Nevertheless, if those companies, and presumably the RMT were forced to compromise, rather than eave their passengers swinging in the wind, then so be it. It's about time that Northern and the RMT were forced to compromise.

Northern is a vast, sprawling franchise containing innumerable wayside halts, level crossings etc. It is the least suited of all networks to operation without a second person on board the vast majority of its services, so why not compromise and accept that a second person must be on the train, and have them attending to revenue and passenger comfort, rather than put passengers through endless industrial action for the sake of the small minority of occasions when that second person doesn't turn up.

trainophile · 29 Oct 2018

Forgive me for not having read all 6000+ posts, but I've only just become impacted by the Saturday strikes.

Simple question - if my train from Manchester Airport to Crewe is cancelled due to the industrial action, is it permitted to take a TPE to Piccadilly and a TfW to Crewe?

It's academic actually as I have just booked tickets to do this, in case we became stranded, but as a matter of interest is ticket acceptance in place with other operators?

HH · 29 Oct 2018

yorksrob said:
Reliability is important, however I would still suggest that delays caused by guards turning up late must be a small proportion of delays overall and a miniscule proportion of scheduled services overall, therefore not worth bothering with. These "millions of pounds" are clearly not substantial enough to warrant Greater Anglia having this requirement, so they shouldn't be for Northern.

I looked at this for one TOC a few years back and train crew were responsible for about 2% of delays and rather more on cancellations; guards were the majority of that - largely through "no shows". It's not huge, but it's not negligible either. Outside failed trains, TOCs don't tend to have any huge causes of delay and many of them are not subject to simple "fixes" (from the TOC PoV).

HH · 29 Oct 2018

XDM said:
A GA ASLEF official reports Norwich Liverpool Street services will be able to run between Ipswich & Liverpool Street with only the driver aboard.

They always have, providing they were not 12-car on the stretch Colchester-Ipswich.

scrapy · 29 Oct 2018

trainophile said:
Forgive me for not having read all 6000+ posts, but I've only just become impacted by the Saturday strikes.

Simple question - if my train from Manchester Airport to Crewe is cancelled due to the industrial action, is it permitted to take a TPE to Piccadilly and a TfW to Crewe?

It's academic actually as I have just booked tickets to do this, in case we became stranded, but as a matter of interest is ticket acceptance in place with other operators?

According to some tweets by Northern you can only use a permitted route even on other operators (this was when someone asked if they could travel Wigan to Manchester via Crewe). I'm not sure without looking whether Manchester Airport to Crewe is permitted via Piccadilly but I doubt in reality you'd have a problem on a strike day even if it isn't.

B&I · 29 Oct 2018

jcollins said:
They've moved on. They think James Callaghan is in and it's the Winter of Discontent.

Unlike many on this forum, who still think its 1926 and that the Eton Rifles should be getting the trains moving again

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