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Chiltern Railways train crew shortages

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ForTheLoveOf

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I suppose the thing is, it's not great, and it's solvable (if they put enough money into it, which they won't because the penalties for cancelling a train must be less than the costs of paying staff more or offering a one-off incentive). But because of the frequency of the services for each station, no-one is going to be abandoned to find their own way home, as it might be on a Northern strike day.

Add on the fact that it's not one particular service that just keeps on getting cancelled, and there's a relatively low probably of anyone thinking anything beyond the usual 'oh bother, another train cancellation'.
 
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jimm

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You seem to be ploughing a lone furrow here jimm but I think you are doing a good job! It is amazing we don't hear of more moans from Chiltern customers in the press (at least, I haven't noticed any and I follow the articles about rail with a link*). I wonder if they get them on their twitter site.

*This is the link I use.
https://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/UK/Travel+&+Transport/Rail?type=ln

I'm just waiting for all the posters who demanded early last year that GWR's senior managers should all be fired and the company should employ more drivers - when IET training had been delayed for four months by matters outside GWR's control and staff in Bristol, Westbury, etc were also being trained on cascaded Turbos that should have arrived months earlier, and when GWR had a record number of drivers on the books - to pop up here and start saying the same things about Chiltern.

These sorts of crew-related cancellations on Chiltern have been going on since at least August 2017. There were some dire weekends in August 2018 as well, which did attract the attention of the Oxford Mail:

CHILTERN Railways passengers have deluged train company bosses with angry complaints following a series of cancellations due to staff shortages.
As price rises of 3.2 per cent for next year were announced on some fares, passengers demanded improvements.
During the past fortnight there have been a series of cancellations - many at short notice - and Chiltern bosses pledged the situation would be addressed.

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1...ncelled-at-short-notice-due-to-lack-of-staff/

But the problem spread into late September and early October and has hit them again in recent days. Sickness may play a part but it all looks rather like Chiltern's managers are skating on very thin ice when it comes to the size of the train crew establishment and reliance on rest day volunteers.

More so than, say, GWR, where there have been a handful of crew-linked cancellations over the past couple of weeks. Presumably thanks to the training programme catching up and all those drivers now being available to work trains.

Chiltern down to a couple of non-runners today to start 2019.

2 Train Cancellations
11:10 London Marylebone to Oxford due 12:21
12:37 Oxford to London Marylebone due 13:50
 

Metroman62

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As a user if their services on a Sunday on the Aylesbury line, the cancellations are very annoying. It’s a poor service from mid morning anyway so a cancellation can cause a big delay
 
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