cancelling stops on a running train which is the last service of the day?!

[Tomnick]

You've lost me......

So, if a train driver sets out on time but then has a significant delay (train fault/customer illness etc) that takes them past their break time, he has to stop, regardless ?

Not necessarily, no. That's what I mean, it's a relatively pragmatic approach compared to road transport. Indeed, our breaks can only be taken at agreed locations with suitable facilities, so stopping in the middle of nowhere isn't an option anyway! What I meant is that when you're starting a journey late, and you know that even with a perfect run you'll end up exceeding your continuous driving hours, then it'd be ill-advised to do so without taking the required break first.

 

[Annetts key]

More on the railway working hours here and and on the ORR site

 

[Robertj21a]

Not necessarily, no. That's what I mean, it's a relatively pragmatic approach compared to road transport. Indeed, our breaks can only be taken at agreed locations with suitable facilities, so stopping in the middle of nowhere isn't an option anyway! What I meant is that when you're starting a journey late, and you know that even with a perfect run you'll end up exceeding your continuous driving hours, then it'd be ill-advised to do so without taking the required break first.

Thanks. I think you'll find that it's no difference to buses/lorries. They have strict time limits on driving but can/do exceed them (legally) if it's due to an unplanned emergency, such as traffic gridlock following an accident, vehicle break down etc.

 

[Tomnick]

Thanks. I think you'll find that it's no difference to buses/lorries. They have strict time limits on driving but can/do exceed them (legally) if it's due to an unplanned emergency, such as traffic gridlock following an accident, vehicle break down etc.

I'm no expert on the regulations for road drivers' hours, but from a quick read it seems clear that any exemption due to an "emergency" in that context is only permitted as part of the direct response to the emergency and not the consequences. My interpretation is that, if they're over their hours because of an unforeseen delay, they can carry on only to a suitable stopping point (which is where it presumably becomes a little more subjective). I guess my point is that the drivers and their employers are bound directly by the law, whereas train operators are responsible for agreeing and risk assessing their own rules and procedures.

Ultimately, though, I suppose it is a similar principle. A lorry driver would rightly be penalised if caught over his hours on a journey, having set off knowing that he had no chance of finishing the journey in time. He'd have more flexibility though if he was over his hours because of a delay en-route and hadn't come to a suitable stopping point since.

 

[LAX54]

The next days train running late wouldn't be such an issue as there would be one following it.

Depending on how late the Driver booked off on the previous shift, if there was no one 'spare' available to take it, I have no doubt it would be cancelled, as would the next working of that diagram.

 

[Annetts key]

Depending on how late the Driver booked off on the previous shift, if there was no one 'spare' available to take it, I have no doubt it would be cancelled, as would the next working of that diagram.

There is also a problem that rolling stock may not end up in the ‘right’ place. The first working may result in the train going from A to B. Then the second working from B to C, where a different driver takes over. If the driver that is booked to move the train from A to B does not start their duty in time to move the train from A to B, there is no train at location C for that driver to drive. Unless other arrangements are made, this could affect many services throughout the day. Especially as if a train misses it’s booked timetabled path, either it or other trains will end up being delayed as in some places on some lines, the existing timetable is running the line/infrastructure at maximum capacity.

This is exactly the situation that the train company does not want to occur. Hence they would rather either completely cancel a service or run it fast/non-stop to try to maintain the rest of the timetabled workings.

On the subject of excessive working hours, railway companies have to demonstrate that they took reasonable measures and precautions by having a formal risk assessment done. Including appropriate documentation. If later on an incident occurred, the company could be prosecuted under H&S laws if it could be demonstrated that the company had either not properly carried out a risk assessment or that they had failed to comply with their risk assessment and internal procedures.

Hence most railway companies adopted the former British Railways ‘Hidden’ rules that BR introduced after the formal investigation by Anthony Hidden QC was published (“Investigation into the Clapham Junction Railway Accident” published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, ISBN 0 10 108202 9).

in his report, he makes a total of 93 recommendations. Of these recommendations, number 18 says “BR shall ensure that overtime is monitored so that no individual is working excessive levels of overtime.” And recommendation number 19 says “BR, in conjunction with the Unions, shall introduce the concept of scheduled hours within the Signals and Telecommunications Department in order to make better provision for work which has to be carried out at weekends.”

At the time, the S&T staff had a rostered working week of 39 or 40 hours not including Sundays (which were always overtime, as Sunday was not part of the working week according to the terms and conditions that had been previously agreed with the trade unions). However, it was common practice for many S&T staff to work overtime both beyond their normal hours and to work on their ‘rest’ days including Sundays. There were no limits at the time of the accident on how much overtime could be worked. As working Saturday and Sunday could double an employee’s take home pay, some staff would work all the overtime they could. Meaning no days off for months on end.

In paragraph 8.54 Hidden writes “the Investigation saw sample figures which showed that in the thirteen weeks preceding the accident 28% of the workforce worked seven days every week, another 34% worked thirteen days out of fourteen.”

Paragraph 8.55: “Mr Callander accepted in his evidence that continuous working of seven days a week every week was affecting the ability of the staff in their mental alertness.” “He thought it would be human nature that there would be some slippage of the high standards that the job required.”

 

[Bow Fell]

Can't be many industries which are dependent on employee randomly "agreeing to work" properly. For most of us, telling an employer we'd only work if the days workload was cut would result in a rapid ejection

Think you’ve completely missed the point here.

You've lost me......

So, if a train driver sets out on time but then has a significant delay (train fault/customer illness etc) that takes them past their break time, he has to stop, regardless ?

Not at all, if a member of traincrew suddenly bust their hours on a delayed train, I can guarantee, the chances of them suddenly downing tools, and saying I’m off, is highly, highly unlikely. Traincrew T&C’s often have a “committed hour” built in for service disruption.


It’s in their interests to get to the destination, as they want to get home.

There is a much bigger picture that people miss.

Last train delayed = possession delayed, potential for overrun next morning.

Some of the traincrew diagrams are incredibly tight.

You can have a 0045 finish and potentially be booked on at 1255 for example the next day, not a common occurrence but does happen, end up with a delay on the last train and you can’t book on until you’ve had 12 hours rest, if there’s no spares or standby to cover the part of the job, then it’s a cancellation or late start the next day.

 

[LAX54]

There is also a problem that rolling stock may not end up in the ‘right’ place. The first working may result in the train going from A to B. Then the second working from B to C, where a different driver takes over. If the driver that is booked to move the train from A to B does not start their duty in time to move the train from A to B, there is no train at location C for that driver to drive. Unless other arrangements are made, this could affect many services throughout the day. Especially as if a train misses it’s booked timetabled path, either it or other trains will end up being delayed as in some places on some lines, the existing timetable is running the line/infrastructure at maximum capacity.

This is exactly the situation that the train company does not want to occur. Hence they would rather either completely cancel a service or run it fast/non-stop to try to maintain the rest of the timetabled workings.

On the subject of excessive working hours, railway companies have to demonstrate that they took reasonable measures and precautions by having a formal risk assessment done. Including appropriate documentation. If later on an incident occurred, the company could be prosecuted under H&S laws if it could be demonstrated that the company had either not properly carried out a risk assessment or that they had failed to comply with their risk assessment and internal procedures.

Hence most railway companies adopted the former British Railways ‘Hidden’ rules that BR introduced after the formal investigation by Anthony Hidden QC was published (“Investigation into the Clapham Junction Railway Accident” published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, ISBN 0 10 108202 9).

in his report, he makes a total of 93 recommendations. Of these recommendations, number 18 says “BR shall ensure that overtime is monitored so that no individual is working excessive levels of overtime.” And recommendation number 19 says “BR, in conjunction with the Unions, shall introduce the concept of scheduled hours within the Signals and Telecommunications Department in order to make better provision for work which has to be carried out at weekends.”

At the time, the S&T staff had a rostered working week of 39 or 40 hours not including Sundays (which were always overtime, as Sunday was not part of the working week according to the terms and conditions that had been previously agreed with the trade unions). However, it was common practice for many S&T staff to work overtime both beyond their normal hours and to work on their ‘rest’ days including Sundays. There were no limits at the time of the accident on how much overtime could be worked. As working Saturday and Sunday could double an employee’s take home pay, some staff would work all the overtime they could. Meaning no days off for months on end.

In paragraph 8.54 Hidden writes “the Investigation saw sample figures which showed that in the thirteen weeks preceding the accident 28% of the workforce worked seven days every week, another 34% worked thirteen days out of fourteen.”

Paragraph 8.55: “Mr Callander accepted in his evidence that continuous working of seven days a week every week was affecting the ability of the staff in their mental alertness.” “He thought it would be human nature that there would be some slippage of the high standards that the job required.”

Indeed, some Colchester diagrams after arrival at Liverpool Street, go to Southend, then London, then Braintree, all those would be at risk.

Think you’ve completely missed the point here.



Not at all, if a member of traincrew suddenly bust their hours on a delayed train, I can guarantee, the chances of them suddenly downing tools, and saying I’m off, is highly, highly unlikely. Traincrew T&C’s often have a “committed hour” built in for service disruption.


It’s in their interests to get to the destination, as they want to get home.

There is a much bigger picture that people miss.

Last train delayed = possession delayed, potential for overrun next morning.

Some of the traincrew diagrams are incredibly tight.

You can have a 0045 finish and potentially be booked on at 1255 for example the next day, not a common occurrence but does happen, end up with a delay on the last train and you can’t book on until you’ve had 12 hours rest, if there’s no spares or standby to cover the part of the job, then it’s a cancellation or late start the next day.

Engieering work, as passenger trains run later and later, and the first start earlier, the time for engineering is down to a minimum, taking Colchester to London as an example, the last train arrives at 0200 and the first is at 0445, you can work around some, and go bi-di in places, but an overall late start on a block, you either curtail work with a possible ESR as a result or overrun.

 

[talltim]

Think you’ve completely missed the point here.



Not at all, if a member of traincrew suddenly bust their hours on a delayed train, I can guarantee, the chances of them suddenly downing tools, and saying I’m off, is highly, highly unlikely. Traincrew T&C’s often have a “committed hour” built in for service disruption.


It’s in their interests to get to the destination, as they want to get home.

There is a much bigger picture that people miss.

Last train delayed = possession delayed, potential for overrun next morning.

Some of the traincrew diagrams are incredibly tight.

You can have a 0045 finish and potentially be booked on at 1255 for example the next day, not a common occurrence but does happen, end up with a delay on the last train and you can’t book on until you’ve had 12 hours rest, if there’s no spares or standby to cover the part of the job, then it’s a cancellation or late start the next day.

That’s poor planning then.

 

[OldNick]

That’s poor planning then.

The people doing the planning plan the most resilient service they can with the staff, trains and timetables they have.

Ultimately though, they aren't the people with the purse strings to hire more staff that would allow more flexibility in situations with close to hidden working hours.

 

[bb21]

That’s poor planning then.

Which bit of it is poor planning may I ask?

 

[Horizon22]

Not at all, if a member of traincrew suddenly bust their hours on a delayed train, I can guarantee, the chances of them suddenly downing tools, and saying I’m off, is highly, highly unlikely. Traincrew T&C’s often have a “committed hour” built in for service disruption.

It’s in their interests to get to the destination, as they want to get home.

There is a much bigger picture that people miss.

Last train delayed = possession delayed, potential for overrun next morning.

Some of the traincrew diagrams are incredibly tight.

You can have a 0045 finish and potentially be booked on at 1255 for example the next day, not a common occurrence but does happen, end up with a delay on the last train and you can’t book on until you’ve had 12 hours rest, if there’s no spares or standby to cover the part of the job, then it’s a cancellation or late start the next day.

Plus Control can - in limited circumstances - authorise crew to go over 12 hours. This is normally after serious service disruption and they are travelling back to their home depot anyway. It then becomes an issue for the following day in that circumstance and most resourcing teams won't be so stretched that they can't cover the first turn for the crew impacted the previous night.

 

[BoroAndy]

Plus Control can - in limited circumstances - authorise crew to go over 12 hours. This is normally after serious service disruption and they are travelling back to their home depot anyway. It then becomes an issue for the following day in that circumstance and most resourcing teams won't be so stretched that they can't cover the first turn for the crew impacted the previous night.

There seems to be an order of precedence on which rules get broken. Surely from a pragmatic point of view, if you are due to finish at 0045 and restart at 1255, but you overrun to 0115, then you would still start at 1255 to stop potential cancellations, or is this 100% forbidden?

 

[Annetts key]

There seems to be an order of precedence on which rules get broken. Surely from a pragmatic point of view, if you are due to finish at 0045 and restart at 1255, but you overrun to 0115, then you would still start at 1255 to stop potential cancellations, or is this 100% forbidden?

For most staff, the company cannot force you to have less than 12 hours rest. Some staff can however choose to have less than 12 hours rest. Exactly which rules apply depends on the terms and conditions that the staff are on, and on the company standards that the member of staff works for.

If staff do work more than 12 hours (and by this, I mean be on duty for more than 12 hours), in some cases staff can also ask the company to provide transport to take them home if they are unfit to drive or there is no suitable public transport.

 

[skyhigh]

There seems to be an order of precedence on which rules get broken. Surely from a pragmatic point of view, if you are due to finish at 0045 and restart at 1255, but you overrun to 0115, then you would still start at 1255 to stop potential cancellations, or is this 100% forbidden?

Depends on precise terms and conditions as @Annetts key says. At our place traincrew must have 12hrs between duties, no exceptions.

 

[Val3ntine]

There seems to be an order of precedence on which rules get broken. Surely from a pragmatic point of view, if you are due to finish at 0045 and restart at 1255, but you overrun to 0115, then you would still start at 1255 to stop potential cancellations, or is this 100% forbidden?

You have to also remember the overrun/late finish may have been necessary due to being literally stuck out on the line somewhere due to a fatality or something, and also then to need to get the train back to a suitable location etc. Very different to purposefully breaking the rules putting operational convenience over safety which is a big no no and hence why the industry has such a good safe reputation and hopefully continues to do so.
Examples like not having the full rest between duties, or even starting a new journey when it is clearly obvious it will incur delays which will most certainly break hours just don’t happen. Where it can’t be helped in the first instance is very different.

 

[Qwerty133]

Which bit of it is poor planning may I ask?

I'd assume the scheduling of train crew that allows for them to have issues with being able to do the next day's duty if there last train is as little as 10 minutes late. Really shouldn't be that complicated to have a 30-45 minute difference between the permitted minimum of 12 hours and the planned for minimum to stop such small delays causing issues. It's almost as though the desire not to give people the exceptionally late finishes the day before a rest day is seen as more important than service resilience.

 

[bb21]

I'd assume the scheduling of train crew that allows for them to have issues with being able to do the next day's duty if there last train is as little as 10 minutes late. Really shouldn't be that complicated to have a 30-45 minute difference between the permitted minimum of 12 hours and the planned for minimum to stop such small delays causing issues. It's almost as though the desire not to give people the exceptionally late finishes the day before a rest day is seen as more important than service resilience.

There is a huge amount of pressure on efficiency drives and getting maximum productivity out of traincrew so it is inevitable sometimes you will run into situations where crew are booked for barely over minimum rest periods allowed. Not saying this happens all the time but it is an inevitable consequence from time to time.

Adding more cushion into diagrams costs money.

Spares are supposed to be available to cover for such cases, but again spares cost money and some depots are small establishments anyway so spares may not be easy to roster, especially after a big disruption the day before. Even when you have available spares they may be required for other tasks.

Not as simple as just saying poor planning. Resources are limited.

 

[Qwerty133]

There is a huge amount of pressure on efficiency drives and getting maximum productivity out of traincrew so it is inevitable sometimes you will run into situations where crew are booked for barely over minimum rest periods allowed. Not saying this happens all the time but it is an inevitable consequence from time to time.

Adding more cushion into diagrams costs money.

Spares are supposed to be available to cover for such cases, but again spares cost money and some depots are small establishments anyway so spares may not be easy to roster, especially after a big disruption the day before. Even when you have available spares they may be required for other tasks.

Not as simple as just saying poor planning. Resources are limited.

Rest periods within shifts will cost money if they are extended but this is on about rest periods between shifts (as in when the staff involved are off the clock and not working) which should not as it shouldn't have any impact on the shifts themselves other than a few tweaks as to the ordering of shifts throughout a roster period. Implementing a policy of giving 12 hours 45 minutes between the planned end of one shift and the start of the next in order to give a buffer at the end of a shift before the next days workings can be affected should not have any impact on cost and should be quite easy to achieve at most depots (albeit in many cases requiring some of the latest finishes to be the day before a rest day and in others it may mean that extremely early starts or extremely late finishes will occur on consecutive days more frequently).

 

[bb21]

Rest periods within shifts will cost money if they are extended but this is on about rest periods between shifts (as in when the staff involved are off the clock and not working) which should not as it shouldn't have any impact on the shifts themselves other than a few tweaks as to the ordering of shifts throughout a roster period. Implementing a policy of giving 12 hours 45 minutes between the planned end of one shift and the start of the next in order to give a buffer at the end of a shift before the next days workings can be affected should not have any impact on cost and should be quite easy to achieve at most depots (albeit in many cases requiring some of the latest finishes to be the day before a rest day and in others it may mean that extremely early starts or extremely late finishes will occur on consecutive days more frequently).

You are assuming the shifts align perfectly. They don't. They are planned on the basis of 12 hour minimum rest periods so guaranteeing 12.75 hours will reduce rostering flexibility on the same schedules and inevitably efficiency, therefore cost. This isn't to say it will always cost more, but working out the additional cost is going to be fairly tricky for complex operations, if not impossible. Add to that you may encounter situations where uncovered turns can only be covered by rest day crew who may only have 12 hours 2 minutes between shifts (as I have experienced this personally). Do you propose in such cases these trains are cancelled because there is no one else to work it? If we go by your suggestion without any corresponding rostering changes these trains will have to either be cancelled (costs money) or delayed by 43 minutes (Delay Repay - cost).

Why stop at 12.75 hours? Plenty of incidents on the network cause delays of over 2 hours so shall we stipulate a minimum threshold of 14 hours instead?

Of course in my experience cases of minimum rest periods between shifts tend to be less common for traincrew than for Pway staff, but my point still stands. What problem are you trying to solve and is the potential benefit worth the additional cost?

 

[Horizon22]

Overall these are of course fairly rare experiences - not uncommon but most of the time juggling happens behind the scenes so that passengers aren't noticeably affected.

 

[bb21]

Absolutely. Delayed finish one day knocking on to the following day's turn happens quite rarely unless the disruption is very extensive, so it really isn't such a big issue which required special attention, and on the rare occasions when they do happen, some behind-the-scenes shuffling normally takes place and only a subset of that causes customers inconvenience. It is impossible to eliminate that risk entirely wherever you draw the line but things generally work fine as they stand.

No doubt some clever reshuffling of traincrew diagrams can still produce further efficiency improvements with the same (or less) resources even with an extended minimum rest period, but that would still be the case without messing around with the current 12-hour stipulation.

 

[Dieseldriver]

I'd assume the scheduling of train crew that allows for them to have issues with being able to do the next day's duty if there last train is as little as 10 minutes late. Really shouldn't be that complicated to have a 30-45 minute difference between the permitted minimum of 12 hours and the planned for minimum to stop such small delays causing issues. It's almost as though the desire not to give people the exceptionally late finishes the day before a rest day is seen as more important than service resilience.

As a Driver I’ve always thought that a nice condition (instead of a pay rise for example) would be a rule that means you have to be rostered at least a 13 1/2 hour rest period between shifts. It would help align shifts a bit better on a block of work, give you more quality time at home between shifts and also as a side benefit would leave more of a buffer to alleviate the issues of finishing your previous shift late on the occasions where it could impact the next day (for example, if you had 13 1/2 hours rest, you could book off 90 minutes late and still be ok to work your shift the following day).
Would benefit the company for service recovery and would benefit the employee in my opinion.