Northern - is the bad PR unfair?

sheff1 said:

Being delayed on an incoming train is one thing, standing around having a lengthy chat with colleagues before sauntering up the platform bang on the scheduled departure time, with all the prospective passengers still waiting on the platform because the train is locked, is something else.

Turning up at the vehicle after the scheduled departure time, having already been on the premises for some time, has been common with bus drivers for years. It would seem Arriva have imported the practice to the railways.

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I'm pretty certain there is no such official practice, nor have Arriva train drivers taken such unofficial practices. There's more than enough informed discussion on these forums for there to be no need of silly conspiracy theories like these. They should remain only in the Twitter-sphere, poorly researched local newspapers to then be quoted and scoffed at in Angry People In Local Newspapers, and the dark recesses of Mumsnet.....

So two weeks into this thread I would summarise the general views expressed so far as-

The bad PR is not unfair.

Djgr said:

So two weeks into this thread I would summarise the general views expressed so far as-

The bad PR is not unfair.

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That sounds fairly accurate.

But there are some mitigating factors. Having written to various departments they aren't quick to answer or act on messages, but eventually it gets through - by which time you've almost given up the will to continue.

northern have been awful for ages cancelling services but u look at TPE and they have been doing the same cancelling trains left right and centre or turning services short of their destination and no one has said strip them of their franchise like northern have

86247 said:

northern have been awful for ages cancelling services but u look at TPE and they have been doing the same cancelling trains left right and centre or turning services short of their destination and no one has said strip them of their franchise like northern have

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So that requires a new thread entitled-

TPE-Is the lack of bad PR unfair? (not forgetting that two wrongs don't make a right)

Bantamzen said:

I'm pretty certain there is no such official practice, nor have Arriva train drivers taken such unofficial practices. There's more than enough informed discussion on these forums for there to be no need of silly conspiracy theories like these. They should remain only in the Twitter-sphere, poorly researched local newspapers to then be quoted and scoffed at in Angry People In Local Newspapers, and the dark recesses of Mumsnet.....

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In my experience the scenario sheff1 describes is very common amongst Northern traincrew, particularly at Sheffield.

You seem very defensive, Bantamzen; how long have you been working in Northern's diagramming department?

CaptainHaddock said:

In my experience the scenario sheff1 describes is very common amongst Northern traincrew, particularly at Sheffield.

You seem very defensive, Bantamzen; how long have you been working in Northern's diagramming department?

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No not defensive, pragmatic. You see I don't see any value of people queuing up to moan about things without offering some ideas to resolve problems, even if those ideas don't reach the places to influence change. My point in this thread is that the issues with Northern are multi-faceted and complex, there is no one solution just as there is no one reason. I've seen a lot of people call for Arriva to be stripped of their franchise, but offer no alternative. Which is an important point, train operators are not like fast food franchises, there are only a handful of companies with the fiances & knowledge to even have a chance of passing the DfT conditions. And therein lies the problem, the DfT, or more accurately the government whose policy it still is to continue to pursue the current franchise model despite it being so obviously flawed. So do you see my issue, few people want to talk about that, but stick a moan up about Northern and people fight for a place in line. Typical Britain really, we love to moan, but solve, well not so much...

Oh and for the record I work in the public sector, just saying like...

CaptainHaddock said:

In my experience the scenario sheff1 describes is very common amongst Northern traincrew, particularly at Sheffield.

You seem very defensive, Bantamzen; how long have you been working in Northern's diagramming department?

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He’s their head of PR and media relations

SteveM70 said:

He’s their head of PR and media relations

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Damn, you got me.....

Wait, no, no you didn't....

<quiz show incorrect answer buzzer>

Bantamzen said:

No not defensive, pragmatic. You see I don't see any value of people queuing up to moan about things without offering some ideas to resolve problems, even if those ideas don't reach the places to influence change. My point in this thread is that the issues with Northern are multi-faceted and complex, there is no one solution just as there is no one reason. I've seen a lot of people call for Arriva to be stripped of their franchise, but offer no alternative. Which is an important point, train operators are not like fast food franchises, there are only a handful of companies with the fiances & knowledge to even have a chance of passing the DfT conditions. And therein lies the problem, the DfT, or more accurately the government whose policy it still is to continue to pursue the current franchise model despite it being so obviously flawed. So do you see my issue, few people want to talk about that, but stick a moan up about Northern and people fight for a place in line. Typical Britain really, we love to moan, but solve, well not so much...

Oh and for the record I work in the public sector, just saying like...

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I think moaning is the frustration of living in broken, contemporary Britain where all the important matters health, education, transport, housing, crime are in crisis and no-one appears to have the ability, the motivation or the guts to deal with them.

Last 2 Nottingham Sheffields both in the bin again tonight!

Bantamzen said:

No not defensive, pragmatic. You see I don't see any value of people queuing up to moan about things without offering some ideas to resolve problems, even if those ideas don't reach the places to influence change.

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My "moan", as you call it, was a direct response to the post I quoted. In the circumstances described I would have thought the way to prevent the late departures was so obvious it didn't need stating.

LowLevel said:

Last 2 Nottingham Sheffields both in the bin again tonight!

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Careful. You will accused of moaning without offering solutions if you carry on like this

sheff1 said:

Careful. You will accused of moaning without offering solutions if you carry on like this

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I shall add 'cancelled without bothering, as per usual for their useless control, to formally advise other companies and arrange ticket acceptance for their effectively stranded passengers'.

Djgr said:

So that requires a new thread entitled-

TPE-Is the lack of bad PR unfair? (not forgetting that two wrongs don't make a right)

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It is, but that would require a new thread.

LowLevel said:

I shall add 'cancelled without bothering, as per usual for their useless control, to formally advise other companies and arrange ticket acceptance for their effectively stranded passengers'.

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So is not arranging ticket acceptance anyone's fault but Northern? Can we really not come up with a solution for this?

Tetchytyke said:

As I said, the PTEs paid for extra trains so that was sorted, no thanks to Serco who refused to invest their own money. And Serco made more profit than they expected because revenues were higher than expected. Serco were making £30m a year profit off Northern. Not a bad return off the back of 35p investment

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You seem to be (deliberately?) confusing two very different things to make a point.

I know it's al the rage these days with politicians, but still...

• There's the cost of running Northern where passenger income barely touches the side. IIRC below half the total costs come through the fare box - something like forty pence subsidy required per passenger mile at one stage - hopefully more recent figures have seen a reduction, but the passenger income won't pay for improvements - so there'd be no way that *any* winning bidder would speculatively increase services or make large improvements without some guarantees/ subsidies/ investment from the Government/ PTEs etc. Remember that it costs a LOT of money (in acquiring extra stock, staff training, maintenance etc) before the first additional train turns a wheel in revenue earning service.
• There's the profit that Abellio/ Serco/ Arriva etc made/make on running the franchise (i.e. the difference between what they receive from the farebox/ Government/PTEs and the total costs of running the franchise) - 3% is the most quoted figure for TOCs though this obviously varies a bit - but that 3% needs to be seen in the context of the franchise needing state subsidy of 50% for any new services. For example, the private company who empty my bins may make a profit (based on income from the Council against the cost of operations) but that doesn't mean that emptying bins is actually profitable overall.

If the Government/ PTEs want to negotiate improved services then they need to pay for them - you can't expect any organisation to significantly improve services on such a subsidy dependent contract - it's a bit like tendering out your Council's refuse collection service and then complaining that the private provider doesn't speculatively start a Sunday service of bin collection - it's a loss making contract where everything requires subsidy.

Bantamzen said:

My point in this thread is that the issues with Northern are multi-faceted and complex, there is no one solution just as there is no one reason. I've seen a lot of people call for Arriva to be stripped of their franchise, but offer no alternative. Which is an important point, train operators are not like fast food franchises, there are only a handful of companies with the fiances & knowledge to even have a chance of passing the DfT conditions. And therein lies the problem, the DfT, or more accurately the government whose policy it still is to continue to pursue the current franchise model despite it being so obviously flawed. So do you see my issue, few people want to talk about that, but stick a moan up about Northern and people fight for a place in line. Typical Britain really, we love to moan, but solve, well not so much...

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I'm not sure why people are resorting to personal criticisms/speculation just because you've tried to explain to them that things are a lot more complicated than they may appear - it's a very complex franchise that has some very complex problems - I don't think that there is any simple solution.

Would people be prepared to accept a significant reduction in the number of trains running (to remove the complicated interworking, keep staff diagrams much more self contained, get rid of the idea of swapping staff at places like Oxford Road, reduce the number of trains running through congested corridors)? I mean, going back to the timetable twenty years ago would probably permit services to be much more reliable, but we've achieved significant increases in train miles by squeezing things tighter, mixing diagrams together, creating convoluted rotas and through services (that are more for operational convenience than significant passenger demand). I'm not suggesting that this would be better - just giving it as a benchmark for the kind of radical change that you'd have to impose on people if you wanted to improve reliability - I'm not sure that passengers would be happy with seeing the cuts to services though!

86247 said:

northern have been awful for ages cancelling services but u look at TPE and they have been doing the same cancelling trains left right and centre or turning services short of their destination and no one has said strip them of their franchise like northern have

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Having commuted between Wigan and Manchester using both Northern and TPE the difference in stock quality was absolutely huge. When the TPE service I used was withdrawn having to return to traveling on Northerns slow, filthy 142s and 150s after TPEs fast, clean and HVAC’d 350s and 185s was genuinely shocking.

The overcrowding was similar on both services and both Northern and TPE suffer with Castlefield’s congestion issues.

tbtc said:

Would people be prepared to accept a significant reduction in the number of trains running

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I would much prefer the number of trains actually running to match the number of trains advertised in the timetable. That way you would know where you stood before making travel arrangements. Currently the continual cancellation of trains by Northen shows they are unable, for whatever reason, to reliably run the trains they advertise. Take the last train from Nottingham to Sheffield, which has been reported above as being cancelled on a regular basis - it would be far better if the timetable showed the last train was ~2140 (as it used to be) and that train always ran, rather than intending passengers arriving for a train advertised at 2318 only to find themselves stranded.

tbtc said:

I'm not sure why people are resorting to personal criticisms/speculation just because you've tried to explain to them that things are a lot more complicated than they may appear - it's a very complex franchise that has some very complex problems - I don't think that there is any simple solution.

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I think possibly because the default position is Northern = Evil, and anyone daring to step over the line to explain why private companies expect to make profit & why this doesn't always work the way it should under the current franchised system makes you a devil's advocate. Well if it drives a debate on the facts, I will happily wear that badge!

But as you rightly say, there are no easy solutions. When I first joined this forum almost a decade ago, I was firmly in the nationalisation camp, believing as many still do that taking away the corporate gravy trainers would solve all ills. But thanks to many years of informed discussion I have come to learn that nationalisation would solve little, maybe even create more problems. The same goes with the belief that stripping Arriva of the franchise would be some magic bullet that would reset the franchise to some Nirvana like state. Frankly looking back, I can't remember a time when the rail network around the Northern region was significantly better, and I certainly remember when it was a hell of a lot worse.

That's not to say that there are not serious problems, and that people don't have the right to be unhappy about it. But as I said earlier these forums are places to discuss in depth the problems, and what might be done to resolve them, rather than the generic moaning that just acts as a Twitter-like echo chamber. I welcome debate, but if people are just going to criticise me without exploring the facts that's up to them, so long as they know that it adds nothing to the discussion.

tbtc said:

If the Government/ PTEs want to negotiate improved services then they need to pay for them - you can't expect any organisation to significantly improve services on such a subsidy dependent contract

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Are you not making the assumption there that everything Northern do is equally subsidy dependent? Surely there are service enhancements that could either be made at marginal cost and/or which are commercially viable?

tbtc said:

You seem to be (deliberately?) confusing two very different things to make a point.

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No I'm not.

Serco/Abellio made £30m a year profit from the franchise. This was in the accounts, go check. Part of this profit came from the fact that farebox revenue was higher than expected. Serco/Abellio refused to use some of this extra money to run extra carriages, going so far as to placing the 142s released from the Oldham Loop- trains they already had- into warm store in Blackpool carriage sidings.

You, along with @Bantamzen seem to be arguing that TOCs are brilliant because they bring private investment but that we shouldn't criticise them when they don't invest anything because the franchise agreement said they didn't have to.

Serco/Abellio either got £30m a year for contributing nothing because they didn't have to put money in due to the "no growth" modelling, or they got £30m a year for doing nothing because they should have put more money in and chose not to. Which is it?

To bring it back on topic, Arriva seem to be cut from the same cloth as Serco/Abellio. So yes, the bad PR really is justified.

Edited to add: don't get me started on the peak fare restrictions that DfT brought in to reduce the subsidy paid to Northern, whilst doing nothing to address the underlying issue the TOC being paid a huge sum of money to do bugger all.

Tetchytyke said:

You, along with @Bantamzen seem to be arguing that TOCs are brilliant because they bring private investment but that we shouldn't criticise them when they don't invest anything because the franchise agreement said they didn't have to.

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I'm only going to comment on this bit, for reasons I'll explain now. You clearly aren't prepared to actually read what I've put and the reasons why I have been challenging your views. So there's really no further for me to make comment. If you actually want to read my points, and those of others as well as absorb the facts to debate, then I welcome that. I'm just not interested in entering the Northern complaints echo chamber.

Bantamzen said:

You clearly aren't prepared to actually read what I've put and the reasons why I have been challenging your views.

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I don't think that nationalisation would be a magic bullet that would fix all the ills. Like you, I grew up in Bradford in the 80s and 90s and the services in the 80s then poor. Things improved under RRNE with the Leeds electrification and the 158s, but then reached their nadir under Northern Spirit.

My issue, as I have always said, is that the current franchising model allows huge sums of money to leak out of the system every year, for little or no benefit. Serco made huge sums of money without contributing to or improving anything. Their profit margin, as has been noted, comes out of subsidy. So not only were Serco doing naff all, we were actually handing them £30m of taxpayer's money to do naff all.

What really boiled my blood was DfT imposing huge fare rises on the region to "reduce subsidy" whilst allowing Serco to trough on regardless.

It's more complicated with Arriva who say they are actually losing money (not that I believe them, see how they cook the books in the bus division to show paper losses), but the issues with industrial relations and the shambolic train crew arrangements are largely of their own making.

Industrial relations, to be fair, are not entirely Arriva's fault- the DOO fiasco was a DfT ideologically-driven s***show- and I think any franchisee who agreed to do DfT's dirty work would have faced the same issue.

But on the other hand, a nationalised provider would have meant the government were accountable for their decisions, rather than letting spineless cowards like Wilkinson hide behind the TOCs.

LowLevel said:

Last 2 Nottingham Sheffields both in the bin again tonight!

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To get back to a point i made earlier in the thread, is there any penalty to Northern for repeatedly cancelling services, financially or otherwise?

Tetchytyke said:

I don't think that nationalisation would be a magic bullet that would fix all the ills. Like you, I grew up in Bradford in the 80s and 90s and the services in the 80s then poor. Things improved under RRNE with the Leeds electrification and the 158s, but then reached their nadir under Northern Spirit.

My issue, as I have always said, is that the current franchising model allows huge sums of money to leak out of the system every year, for little or no benefit. Serco made huge sums of money without contributing to or improving anything. Their profit margin, as has been noted, comes out of subsidy. So not only were Serco doing naff all, we were actually handing them £30m of taxpayer's money to do naff all.

What really boiled my blood was DfT imposing huge fare rises on the region to "reduce subsidy" whilst allowing Serco to trough on regardless.

It's more complicated with Arriva who say they are actually losing money (not that I believe them, see how they cook the books in the bus division to show paper losses), but the issues with industrial relations and the shambolic train crew arrangements are largely of their own making.

Industrial relations, to be fair, are not entirely Arriva's fault- the DOO fiasco was a DfT ideologically-driven s***show- and I think any franchisee who agreed to do DfT's dirty work would have faced the same issue.

But on the other hand, a nationalised provider would have meant the government were accountable for their decisions, rather than letting spineless cowards like Wilkinson hide behind the TOCs.

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Private companies taking advantage of public or previously public owned companies / infrastructures is an endemic problem that's been running ever since the Tories inflicted British Gas' "Sid" on us. I've worked in the public sector for over 3 decades, and for over 2 of those have had some involvement one way or another with private contractors. Indeed just this morning on the BBC Business pages is an article talking about the UK's "extreme form of capitalism". And it is a contributor to the problems we face. If I ever win the lottery I will have a lot to say on the matter publicly, for now I just keep my concerns within official channels.

However, and as you note above, some of the problems come from beyond the corporate owners. The whole franchise system is failing badly, even if TOCs are making profits (and some are / have not), many are making nervous sounds about the future as the DfT demands more & more for less. Throw in the problems getting infrastructural projects done on time and in budget, or sometimes even getting them into a live state at all, and of course procurement & refurbishment delays & you create a perfect storm. It is for these reasons that I do not lay the blame solely at Arriva's door. Yes they have made some bad mistakes, they should have put a recovery plan in after May 2018 a lot sooner, they should have settled on a better quality of refurbishment before sending out the first units, they should even have told DfT where to go during the DOO dispute, and they should be looking to build more resilience into both unit pathing and crew rosters. But there have been so many external factors that cannot be ignored, and we have to take into account in trying to unravel want went wrong & how it can be resolved.

I'm afraid we are at the stage where nothing short of a fundamental shift in government policy on contracting out our rail network, possibly itself requiring a very different government, will really be enough to turn things around. Oh and public investment, lots & lots of extra public investment.

CaptainHaddock said:

To get back to a point i made earlier in the thread, is there any penalty to Northern for repeatedly cancelling services, financially or otherwise?

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As I understand it there are penalties for either the TOCs and/or Network Rail depending on the root cause. How this is decided I don't know, but I'm sure others on here will be able to elaborate.

10:15 Leeds to Harrogate, passengers let on board but swiftly booted off back to the platform due to the fitters being on board fixing an issue...

Glance up at the departure board on the platform and ‘Cancelled’ - despite the fact the fitters were done and dusted within 5 minutes! (By 10:20)

The train then shot off in the direction of Harrogate whilst the poor crew had to do the walk of shame along the platform and seemed just as confused as the passengers!

A lot of very unhappy folk on this platform now as a result, especially as the 10:29 is already ‘expected 10:32’ and ticking!

Tetchytyke said:

But on the other hand, a nationalised provider would have meant the government were accountable for their decisions, rather than letting spineless cowards like Wilkinson hide behind the TOCs.

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This. Is. Precisely. It.

Bantamzen said:

they should even have told DfT where to go during the DOO dispute

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Why? They were complicit - DOO was a requirement in the franchise and Arriva chose to bid