A whole bunch of the Cardiff to Nottingham XC services are cancelled as well (my sister was booked on one of them). Last minute cancellations "due to a shortage of drivers" are common on this route but cancelling a load in advance for several days seems to be a new thing.
Is it maybe for timetable resilience or something? Less services, same number of units, similar levels of drivers, more back up options?
Yes, I'd guess it's to avoid the usual last minute cancellations. Pretty poor though, and some of the remaining services are going to be even more hellish than usual (they may strengthen some of them but probably not all the ones that need it).
Manchester
Does the absence of a handful of Newcastle to Reading affect someone travelling from Leeds to Southampton, who would have to change at Manchester, Birmingham or Bristol anyway?
I would guess its due to a shortage of rolling stock or train crew. It doesnt look good but it could be argued its better then cancelling a longer distance journey such as an Edinburgh-Plymouth or even potentially an Aberdeen-Plymouth.
Change at Birmingham from the Edinburgh to Plymouth service to the Manchester to Bournemouth service - unfortunately, the trains are badly timed so you have to spend almost an hour at Birmingham (unless you get lucky with delays), but it'll still be faster than any other route besides London.
But loads of 4 coach sets on the Plymouth to Edinburgh route. 0620 from Plymouth cancelled between Plymouth and Bristol, next service at 0727 is four coaches.
Basically it is because the schools are on holiday for Easter, so drivers take leave, and there is no overtime cover!
There's one service, 1E38 0717 DBY-NCL which just seems to never run. The back working, 1V87 1035 NCL-RDG, subsequently also seemingly never runs. At this point I've all but given up hope that the XC services via DON will operate, they're so much better than the services which go via Leeds and end up picking up lots of local traffic within Yorkshire.
Indeed, also not many people volunteer for rest day working during school holidays, Birmingham depot is the main problem, it relies heavily on RDW at the best of times.
