dk1
Veteran Member
Yes we do that on their first 20 turns. The driver standing down is not allowed to be booked onto another turn however.
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ASLEF strikes 5th-8th April weekend
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Yes we do that on their first 20 turns. The driver standing down is not allowed to be booked onto another turn however.
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R
RailUK Forums
Of course. In one sense it's good housekeeping and if it happened at my place I wouldn't be bothered as I get RDW
It happened when I was on overground and newbies started as permanent spare until in the roster. They were however used and abused and not allowed to sit so others could get RDW. Like I say I don't mind but bad optics to outsiders and probably one of those posts that perhaps shouldn't of been posted or at least explained at the outset.
chuff chuff
Member
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Yeah no movement allowed.
dk1
Veteran Member
We had the same when DRS drivers covered some of our local work with class 68s. The TOC drivers on those turns had to sit spare and be booked out as normal.
dk1
Veteran Member
I'm surprised they didn't have to pass on the train
I think some of the hardcore enthusiast drivers did & not in the train either lol.
Agree on your point. I do think though that drivers should be out driving trains, making full use of their skills, knowledge and training. Any reforms need to focus on increasing productivity and reducing down time. Instructing drivers and other skilled staff to complete tasks that don't make use of these skills, completely undermines the concept of efficiency and productivity. Especially at a time when the industry is short of drivers
Maybe some of the MP's that travel by train could do a litter pick, now that a number of TOCs are under DFT control
. Tories love the 'big society' policy
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Ashfordian6
Member
Agree on your point. I do think though that drivers should be out driving trains, making full use of their skills, knowledge and training. Any reforms need to focus on increasing productivity and reducing down time. Instructing drivers and other skilled staff to complete tasks that don't make use of these skills, completely undermines the concept of efficiency and productivity. Especially at a time when the industry is short of drivers
Maybe some of the MP's that travel by train could do a litter pick, now that a number of TOCs are under DFT control
Can drivers actually become more productive than they are? And if so, how?
It seems to me that if a driver is driving a train, he cannot be driving another train. Additionally, he can only drive a train as per the timetable.
Err, just to point out that women drive trains too
Yeah, get your point. It was more intended as a response to suggestions drivers can do 'other' duties if not driving, say sat spare.
Productivity improvements, if people feel that is necessary, could only be achieved by cutting down on things like spare time, the odd bits between PNB's and say drivers moved for trainees (see above posts).
Personally, I can't see a great deal can be done in this regard. Drivers are generally productive most of the time. If I look at my shifts, there's a short bit at the start to sign-on, read briefs / wons & pons and then mobilise the train etc.
I stick by my point though, if you want drivers up to more, that needs to be in the seat, not sweeping platforms!
irish_rail
Established Member
Probably not, but I think it's fairly safe to say the driving grade stands to gain more from a Labour government than the current sh*t shower. Let's face it, it doesn't get much worse than 5 years with no payrise, except perhaps fire and rehire, which, I suspect would be the Tory line if they somehow managed to get elected.
12LDA28C
Established Member
And that's exactly what happens at certain TOCS - Manpower Planning or similar takes place to estimate likely retirement dates and those figures are used when carrying out recruitment to fill the future vacancies. Whilst 18 months to train a driver is a rough figure, it took a lot longer during Covid for obvious reasons, but these days it's not unusual to see a trainee (or 'apprentice' as they're invariably called these days) pass out after twelve months or even less, dependent on instructor / assessor availability.
This industry has always known this, nothing to do with a decade ago. It's not about having the 'mens gonads' to face up to it. It's about the fact that it's cheaper for the industry to rely on overtime and RDW than employ sufficient drivers. Pure economics, nothing more or less.
Improvements in drivers' productivity can come by reducing the time spent between driving one train and the next (subject to minimum legal break requirements), increasing turn length (within agreed parameters), increasing the number of hours' maximum movement on a Spare turn and so on. However any productivity-based changes to agreed Ts & Cs such as an increase in the maximum number of driving hours per turn, movement of agreed PNB times and so on would need to be negotiated and these kind of changes should (and used to) form the basis of pay deal negotiations, i.e. drivers are more productive in return for an increase in pay.
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You might be surprised at the percentage of time a driver is actually driving a train.
Which makes it more difficult to recover from disruption.
nuneatonmark
Member
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Meanwhile, the public just work around any strike action, it's almost normal now, with zero sympathy for a group of workers, who may be essential, but are paid more, often much more with archaic working practices, than many of the public they inconvenience. A well paid job that you need no degree either. They also can't be bothered with getting upset with an irrelevant government who will be kicked out soon. Two 'organisations' who deserve each other.
12LDA28C
Established Member
Absolutely
Drivers get paid a salary commensurate with the training, knowledge and responsibility involved. You just sound jealous, and it's not a good look.
Ideally you keep the same crew on the same train for as long as possible. Crew changes tend to have unproductive time built in (except for the rare occasion where crews swap between two trains that both meet in the same station at the same time) and they are a performance risk.
Route learning is expensive but it does make your crews more flexible and the variety improves their job satisfaction.
irish_rail
Established Member
This posts smacks of "I got a degree in media studies and can't understand why I don't now earn 100k as the BBCs chief xyz correspondent". Oh, and whether or not people are working around the strikes, they are damaging the economy, so just because Joe Bloggs cancels his weekend trip to the seaside, doesn't mean the country as a whole won't suffer. The strikes are damaging the economy, FACT.
This I passionately agree with. As much as I dislike driving Plymouth through to London , I do recognise it is flipping productive compared with some traincrew diagrams that would see 3 different drivers cover the same ground.
12LDA28C
Established Member
I was more referring to relatively short journeys with turn round times at each end of an extended period which don't include any kind of PNB, CDB or similar required break. Although it might improve resilience in times of disruption, it's effectively 'dead' time during normal running.
Ashfordian6
Member
You post this like you know some numbers. Are you willing to share to expand our knowledge (anonymised of course)?
I'm trying to think logically of where productivity improvements could be made as firstly their driving time would be dictated by the timetable, time to change ends, toilet break(s), a PNB.
Surely there is a computer programme that has the requirements and has spat out the most efficient working for drivers?
12LDA28C
Established Member
I listed some ways in which productivity could be increased in post #461 in direct response to your question. Also, the percentage of time a driver is actually driving a train would vary considerably between operators.
Sly Old Fox
Member
I used to get on a train at my station, drive it to the end of the line, drive it back, have a break, and then drive it somewhere else and back. Now I travel somewhere, drive it a bit, travel somewhere else, drive somewhere else etc. Or I get removed from a whole productive round trip (of around 4 hours) to put a train on the depot (3 minutes driving) or even do an attachment because they can taxi a driver from 100 miles further down the line to my station to cover my round trip but have nobody else to go to the depot or who signs attaching. I would say I probably do about 60% of the driving that I did 10 years ago.
The diagrams and lack of training/route knowledge are insane these days. None of which is down to drivers.
I would cautiously estimate that you could dispense of at least 15% of drivers at my company if you could sort out the diagrams and make them productive again, and actually get training and route learning done. Not that I would suggest such a thing of course, I don’t want to see anyone out the door.
irish_rail
Established Member
This. The diagrams used to be so so much more productive, yet now a driver will spend a good proportion of their shift on the cushions. At GWR we do still have some Plymouth/Swansea to London, PNB, drive back again work, but it is increasingly less common. Far more fractured these days to accommodate all the additional depots that have sprung up , supposedly to save money on driver costs...... if dft want to save money then it would seriously look at the diagramming of all traincrew and take a step back about five years. The Australian traincrew diagramming program adopted by many TOCs has sadly cost the taxpayer a lot of money in my view.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Very interesting that what looks like overefficiency at the cost of reliability (by making everything reliant on everything else) is actually inefficient! Does seem like someone might have been sold a pup of a piece of planning software.
Keep it simple, keep it punctual!
Keep it simple, keep it punctual!
It's an odd one really. Our long term scheduled diagrams sweat the assets - most of our work now is something long distance like a trip to Norwich followed by a local (but still 65 miles round trip!) trip to Worksop or Matlock or similar with a minimum personal needs break or a combination of local trips with the same minimum personal needs break.
My least favourite job is 9 hours 46 minutes long and has you doing Nottingham - Matlock - Nottingham - Mansfield Woodhouse - Nottingham - Break (1 hour) - Leicester - Nottingham - Newark Castle - Nottingham in short succession. The only respite time you get over and above the planned break is 25 minutes or so in Leicester which is enough time to make a coffee, otherwise it's all stopping work with no facilities on the train which is a 158 or 170 except a toilet that isn't generally cleaned during the day on most of the routes.
However - the short term planning diagrams for things like engineering work are ridiculous.
8 or 9 hours long with up to 4 hours sitting about in one block on plenty of them - extremely inefficient.
My least favourite job is 9 hours 46 minutes long and has you doing Nottingham - Matlock - Nottingham - Mansfield Woodhouse - Nottingham - Break (1 hour) - Leicester - Nottingham - Newark Castle - Nottingham in short succession. The only respite time you get over and above the planned break is 25 minutes or so in Leicester which is enough time to make a coffee, otherwise it's all stopping work with no facilities on the train which is a 158 or 170 except a toilet that isn't generally cleaned during the day on most of the routes.
However - the short term planning diagrams for things like engineering work are ridiculous.
8 or 9 hours long with up to 4 hours sitting about in one block on plenty of them - extremely inefficient.
I’m fully aware of that.
There’s clearly more to it than that, and it has become obvious to many of us that you aren’t being even handed in these discussions, despite your protestations otherwise. You’ve mentioned on here many times that you were once a union rep yourself, but that your own union failed to protect your Ts and Cs. It comes across (to me at least) that you want to see railway staff getting the same treatment, and are triggered by seeing us standing up for ourselves.
This is the false binary which the current government seems to think the population still swallow.
If people want the railway and other services to run properly they need to be funded, and that includes paying the staff properly; Plenty of opinion polling to show that most of the population want services better funded over and above tax cuts, and plenty of polling to show how unpopular the current government’s approach to running the country is.
Indeed, and the same applies to many, many areas at the moment.
Virtually zero chance of that working on the railway where it’s common for 100% of drivers to be in the union, the current action has enormous support, and most of us understand that this is about protecting Ts and Cs which once gone won’t return.
Indeed. Common sense in all businesses that you don’t have expensive staff with a valuable and scarce skillset doing menial jobs; sadly it shows the absolute contempt some on here have for train drivers that it’s even suggested.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That happens everywhere in every industry. I've lost count of the number of times I as a high cost contract IT consultant have spent significant time doing things like data cleansing and loading, and sometimes even data keying, when a lower wage clerk could easily be doing that job.
I don't mind doing it, it's a bit of a break. But it's an incredibly expensive way to get that work done.
Same on our side. We tend to get more than minimum length PNBs, but it’s common to spend seven hours plus of continuous driving per shift, which are generally out and back trips with very little passing. We have diagrams of over 500 miles per day, which must be up there as some of the most productive.
My old operator (DOO metro around SE London/Kent) was intense with minimum turnarounds and minimum PNBs, so I’d like to find a TOC with less efficient utilisation
.Doing your own admin can make sense in the context of a multifaceted project based role - with modern tech it can be cheaper and easier than employing admin staff - but it’s still inefficient if you’re spending too much time doing it. I also highly doubt your employer expects you to spend your down time cleaning the office loos or sweeping floors.
In a railway context, with clearly defined roles, which all have their own training and competency requirements, you aren’t going to use drivers as guards, for example (as LUMO supposedly intended to but then dropped), put them on ticket barriers etc. it’s simply not practical.
Depends what the job is really I suppose and how disruptive it is likely to be to you doing anything.
For example - I think someone mentioned sweeping the platforms. At most locations big enough to have a train crew depot there are already a team of people employed to clean the place and adding a spare train driver to that work with none of for example their COSHH training is likely to add nothing in terms of practical benefit and simply tie your driver up out of the way if you do need to try and find them at short notice.
On the other hand as a guard with detailed knowledge of the network both operationally and from a customer service point of view in service disruption if I'm working trains I am quite happy to be an extra body helping to assist disrupted passengers. The same goes for when the lifts fail at my home location - I'm reasonably fit and able so I don't mind within reason helping with carrying luggage down the stairs for people who aren't. On one under staffed but busy station one Saturday morning when practically the whole service went down I took over announcing and answering the phone to let the platform staff get out to see to the few trains and replacement buses that were running whilst I waited for a taxi to get me to my next working.
I know drivers who are quite happy to do similar in extremis (you'll quite often see at Lincoln for example spare drivers out on the platform around the gates, a lot of their drivers are former guards and perfectly able to manage passengers) and I also know drivers who are best kept away from agitated and delayed members of the public because they don't have the social skills to deal with them.
What much of that comes down to is good will though and of late that has of course been severely lacking.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Indeed not.
There's only one example of that I know - Stourbridge - two staff, one drives and one guards each way.
Merseyrail used to have guards passed for driving whilst they waited for space in the driving links who could do either job. Not sure if that is continuing with the new trains.
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