Avanti's serial cancellations of last trains

[gazzaa2]

Kind of understand people's frustration.

Golden rules of the railway now being routinely broken - eg. you just don't cancel the last train of the night (unless nuclear strike / volcano / asteroid).

You used to accept there was a chance the last train might not run (or the train could break down etc) but it would be due to extreme circumstances with a contingency likely in place. It's normalised now.

 

[dk1]

For clarity (perhaps this was clear, perhaps this wasn't), I meant that e.g. a 20.00 should still run, but have its departure time delayed by control by 60 mins to cater for a cancelled 21.00. The driver would still be operating the service they are booked for, no different from if the service was delayed by 60 mins because of reasons outside a train operator's control, such as signalling problems.

The union would be all over that like a rash. Drivers or Train Managers once realising this underhanded enforced overtime would suddenly have a sickness bug making themselves unfit to work such train forward.

 

[AndrewE]

The whole "scab" culture is something that should be left back in the 1980s where it belongs. If it still exists today it needs stamping out because it did the TU movement no favours, and caused way more damage than it solved.

So how do you deal with the situation where the union members in a workplace organise and make sacrifices to get changes to unfair T&Cs, poor pay or the victimisation of one member while the rest of the workforce make no contribution but benefit from any changes gained? You can't expect sweetness and light and universal brotherly love in the aftermath of such events.

There are companies and industries where H&S reps have been systematically targeted and harrassed out, simply for doing what the management should have been doing anyway.

 

[185]

My reading of how discussions went pear shaped.. the usual FG negotiation tactics, previously seen at their other tocs didn't quite work at this firm, like most other tocs they've been heavily reliant on goodwill - staff working overtime & rdw to keep the job moving for years.

TOCs prefer using overtime & keeping Sundays outside the week - it's far cheaper than employing the right number of staff.

 

[Agent_Squash]

My reading of how discussions went pear shaped.. the usual FG negotiation tactics, previously seen at their other tocs didn't quite work at this firm, like most other tocs they've been heavily reliant on goodwill - staff working overtime & rdw to keep the job moving for years.

TOCs prefer using overtime & keeping Sundays outside the week - it's far cheaper than employing the right number of staff.

Dare I say it, did the move from Virgin to First impact on the ‘prestige’ of the job?

Lots of staff were ‘proud’ to be part of Virgin, at least publicly. Not seen the same under Avanti.

 

[duncanp]

It's currently a poor service which will only get worse. Should really cut services down to 1 per hour out on both Birmingham and Manchester routes......and charge premium fares to cut down on overcrowding

Cutting services to one per hour and increasing fares isn't exactly going to encourage people to travel by train, although I do accept that the timetable needs to be altered so that a reduced service can be operated more reliably with the resources available.

Avanti have already increased fares by restricting the availability of advance fares, or only releasing those fares a short time before the travel date.

The longer this goes on for, the more people are going to stop using the train for leisure travel, which will ultimately be to the detriment of all those working in the rail industry.

 

[express93]

When the working relationship between the frontline and a company break down (and I don’t mean in relation to pay) you ultimately lose the goodwill of your workforce - sadly this is the result of this.

 

[43066]

For clarity (perhaps this was clear, perhaps this wasn't), I meant that e.g. a 20.00 should still run, but have its departure time delayed by control by 60 mins to cater for a cancelled 21.00. The driver would still be operating the service they are booked for, no different from if the service was delayed by 60 mins because of reasons outside a train operator's control, such as signalling problems.

In which case the crew would be entitled to refuse to work the train after its booked departure time. If it was me I would offer to work it at the booked time, or take it ECS if the unit was needed in London and there was no guard. Failing that: “I’m now too tired to work the train. I’ll therefore need a taxi back to London please and, if I’m three hours late back, I’ll be in three hours late for my shift tomorrow”.

Not my problem. Has no bearing on my opinion.

If you worked in train crew resourcing a lack of goodwill would *rapidly* become your problem. It’s interesting that your “solutions” here only involve trying to bully the staff on the ground rather than addressing the root cause of the problem - not enough staff in the first place.

The whole "scab" culture is something that should be left back in the 1980s where it belongs. If it still exists today it needs stamping out because it did the TU movement no favours, and caused way more damage than it solved.

You’re never going to get around the “problem” of people who undermine their colleagues finding themselves with few friends in the workplace. The best solution is not to do it in the first place.

 

[duncanp]

When the working relationship between the frontline and a company break down (and I don’t mean in relation to pay) you ultimately lose the goodwill of your workforce - sadly this is the result of this.

You only have to look at the "planned" cancellations for today to realise that the service has completely and utterly broken down.

I feel sorry for those who are in London for the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, who are going to turn up at Euston this evening only to find that very few trains are running, and those that Avanti do condescend to run will be severely overcrowded.

From a passengers point of view, it doesn't matter what the cause of the cancellations are.

It may be true that Avanti have lost the goodwill of their workforce, but they have also lost the goodwill of their customers, on whom their business depends.

I have cancelled a trip from Birmingham to London next week on Avanti for this very reason.

 

[Howardh]

When the working relationship between the frontline and a company break down (and I don’t mean in relation to pay) you ultimately lose the goodwill of your workforce - sadly this is the result of this.

I agree with you but really we need proof of that. I've met good Avanti personel and I've met those who are, let's say, disinterested. Everyone seemed to enjoy working with Virgin, but those are anacdotes from a passenger on the outside. I don't enjoy travelling Avanti even though they are the same stock as Virgin.

How close are we to the government removing their contract if they can't fulfil a service? (And handing it back to Virgin or even LNW??)

 

[Failed Unit]

Do we know how it is impacting alternative operators.

Are Chiltern, London midland
, LNER and EMR are benefiting? Although crossing the pennies is not the best now.

 

[Howardh]

Do we know how it is impacting alternative operators.

Are Chiltern, London midland
, LNER and EMR are benefiting? Although crossing the pennies is not the best now.

No doubt they are, but as you rightly say the escape route across the Pennines was virtually cut off this weekend. I checked all the TPE trains and every one had "sold out" next to the time, dunno if that's true or they were simply trying to keep passengers away from the trains that did run.

 

[duncanp]

Do we know how it is impacting alternative operators.

Are Chiltern, London midland
, LNER and EMR are benefiting? Although crossing the pennies is not the best now.

I have just had a look at Chiltern, and so far all services out of Marylebone are running this morning as planned.

Looking at the live departures board for Euston, the only cancellations are for Avanti.

 

[talltim]

Why is it always the last trains of the day? Surely the roster team should be making sure that crews are available for these, at the expense of leaving gaps earlier in the day.
If there is a pattern of the crews rostered for the last trains going sick, then that starts to look like skiving.

 

[LowLevel]

Dare I say it, did the move from Virgin to First impact on the ‘prestige’ of the job?

Lots of staff were ‘proud’ to be part of Virgin, at least publicly. Not seen the same under Avanti.

The behaviour of Avanti doesn't help.

They're constantly having industrial relations dust ups.

Imposition of rosters. Dismissals. Sending their in house cleaners to work for a contractor whilst cheerfully telling them they'll be losing their railway pensions and all travel facilities including internal group/company ones.

The list goes on. If you've gone from working for Virgin, who whether they really meant it or not hung a lot on staff image to this particular shower then I'd be thoroughly uninterested too.

I'd be going out of my way to be uncooperative too just on the basis of how they've treated their cleaners.

 

[ComUtoR]

For clarity (perhaps this was clear, perhaps this wasn't), I meant that e.g. a 20.00 should still run, but have its departure time delayed by control by 60 mins to cater for a cancelled 21.00. The driver would still be operating the service they are booked for, no different from if the service was delayed by 60 mins because of reasons outside a train operator's control, such as signalling problems.

How then do you deal with the problem of that Driver being booked to work the next day and now their first train work being cancelled because they needed 12hrs off ?

Not my problem.

It clearly is your problem. The passengers are affected and can either sit there and take it or do something about it. Take your complaints to some who can actually do something about it or advocate on your behalf. Moaning about it achieves nothing.

Has no bearing on my opinion.

So you would still have the same opinion if the railway was run different and all services were running ?

 

[Bantamzen]

The being ‘sent to Coventry’ is often worse. I know of people who have broken strikes who still only get spoken to where it’s essential safety critical conversations only & that even years later still do not sit in the same messroom as everyone else. That’s not always a bad thing however lol.

If people still behave like this then quite frankly they need to grow up. I'm sorry to say this but the whole of the rail industry from management to staff need to take a good long hard look at themselves if this is the culture that prevails. Because if they don't they just might all find themselves on the sharp end of government cuts.

 

[class397tpe]

It's currently a poor service which will only get worse. Should really cut services down to 1 per hour out on both Birmingham and Manchester routes......and charge premium fares to cut down on overcrowding

Please don't turn it into crosscountry....

Then again, crosscountry have been pretty damn reliable the past couple of months

No doubt they are, but as you rightly say the escape route across the Pennines was virtually cut off this weekend. I checked all the TPE trains and every one had "sold out" next to the time, dunno if that's true or they were simply trying to keep passengers away from the trains that did run.

Yeah TPE's weekend service has collapsed catastrophically

 

[jayah]

I often see this on the home or journey check page of the TOC in question with the green tick. then when you scroll down to individual lines of said TOC performances it often says 4 or 5 cancelled trains today. So does it need to be a certain percentage of trains of the overall daily timetable to trigger "severe disruption" ? Sometimes it just looks like they are telling porkie pies. Or am I just misunderstanding how it works?

Goodness knows.

EMR have this by line of route.

Liverpool to Norwich is described as a good service with minor alterations.

This means one full cancellation and three more not running either north or south of Nottingham including 1751 ex Liverpool not going beyond Nottingham.

Not my idea of minor alterations.

 

[muz379]

Why is it always the last trains of the day? Surely the roster team should be making sure that crews are available for these, at the expense of leaving gaps earlier in the day.
If there is a pattern of the crews rostered for the last trains going sick, then that starts to look like skiving.

Spares at the extreme end of a depots booking on/off times often have less spare coverage and depending on the agreements with regards marking from spare might be the last to he covered.

If they have a less common diversion in they can be extremely difficult to cover . Especially if you haven't been able to train anyone on that uncommon bit of route for two years because of covid.

 

[jayah]

You’re never going to get around the “problem” of people who undermine their colleagues finding themselves with few friends in the workplace. The best solution is not to do it in the first place.

There are all manner of contemporary HR policies that would sweep this away.

Very few modern employers would tolerate ostracising other employees, as per it belongs in the 1980s.

 

[Failed Unit]

I have just had a look at Chiltern, and so far all services out of Marylebone are running this morning as planned.

Looking at the live departures board for Euston, the only cancellations are for Avanti.

I have heard Chiltern are suffering from overcrowding as are EMR. But not sure if that is with passenger refugees, or there own issues. EMR for example is absorbing TPE and their own short forms yet alone trying to take London- Manchester passengers (which I suspect probably are already to late for last trains). Even London - Glasgow you struggle to get from Edinburgh if you use LNER. The perfect storm.

 

[D1537]

Regarding last trains, perhaps someone could explain how you get the situation from last night when the last four southbound ex-Scotland trains (and six in total after 17:00) were cancelled at Preston.

Two of the Birmingham trains - which presumably must be booked Birmingham/Oxley crews, as there are no return journeys back north - ran ECS, one to Wolves and one to Oxley. So there were drivers for these, but presumably no guards. So where did the accompanying Midlands guards for these go (especially as there were no accompanying northbound cancellations from Brum or Euston which could have been in diagram).

 

[dk1]

Why is it always the last trains of the day? Surely the roster team should be making sure that crews are available for these, at the expense of leaving gaps earlier in the day.
If there is a pattern of the crews rostered for the last trains going sick, then that starts to look like skiving.

But if the last trains aren’t covered why would any of the earlier crews agree to come off roster & cover them when working to rule. This is the whole point of it. There is no ‘good will’ when a dispute is in place.

 

[Watershed]

Spares at the extreme end of a depots booking on/off times often have less spare coverage and depending on the agreements with regards marking from spare might be the last to he covered.

If they have a less common diversion in they can be extremely difficult to cover . Especially if you haven't been able to train anyone on that uncommon bit of route for two years because of covid.

There's nothing uncommon about the routes of these trains that have been cancelled - bread and butter Preston to London and London to Manchester.

Regarding last trains, perhaps someone could explain how you get the situation from last night when the last four southbound ex-Scotland trains (and six in total after 17:00) were cancelled at Preston.

Two of the Birmingham trains - which presumably must be booked Birmingham/Oxley crews, as there are no return journeys back north - ran ECS, one to Wolves and one to Oxley. So there were drivers for these, but presumably no guards. So where did the accompanying Midlands guards for these go (especially as there were no accompanying northbound cancellations from Brum or Euston which could have been in diagram).

Avanti don't have a Birmingham or Oxley traincrew depot, it's just Wolverhampton nowadays

Not all of their diagrams are simple out and back ones either. Some involve passing between Preston/Liverpool/Manchester for example.

It's also possible that someone agreed to cover an earlier northbound service but only if they could pass back on the next train south, or that the hours of spares dictated that certain services could be covered but not later ones.

 

[muz379]

There are all manner of contemporary HR policies that would sweep this away.

Very few modern employers would tolerate ostracising other employees, as per it belongs in the 1980s.

This has been done to death on this forum before. There's no amount of HR policies that can make someone do a shift/rest day/ annual leave swap with someone they don't wish to , there's no amount of HR policies that can make someone speak to a colleague they don't want to (outside of what's required in the JD) , there's no amount of HR policies that can make someone offer to cover the back end of someone's job so they can get an early finish .

Anyone that works in the industry will know that it's the little things above that can make the job a slightly easier place to work.

It's not a single location job where you are sat next to the person for 8 hours of the day and can be construed to have "ostracized" them by ignoring them . You can go weeks or months without seeing someone .

 

[irish_rail]

If people still behave like this then quite frankly they need to grow up. I'm sorry to say this but the whole of the rail industry from management to staff need to take a good long hard look at themselves if this is the culture that prevails. Because if they don't they just might all find themselves on the sharp end of government cuts.

The problem is if traincrew are forever "helping out " it will end in tears. Its nothing to do with attitudes its more to do with safety.

A few years ago a certain driver at Plymouth agreed to work the sleepers from Plymouth right through to London. Thats way over his driving hours due to the amount of time the sleeper takes to get from Plymouth to London. Next day, fatigued, he went out and had a SPAD and that was the end of him as a driver. Another driver at Plymouth recently did a Gunnislake trip followed by a London trip all in one shift! Yes he's helped the company out but I dread to think how tired he must have been after that and he's putting his career on the line for what? If he cocks up the company will be quick to give him the boot if necessary.

So this isn't about outdated attitudes but traincrew sticking to their agreed terms and conditions for the benefit of safety!

 

[ExpressTrain]

I was booked on the 17:40 Glasgow train as far as Crewe yesterday, as part of an Edinburgh - Shrewsbury journey, splitting in Crewe. Booked via Glasgow as the advance price was very reasonable compared to the Edinburgh direct services where no advances were advertised. Enquired with Avanti twitter to see if I could just come back direct from Edinburgh on the 16:52 since the 17:40 was now terminating short. Didn't seem too unreasonable to me as my ticket was Avanti and connections and there were no trains south from Preston if we stayed on the 17:40. But no, options were leave an hour earlier to get the 16:40 from Glasgow which would make an extra stop or get 17:40 to Preston and then "road transport" (bus? taxi?) from there. Decided to get the earlier train from Glasgow, but when the TM announced the stops, Crewe wasn't mentioned. Asked when he came around, said he wasn't aware so we wouldn't be stopping, and to change at Preston instead. Yup, that would be changing onto the train from Edinburgh! He announced the same thing on approach to Preston, I took a punt and stayed on knowing I could bail in Warrington if needs be. New TM boarded at Preston and announced we would be stopping after all, very helpful for everyone who got off at Preston unnecessarily.

In fairness, the rail fare was cheap but it felt like Avanti were deliberately making things difficult last night and I wonder if flying to Birmingham would have been a better choice.

 

[172101]

I've heard avanti have asked / paid other tocs to run there services to save cancellation fine, it's interesting if its actually true. Its can help fudge there performance figures.

I understand that Avanti have a standing agreement with TPE where both companies help each other out with extra stops north of Preston, I suppose this means they don't pay each other anything, as some days nearly all the EDB services have extra stops added and when there are GLC/EDB cancellations TPE have extra stops added (If they are running any).

 

[mmh]

Euston is currently deserted, as it was at 1000 this morning. Where’s the incredibly busy come from?

There's this little event on. Something to do with the Royal Family I believe?