That's for Northern to answer.
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Northern: North West Sunday Crew Shortages
- Thread starter Starmill
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That's for Northern to answer.
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R
RailUK Forums
Indeed - they should be giving an explanation - not just saying these trains are cancelled full stop.
Glenn1969
Established Member
It has. I have come to the conclusion that it's a staffing issue. Which may also be why the new Chester- Leeds service is not running on Sundays even though it is specified to in the TSR.
Well this is the thing isn't it. Nobody really knows anymore why we get week after week of cancellations. It isn't down to staffing alone, it certainly isn't down to engineering. But it is like Northern have been given free reign to cancel at will and nobody in power gives a hoot.
BurtonM
Member
Every weekend here, Northern stops at 5pm and goes to RRBs. It's a joke.
They have been offering the curious explanation of advising that it isn’t anything to do with the new timetables, and have also denied its staff shortages / staff choosing not to work Sundays
No sign of them saying what the cause is though
Over on this side of the pennines, Sunday is not part of the contractual working week for Northern, so they rely solely on overtime and 'favours' to do Sundays. As I'm sure you can imagine, some people, rightly or wrongly, don't want to work Sundays, so there aren't enough guards and drivers rostered to work the timetabled services. Northern don't want to admit this, so are calling them 'planned cancellations' to try and justify them and make them a bit less of a bombshell than cancelling them on the day and having station announcers constantly apologising for the cancellation of services...
The same thing happened with the strikes, but originally managers would work the guard position as it was a nice change for them and it meant them getting out of the office - but this changed quite quickly...
The same thing happened with the strikes, but originally managers would work the guard position as it was a nice change for them and it meant them getting out of the office - but this changed quite quickly...
There's been no Northern services from Liverpool-Warrington Central-Manchester Ox Rd. the past couple of weekends due to engineering work, but there's no mention at all of that in the Northern Facebook updates. At least they have been putting on rail replacement buses.
I got one of the rail replacement buses from Lime Street yesterday evening and was the only passenger. Goodness knows where everyone else was because those trains on a Saturday evening back to Widnes and Warrington used to be packed!
When the Saturday strikes were on and the Sunday "planned cancellations" on the Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester line there were no rail replacement buses at all.
There's no engineering work or "planned cancellations" scheduled for next weekend, so it will be interesting to see if we finally get a weekend service back to normal and if people start using the trains again!
I got one of the rail replacement buses from Lime Street yesterday evening and was the only passenger. Goodness knows where everyone else was because those trains on a Saturday evening back to Widnes and Warrington used to be packed!
When the Saturday strikes were on and the Sunday "planned cancellations" on the Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester line there were no rail replacement buses at all.
There's no engineering work or "planned cancellations" scheduled for next weekend, so it will be interesting to see if we finally get a weekend service back to normal and if people start using the trains again!
Which is no way to run a Sunday service these days. You might have got a way with it a few years back when only a skeleton service was run on a Sunday, but not with today's service levels.
ForTheLoveOf
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I suppose at least the beleaguered passengers can be grateful they get a replacement bus service, as opposed to nothing at all!
people pay for a train service. If they want a bus they would go to the bus station.
Optare. Charles H Roe as was.
ForTheLoveOf
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People might think they are paying for a train service, and that is of course what everyone de facto realises they are paying for, but legally speaking the railways aren't obliged to convey you in a train at all. It's just that, most of the time, if they sent you by bus, they'd be liable to pay you delay compensation because it would be a lot slower for most journeys!
It is at least a relief for those passengers who have a season ticket and want to travel on the weekend, or for example those who have a return portion of a Period Return ticket. It's also a welcome reprieve from Northern's frequent spiel of alleging they're not obliged to provide any replacement transport whenever they feel like cancelling the trains.
If I get a sniff there is a replacement bus then i dont go by train.
It's not unusual for there to be some sort of heritage bus out on RRB duties, Arriva appear to just get in anything they can, preserved or not.
Sam
I had a gorgeous ex. Stagecoach B10M a month or two ago when Millom to Whitehaven was closed on the Cumbrian Coast, and I had it all to myself aswell
The official comment from Northern on this matter is
Which to me is almost offensive. To think that they can get away with commenting like this (it’s a stock reply they’ve used for months) is treating customers like dirt. When a line is disrupted by engineering works you get a different stock response about the actual works (such as Lincoln to Sheffield today and last Sunday) but when it’s a staff shortage issue they have the cheek and have the nerve to spout this rubbish about matching availability.
modernrail
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Fully agree. It is treating your customers like absolute dirt. It is also a clear breach of contractual commitments and the DfT should be all over it. The fact that they made such a noise about boosting Sunday services makes the whole thing even more offensive. Shambles.
Because an honest answer would embarrass both the Northern management and the DfT? (and it's only out in the provinces, of course!)
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
The "putting the customer first" policy will soon sort it out...
bengley
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Actually that's quite accurate. Drivers on the west side are throwing their Sundays in if their diagrams are amended because there is no requirement to work amended diagrams on Sundays under their current Ts&Cs.
It's simply more valuable for a lot of drivers to have a day off on Sunday and simply work a rest day in the week, when, say, their kids are at school and they wouldn't have been able to see them like they would have on the Sunday.
dk1
Veteran Member
Then there would be cancellations on weekdays which for much of the Northern network would be far more disruptive. Whilst Northern have a rest day working agreement with ASLEF it would also be illegal rostering to not book an available driver to a diagram that requires cover on his/her rest day if they can rightfully catch that job.
philthetube
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If there was adequate staffing there would be no need for midweek rest day working, excluding limited amounts for training.
It isn't accurate though is it? The root cause is an inadequate number of permanent staff. The fluff about engineering work and whatnot is intended to shift this blame.
dk1
Veteran Member
In my 35yrs on the railway there has never been adequate staffing no matter what they do with drivers. Even with several spares each day there is almost always a requirement for free day working due to lack of traction or route knowledge or just because it's a few minutes too far for the agreed spare movement.
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