Avanti Sunday Cancellations

[Horizon22]

I doubt that’s the issue if they have committed Sundays? No doubt sickness will be a factor, as in most industries, as people still have to isolate if they test positive and there’s lots of it around. Also a lack of trained and productive traincrew due to Covid backlogs (they’re recruiting heavily).

I also didn’t realise RDW wasn’t sanctioned at Avanti as someone implied above?



As do many traincrew, to be fair. No problem with that, just so long as it’s what you signed up for!

Maybe less of an issue. I wouldn't be surprised with high sickness either, Covid has floored a lot of people and whilst they're not badly sick (myself included!), still wouldn't call it healthy enough to drive/guard a train!

And yes many traincrew do already have Sundays inside, but it needs to be made the norm everywhere (and is indeed what the unions of said traincrew want).

 

[bramling]

I am sorry but I do think that they do cancel trains with little or no thought or planning. There doesn't seem to be much careful planning when 3 consecutive trains are cancelled leaving a 4 hour gap in the service & the last train of the day is also cancelled. Covid clearly has some impact on staffing but it is too easy to quote Covid as the reason/excuse when it is not clear that the available staffing is being managed in such a way in order to minimise the the huge disruption , inconvenience and delay to passengers.

The way rosters work makes it difficult to pick what gets cancelled. You get a set of names with timings attached to them, and a set of duties with timings also attached. If the pieces don’t fit, and people won’t (which in some cases may be more can’t than won’t) agree to move then the cancellations fall where the pieces land.

It doesn’t help that people are generally pissed off at the moment for a number of reasons, so are hardly going to bursting with desire to be helpful.

 

[Horizon22]

I am sorry but I do think that they do cancel trains with little or no thought or planning. There doesn't seem to be much careful planning when 3 consecutive trains are cancelled leaving a 4 hour gap in the service & the last train of the day is also cancelled. Covid clearly has some impact on staffing but it is too easy to quote Covid as the reason/excuse when it is not clear that the available staffing is being managed in such a way in order to minimise the the huge disruption , inconvenience and delay to passengers.

You can pre-cancel in advance if you know you are going to be X short and shift staff around in good time (with goodwill), but that is not always easy to predict and it might be one particular depot/route/shift (normally late shift on the weekend) that has been particularly affected meaning that one route will always be disproprotionately hit, even if resources and control teams do try and selectively cancel. This is especially true when you have cross-working of crews who aren't doing a simple A-B[break]-A

 

[FManc]

The way rosters work makes it difficult to pick what gets cancelled. You get a set of names with timings attached to them, and a set of duties with timings also attached. If the pieces don’t fit, and people won’t (which in some cases may be more can’t than won’t) agree to move then the cancellations fall where the pieces land.

It doesn’t help that people are generally pissed off at the moment for a number of reasons, so are hardly going to bursting with desire to be helpful.

This definitely sums it up!
Once daily sheets are posted (normally 2-3 days in advance) then you can only ask traincrew to move voluntary and rightly so as it’s impossible to plan your home life otherwise. So if it gets to the night before and the jigsaw doesn’t really add up there’s not much than can be done especially if traincrew are fed up (so might not offer to help) which is then general feeling at the moment across the board.

 

[6Gman]

I am sorry but I do think that they do cancel trains with little or no thought or planning. There doesn't seem to be much careful planning when 3 consecutive trains are cancelled leaving a 4 hour gap in the service & the last train of the day is also cancelled. Covid clearly has some impact on staffing but it is too easy to quote Covid as the reason/excuse when it is not clear that the available staffing is being managed in such a way in order to minimise the the huge disruption , inconvenience and delay to passengers.

It may seem simple to move staff around to avoid big gaps but in some cases it could simply lead to knock on problems if staff can't then take up their booked duty on Monday.

 

[ah-media]

Avanti took their service to a new low today.

RTT showing 31 services cancelled… including both of the ones I was due to be on..

My return journey was just dreadful.. supposed to have been on the 1600 ex Rugby to Euston (canx)… the 1641 was a 10 car Voyager (2x5), full to the point people were camped in the toilets.. vestibules stacked to the gills…

No apology for the overcrowding .. just they were a bit late arriving in the capital…

Station staff were clueless and it was a total **** show.

No customer service at all.. just horrid!

 

[bramling]

This definitely sums it up!
Once daily sheets are posted (normally 2-3 days in advance) then you can only ask traincrew to move voluntary and rightly so as it’s impossible to plan your home life otherwise. So if it gets to the night before and the jigsaw doesn’t really add up there’s not much than can be done especially if traincrew are fed up (so might not offer to help) which is then general feeling at the moment across the board.

Certainly even the more helpful people are, in my neck of the woods, digging their heels in at the moment.

And who can blame them?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

I am sorry but I do think that they do cancel trains with little or no thought or planning. There doesn't seem to be much careful planning when 3 consecutive trains are cancelled leaving a 4 hour gap in the service & the last train of the day is also cancelled. Covid clearly has some impact on staffing but it is too easy to quote Covid as the reason/excuse when it is not clear that the available staffing is being managed in such a way in order to minimise the the huge disruption , inconvenience and delay to passengers.

No control will choose to cancel 3 successive trains on a route without good reason, however if those are the 3 turns uncovered you are relying on the goodwill of crew to try and cover one by cancelling something else. Like airlines, railways have a rostering system which limits what you can do especially at the last minute. You can’t force someone to work a different shift for example.

 

[43066]

Maybe less of an issue. I wouldn't be surprised with high sickness either, Covid has floored a lot of people and whilst they're not badly sick (myself included!), still wouldn't call it healthy enough to drive/guard a train!

Sorry to hear that and glad it wasn’t too unpleasant! I’ve not had it myself yet (AFAIK) but of course there are lots of other bugs flying around due to weakened immunity after the last two years.

And yes many traincrew do already have Sundays inside, but it needs to be made the norm everywhere (and is indeed what the unions of said traincrew want).

But of course the TOCs don’t and I doubt the DfT really does either. It seems to be just one of those insoluble railway problems!

The way rosters work makes it difficult to pick what gets cancelled. You get a set of names with timings attached to them, and a set of duties with timings also attached. If the pieces don’t fit, and people won’t (which in some cases may be more can’t than won’t) agree to move then the cancellations fall where the pieces land.

It doesn’t help that people are generally pissed off at the moment for a number of reasons, so are hardly going to bursting with desire to be helpful.

And at many locations the starting point is insufficient staff being available to operate the daily roster in the first place. So covering the work then falls to a messy combination of reliance on rest day work (including begging phone calls), cross covering with other depots, using spares and standbys (who once used are unavailable for a few hours, or for the rest of their shift). It’s a bit of a perfect storm at the moment.

 

[FManc]

Certainly even the more helpful people are, in my neck of the woods, digging their heels in at the moment.

And who can blame them?

Yep totally agree!
There’s definitely a storm brewing.

 

[Dieseldriver]

It's funny how the Supermarkets don't have a high rate of sickness

How do you know they don’t? This is the thing many people seem to (conveniently) overlook.
A train needs a Driver and a Guard to run. If there is no available Driver, the train cannot run.
Let’s say a depot has 20 jobs daily, that’s 20 Drivers each driving trains. If there are only 18 Drivers at work that day (let’s say down to sickness) then it’s inevitable that trains will have to be cancelled.
Let’s compare that with a supermarket. If you need 20 members of staff to run a supermarket daily, if there are only 18 members of staff down to sickness, the supermarket will still be open as normal while the staff at work pick up the slack and as a customer, you will barely notice the absences.

 

[peter166]

Quite frankly the average passenger is not concerned with the details of the inner workings or non-workings of the railways. As stated in comment #36 Avanti has undoubtedly reached a new low & passengers will remember the ordeal of travelling by train and what they are put through never to return. Why would they when paying high fares for the same cavalier treatment over & over again ?

 

[bramling]

Quite frankly the average passenger is not concerned with the details of the inner workings or non-workings of the railways. As stated in comment #36 Avanti has undoubtedly reached a new low & passengers will remember the ordeal of travelling by train and what they are put through never to return. Why would they when paying high fares for the same cavalier treatment over & over again ?

There are a lot of issues in this country at the moment, and a lot boils down to the dysfunctional way the country is currently being run by this government. The only way this is going to change is if we make our dissatisfaction clear to our MPs.

I think the mood within the rail industry at the moment is akin to having done their best over two years being pushed from pillar to post, yet whatever is done is somehow wrong for this government.

 

[dk1]

It may seem simple to move staff around to avoid big gaps but in some cases it could simply lead to knock on problems if staff can't then take up their booked duty on Monday.

And why would any traincrew agree to move turns if they are in dispute? Helping out is the very last thing that they would consider doing. I don’t understand why some who post on here cannot grasp that.

 

[cygnus44]

Covid still the number one excuse for everything, will the real world ever return

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Quite frankly the average passenger is not concerned with the details of the inner workings or non-workings of the railways. As stated in comment #36 Avanti has undoubtedly reached a new low & passengers will remember the ordeal of travelling by train and what they are put through never to return. Why would they when paying high fares for the same cavalier treatment over & over again ?

You’ve come on here to get the details and ask why, this is a railway forum.

For the average passenger they have been told sadly your service is cancelled and X is the alternative. Similar to the issues travelling by plane at the moment, we are sorry your flight is cancelled and Y is the alternative.

 

[dk1]

Quite frankly the average passenger is not concerned with the details of the inner workings or non-workings of the railways. As stated in comment #36 Avanti has undoubtedly reached a new low & passengers will remember the ordeal of travelling by train and what they are put through never to return. Why would they when paying high fares for the same cavalier treatment over & over again ?

To be honest that sort of comment has been said for time & memorial. The truth is people do forget & passengers always return.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Covid still the number one excuse for everything, will the real world ever return

How is people being off sick with a known virus ‘an excuse’ if you’re poorly you’re poorly and that’s what sadly happens in a pandemic which I think everyone appreciates isn’t quite over yet.

Of course we will with time, we don’t still have restrictions from the Spanish Flu 100 years ago do we!

 

[Horizon22]

Quite frankly the average passenger is not concerned with the details of the inner workings or non-workings of the railways. As stated in comment #36 Avanti has undoubtedly reached a new low & passengers will remember the ordeal of travelling by train and what they are put through never to return. Why would they when paying high fares for the same cavalier treatment over & over again ?

Perhaps they do not. But people here are explaining the why things are happening which are more complex that they may see on the surface. The same is probably true of many industries which have inner workings but the vast majority of the public make assumptions about but I'm sure if we had experts in that field would give the run-down on the whys and hows.

People have said for many times that people will "never return" (for instance the awful GTR disuption 2016-2018) yet they often do come back, especially for leisure travel which will be more prominent on the weekend.

 

[muz379]

It's funny how the Supermarkets don't have a high rate of sickness

To be fair having worked in retail in the past it is fairly easy to shift people from store to store to respond to high rates of sickness . I remember one instance of a store having a norovirus outbreak following a christmas meal . It wiped out 19 of the 24 staff working there , the solution was to ship people in from all over the area . I got a fair bit of overtime and travelling allowance to work in a store other than my usual one for the week . Equally in retail there is no prohibition on working 15 hours , going home for 9 and coming back in the next day . Whilst it was not ideal . I did stuff like that a few times during my time in retail . It really is no comparrison .Lower pay rates generally also see people more open to working extra hours .

Let’s be honest here, this is equivalent to the ‘blue flu’ police officers come down with when they want better pay and conditions, Covid just makes that excuse easier…

You dont need that when you work in an industry where you can legitimately take industrial action in pursuit of better pay and conditions

Sounds like Avanti need to cross the palms of traincrew with some silver if they expect volunteers on unpopular Sundays then.

As much as this might entice a few , saturdays and sundays are always going to see poorer uptake in overtime . It is not a popular time to want to work .

I am sorry but I do think that they do cancel trains with little or no thought or planning. There doesn't seem to be much careful planning when 3 consecutive trains are cancelled leaving a 4 hour gap in the service & the last train of the day is also cancelled.

What insight do you have to suggest this ? No controller and at that point probably an on call director is going to be thrilled with that situation . But if you have no traincrew then you have no traincrew .

How is people being off sick with a known virus ‘an excuse’ if you’re poorly you’re poorly and that’s what sadly happens in a pandemic which I think everyone appreciates isn’t quite over yet.

Of course we will with time, we don’t still have restrictions from the Spanish Flu 100 years ago do we!

To be honest its not even about being poorly , companies still have policies that you have to isolate if testing positive . Ive known a few people say they'd have been fit to work if not for the policy . Sure many of us will have come into work with cold symptoms .

 

[Dave W]

Much aside from the high rates of infection at the moment (they are astonishingly high)... the Pandemic has influenced people to take time off when ill with any contagious illness (you can decide whether that’s better than going in and spreading it), so it’s likely to have quite an enduring impact on availability.

 

[muz379]

Much aside from the high rates of infection at the moment (they are astonishingly high)... the Pandemic has influenced people to take time off when ill with any contagious illness (you can decide whether that’s better than going in and spreading it), so it’s likely to have quite an enduring impact on availability.

At one point at least at my place there was also no/very little RDW available really because of emergency timetables , its shown people that they can live without working 13 out of 14 days .

 

[Andypandy1968]

That aside, how do you propose Avanti crew a train when the current pandemic is causing a really high spike in sickness? They don’t cancel trains for the sake of it!

To a degree operators can’t win - they reduced train service down to a level that could reliably be crewed (hourly Manchesters etc) but then there was a backlash and lack of capacity so had to put extra services in but with the same level of sickness so now we have ad-hoc cancellations, the most logical solution is if traincrew can’t be rustled up through a magic trick is to revert to a reduced timetable!

Most people with Covid have symptoms of a common cold, there is no longer any requirement to stay off work if you have Covid so why are staff staying home sick with effectively a common cold?

My local supermarket actually does at the moment - the cafe is closed.

It’s a bit quicker to get additional resource off the street and train for a supermarket role compared to something like a train driver.

The closest analogy to Railway crew shortages is aviation and look how the likes of EasyJet, BA and Lufty are struggling with staff shortages.

Only because they abused furlough in laying off too many staff instead of keeping them on the books on 80% pay!

 

[43066]

Most people with Covid have symptoms of a common cold, there is no longer any requirement to stay off work if you have Covid so why are staff staying home sick with effectively a common cold?

Sorry but this is nonsense. People are currently being advised to stay at home if they test positive and if you’re ill, you’re ill. Does your employer immediately sack anybody who calls in sick?! Also, how exactly do you think sacking traincrew will help alleviate a traincrew shortage?

 

[Andypandy1968]

So

Sorry but this is nonsense. People are currently being advised to stay at home if they test positive and if you’re ill, you’re ill. Does your employer immediately sack anybody who calls in sick?! Also, how exactly you think sacking traincrew will help alleviate a traincrew shortage?

Stop this ridiculous testing then, did people previously test for flu when they had the sniffles? Thank god the Govt have ended free testing, it's a perfect excuse for the work shy to take time off.

 

[43066]

Stop this ridiculous testing then, did people previously test for flu when they had the sniffles? Thank god the Govt have ended free testing, it's a perfect excuse for the work shy to take time off.

Well yes, I can certainly agree with you there. Of course free testing has thankfully now ended. But you can’t blame people for following the advice of the government and their employers. The sooner that advice is dropped and we go completely back to normal the better for all industries.

 

[Moonshot]

So

Stop this ridiculous testing then, did people previously test for flu when they had the sniffles? Thank god the Govt have ended free testing, it's a perfect excuse for the work shy to take time off.

I myself will happily take time off at weekends even if nothing wrong with me.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Most people with Covid have symptoms of a common cold, there is no longer any requirement to stay off work if you have Covid so why are staff staying home sick with effectively a common cold?

COVID-19 symptoms and what to do

Find out about the symptoms of COVID-19, what to do if you or your child has them and when to get medical help.

www.nhs.uk

People are simply following Government advice.

 

[voyagerdude220]

My return journey was just dreadful.. supposed to have been on the 1600 ex Rugby to Euston (canx)… the 1641 was a 10 car Voyager (2x5), full to the point people were camped in the toilets.. vestibules stacked to the gills…

No apology for the overcrowding .. just they were a bit late arriving in the capital…

I'm not defending Avanti, but I'm curious as to whether each set had a Train Manager on it.

I've not travelled with Avanti but in Virgin Trains days it wasn't unknown for their to only be one TM on the train.

Were you in the front set?

Cross Country always seem to have a Train Manager in each set, which I think should be the case in my opinion.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Were only the Avanti Liverpool services affected or did Manchester/Glasgow also have cancellations?