GWR Shortage of Traincrew Weekend and During Week

[Minilad]

Well, in my job we’d say ‘an increased number of staff on annual leave’ but GWR could explain the situation about volunteers working Sundays because I’m not sure many members of the public know that the railway runs on volunteers on Sunday. IMO if you have a timetabled service, you are agreeing to run it - you should have staff allocated to it. Also, it’s been listed in other news articles that many other TOCs plan to run a normal service, so if it was down to those three things only, surely it’d apply everywhere?

I’m also not sure I’d agree about trains being quieter in the summer holidays. The morning commuter ones may be, but the ones that run throughout the day are usually full of kids and/or their families heading for a day out. The evening peak is usually just as busy with commuters and shoppers returning home, from my observations.

Remember not all TOCs have Sunday work outside. Some, including mine, have committed Sundays so they are less likely to have the same issues.

 

[FGW_DID]

Well, in my job we’d say ‘an increased number of staff on annual leave’ but GWR could explain the situation about volunteers working Sundays because I’m not sure many members of the public know that the railway runs on volunteers on Sunday.

I must admit that I was gobsmacked when I first joined the railway (especially coming from the military) and found out that people could choose not to work their rostered Sundays! At my station, there was a local agreement that if you were rostered a Sunday you worked it (time 1/2) but at the next station down, there was no such agreement and they were frequently short staffed if not unstaffed. RDW was always being offered to our staff to go and cover there!
What a way to run a railway!

 

[Antman]

Sorry but this is really very poor. It's high time Sundays were included in the working week and this should have been a franchise requirement. Relying on volunteers at a time when Sunday timetables are being improved is a ludicrous way of working. This on top of all the strikes and the timetable debacle in May. Is it true that only Northern and Great Western are affected? If you work on the railways then you know trains run on Sundays.

My thoughts exactly, no wonder the rail industry gets so much bad press, can you imagine any other industry being run this way?

I don't blame staff, I wouldn't have been volunteering to work today with the possibility of England being in the world cup final.

 

[jimm]

I must admit that I was gobsmacked when I first joined the railway (especially coming from the military) and found out that people could choose not to work their rostered Sundays! At my station, there was a local agreement that if you were rostered a Sunday you worked it (time 1/2) but at the next station down, there was no such agreement and they were frequently short staffed if not unstaffed. RDW was always being offered to our staff to go and cover there!
What a way to run a railway!

Except that if you look at the kind of Sunday services there used to be, the timetables were often so sparse that you could get by perfectly well with a few volunteers - the entire Cotswold Line service on a Sunday in the mid-1960s was four trains each way, only serving Kingham, Moreton-in-Marsh, Evesham and Pershore between Oxford and Worcester, and that remained the same for a long time bar the addition of calls at Charlbury. Nowadays there are 13 services to London and 12 the other way, requiring a whole different level of staffing.

Or there was no service at all - there were no Sunday trains on the Huddersfield-Sheffield route for many years until, I think, 1988, when a limited service in the afternoon was started - that route now runs hourly from 09.00 until just after 19.00.

Clearly contract arrangements have not kept up with a changing railway, but I would expect the direct award franchise currently being negotiated for GWR will include a requirement to bring in contracts that bring Sundays into the working week on GWR for all staff - I believe that new recruits cannot opt out of their rostered Sundays anyway - but there will be a deal to be done with the unions and it will come with a price tag attached, so a change won't be happening overnight.

Though hopefully once the GW area emerges from the current maelstrom of electrification, resignalling, other engineering schemes such as Filton Bank, new/cascaded trains and staff training to operate them, things will settle down again anyway.

 

[43055]

Your CrossCountry train will go via Stroud (not necessarily stopping at Gloucester) due to engineering works at the area of Bristol Parkway.

Respect to Swindon, the bus station and the train station are separated just by 200 yards (3-minute walk), so you won't have any problem to change from one station to the other in case you need.

Bus station is under five minutes walk. If you leave the station, cross over the road and walk straight ahead, you'll see it on your left.

The 55 has modern and comfortable vehicles (with working aircon!). Far comfier than the IETs, just a shame the journey time takes longer.

Thank you both. At least it is not a 10 to 15 min work like Derby. I'll just have to see what it is like when I get there.

 

[PHILIPE]

Listening to Radio 2 in the car earlier, the news reported 170 cancellations on Northern but nothing about GWR which is not getting the publicity it should.

 

[PHILIPE]

It's not much comfort to passengers who find a train that's running to discover two consecutive trains, 0930 Paddington to Carmarthen and 1030 Paddington to Swansea are 5 vice 10 IETs. Shown on Boards as "Full and Standing".

 

[Cardiff123]

It's not much comfort to passengers who find a train that's running to discover two consecutive trains, 0930 Paddington to Carmarthen and 1030 Paddington to Swansea are 5 vice 10 IETs. Shown on Boards as "Full and Standing".

Surely GWR could be using the 9 car IETs that they have available to them in service today? As I'm guessing 5 car IETs are running to save on staffing levels.

The arguments in this thread sum up exactly what's wrong with the way the rail industry deals with Sundays. Sunday working on most TOCs is stuck in the mid-20th Century when we are two decades into the 21st.

I can't think of any other industry providing a 7 day public service that operates on a 6 day week, where it's up to you whether you want to work on the 7th day. I'm not advocating fewer rest days or staff leave, I'm advocating enough staff to provide a 7 day service.

If it means more money needs to be spent through subsidy, slightly higher fares, or less TOC profit, to bring Sundays into the 21st Century, so be it. Obviously we'll need a different flavour of government in Westminster to achieve this, one that is willing to spend money on public services for overall social good.
It'll be interesting to see how Keilos Amey deal with providing the 61% increase in Sunday services promised on the new Wales & Borders franchise. The fact that the Sunday service increases aren't coming in until 2022-2024 suggests they'll be recruiting staff with Sundays as part of the working week.

Sundays going into the 3rd decade of the 21st Century cannot realistically continue to run with mid-20th Century working practices.

 

[theironroad]

Love this thread.

Reminds me of all the fuss about junior doctors who went on strike because they would have to have Saturdays incorporated into their working week with no more financial premium.

 

[jimm]

Listening to Radio 2 in the car earlier, the news reported 170 cancellations on Northern but nothing about GWR which is not getting the publicity it should.

Not exactly.

Hundreds of train cancellations blamed on World Cup final
Staff shortages at Northern, GWR and CrossCountry also down to heatwave, bosses say

Hundreds of trains have been cancelled or delayed owing to staff shortages blamed on the World Cup and hot weather.

Great Western Railway (GWR), Northern and CrossCountry services were disrupted on Sunday as fewer train crews than normal agreed to work.

There was a chance that England could have been playing in the World Cup final at 4pm, until the team lost on Wednesday.

GWR issued a statement on Friday warning of disruption because there would be a “significantly reduced number of available staff” due to factors including the World Cup final, the spell of warm weather and the start of the school holidays.

But a spokesman for the operator said on Sunday that more staff than expected had been available to work, meaning about 95% of services were running and 35 out of 850 trains were cancelled.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...els-170-train-services-with-staff-unavailable

 

[PHILIPE]

Not exactly.



https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...els-170-train-services-with-staff-unavailable

Must have heard something different because what I listened to also mentioned the new GTR Timetable

 

[Tim456]

Only 35 trains cancelled?!?!

Think it was more than that if GWR’s Journey Check page is to be believed.

 

[jimm]

Maybe all the BBC transport reporters have also taken the day off to watch the World Cup final/tennis, etc....

Paul Clifton's patch covers the Thames Valley, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire but the latest posts on his Twitter feed are from Friday and show him at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with not a train in sight.

 

[PHILIPE]

Only 35 trains cancelled?!?!

Think it was more than that if GWR’s Journey Check page is to be believed.

More like double that number. Don't forget media reporting can be somewhat innacurate at times.

 

[E16 Cyclist]

I find it incredible that on this forum I've read people blaming both the toc's for not having sundays inside the working week and others blaming staff for exercising their contractual right not to work and yet the government department that micro manages the entire industry seems to escape all blame just as they have done in the timetabling debacle. It is the dft the tells the toc's how many staff they can employ and its not as simple as making sunday's part of contracted hours as you're then stealing from peter to pay paul as that member of staff will then require a day off midweek otherwise they'll exceed their contracted hours. The only solution is to recruit more train crew and that costs money and its the dft that doesn't want to sanction it.

Today wasn't just a gwr or northern issue, they got more headlines as they've been the victims of delayed electrification work and victims of the dft trying to micro manage an industry its clear they fail to understand. Other toc's have cancelled services today, chiltern for example cancelled 16 and at one stage were looking at implementing an emergency timetable as well but were saved courtesy of a extra time croatian goal.

One other point, I've read people saying the railway is a public service, but it ceased to be that when it was privatised and instead they are run to make a profit and no disrespect to anybody trying to travel today but people travelling on sunday isn't going to affect the balance sheet too much its the monday-friday commuters thats where the money is which is why its 2018 and the sunday working agreements are largely the same than when i joined the industry back in 2000

 

[Cardiff123]

One other point, I've read people saying the railway is a public service, but it ceased to be that when it was privatised and instead they are run to make a profit and no disrespect to anybody trying to travel today but people travelling on sunday isn't going to affect the balance sheet too much its the monday-friday commuters thats where the money is which is why its 2018 and the sunday working agreements are largely the same than when i joined the industry back in 2000

The railway IS a public service, the government have just decided to contract it out to private TOC's to provide it. The many private bus companies across the country are running and providing a public service. In Cardiff, the main bus operator Cardiff Bus is council owned. However, many services in the neighbouring council area are contracted out to private operators. In Cardiff and in neighbouring councils, whether buses are private or publicly run, they are all providing a public service.
It's the same for the NHS in England, where many services are contracted out and privately provided, as well as for schools in England. Whether they are privately run academies or local authority run comprehensives, they are providing a public service.

Just because the council has decided to contract out rubbish collection to a private company, the private company is still providing a public service. Nearly all public services in the UK over the last 30 years have been contracted out to private companies, especially in England.

 

[Sleepy]

Some TOC are trying to change Sunday T&C - drivers committed to working 26 Sundays a year is on the cards if ££££ swing the vote in favour on one I know of.

 

[43055]

I have to say it was bad on both GWR and XC today with all Nottinghams cancelled and my service that I got terminating short at Exeter rather than Penzance. We has stop orders for Tamworth and luckily for me Chippenham (first time a cross country stopped here?) which meant I could get a direct train from Derby. The loading was not to bad until Swindon where a good load of people got on and loaded the train and all the vestibule area was full and standing with at least 15 in one of them alone. It was good to see xc helping out GWR on what looked like a hectic day but a longer train than a 220 could have been better.

 

[Dai Corner]

The railway IS a public service, the government have just decided to contract it out to private TOC's to provide it. The many private bus companies across the country are running and providing a public service. In Cardiff, the main bus operator Cardiff Bus is council owned. However, many services in the neighbouring council area are contracted out to private operators. In Cardiff and in neighbouring councils, whether buses are private or publicly run, they are all providing a public service.
It's the same for the NHS in England, where many services are contracted out and privately provided, as well as for schools in England. Whether they are privately run academies or local authority run comprehensives, they are providing a public service.

Just because the council has decided to contract out rubbish collection to a private company, the private company is still providing a public service. Nearly all public services in the UK over the last 30 years have been contracted out to private companies, especially in England.

Judging by his username HexDriver works for Heathrow Express which, like the other Open Access operators, IS run for profit and not under contract to the DfT or devolved Government. Perhaps he thinks the Franchised services are the same?

 

[Kite159]

One solution I can see potentially happening is changing the contracts in exchange for a healthy payoff if the company/unions agree to it.

I.e. Sundays will become part of your working week in exchange for £10K.

 

[Loop & Link]

As I’ve said many a time, committed Sundays outside the working week are the way to go, it works for me (mostly) as there are grabbers who will work a Sunday that I cannot work and similarly, I’m hungry enough for the overtime that I will work Sunday’s that others don’t want.

Don’t get me wrong this method isn’t perfect, as there are times when people desperately need a Sunday off and can’t get it covered, so sadly that has to swing.

But people need to be realistic, let’s not blame the traincrew here, for doing something their perfectly entitled to do. Sundays for most are voluntary overtime, and

I do agree that this practice has gone on too long, the TOC and Unions do need to get together, and I can promise you the only people dragging their heels are the TOC. I know one grade at my TOC for a long time have wanted a complete rewrite of the rostering T&C’s including having Sundays inside, and it definitely isn’t the unions dragging their heels on the issue.

 

[E16 Cyclist]

Judging by his username HexDriver works for Heathrow Express which, like the other Open Access operators, IS run for profit and not under contract to the DfT or devolved Government. Perhaps he thinks the Franchised services are the same?

Actually i've driven for a toc for the past five years, just never worked out how to change my username

The railway IS a public service, the government have just decided to contract it out to private TOC's to provide it. The many private bus companies across the country are running and providing a public service. In Cardiff, the main bus operator Cardiff Bus is council owned. However, many services in the neighbouring council area are contracted out to private operators. In Cardiff and in neighbouring councils, whether buses are private or publicly run, they are all providing a public service.
It's the same for the NHS in England, where many services are contracted out and privately provided, as well as for schools in England. Whether they are privately run academies or local authority run comprehensives, they are providing a public service.

Just because the council has decided to contract out rubbish collection to a private company, the private company is still providing a public service. Nearly all public services in the UK over the last 30 years have been contracted out to private companies, especially in England.

i didn't mean that literally and saying how things are run isn't the same as saying how things should be run but private companies exist to make a profit for their shareholders and anything that doesn't make money doesn't last very long. This in effect means that running train services isn't seen as a public service because it has to be commercially viable. BR back in the day lost millions a year trying to be a public service and so had to run more commercially. In an ideal world the railway would be run for the benefit of people who wish to use it but sadly we don't live in an ideal world.

If you look back at the privatised railway, not one company (maybe connex south central?) has lost its franchise because of any reason other than financial reasons and this speaks volumes, it shows that the objective of the railway is to make money both for the private company but also the government, and this comes before being a public service

If running a train service on a sunday was deemed an essential public service we wouldn't be in 2018 operating like this, the solution involves spending money and thats something the toc won't do without the dft underwriting it and that still hasn't happened.

One solution I can see potentially happening is changing the contracts in exchange for a healthy payoff if the company/unions agree to it.

I.e. Sundays will become part of your working week in exchange for £10K.

But again to have sunday within the working week that means having days off moved to during the week and then you'll see services on a tuesday afternoon for example cancelled due to no train crew without more train crew being employed. Typically train crew are contracted to work 35 hours a week which roughly works out as five 7 hour shifts as an average, so if sunday is outside the working week it means that train crew have one day off during the week or on saturday, there is sufficient staffing for this to happen but not currently enough to cover sunday also

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

I'm not sure which journey it was but because of a shortage of train crew, a London - Penzance service was an 8-coach HST til Plymouth, a 2-car train Plymouth - Par then 4 coaches from there.

Regarding the post about the 5 coach IET's, it's exactly the case mostly - if an IET is late it's 5 coaches or a 10-car IET in cancelled / not fully staffed. Not all the time though.

 

[Mintona]

As I’ve said many a time, committed Sundays outside the working week are the way to go, it works for me (mostly) as there are grabbers who will work a Sunday that I cannot work and similarly, I’m hungry enough for the overtime that I will work Sunday’s that others don’t want.

I used to have committed Sundays and I will do everything I can to avoid going back to them. There’s never any cover for the specific one you need off. Would much rather have them inside, make them pensionable and covered by sick pay if you’re unfortunate to be off sick for a Sunday.

 

[irish_rail]

I used to have committed Sundays and I will do everything I can to avoid going back to them. There’s never any cover for the specific one you need off. Would much rather have them inside, make them pensionable and covered by sick pay if you’re unfortunate to be off sick for a Sunday.

Agreed , committed Sundays are the worst of all world's, 99 percent to train crew would prefer Sundays in working week compared with Sundays outside but committed.

 

[Llanigraham]

One solution I can see potentially happening is changing the contracts in exchange for a healthy payoff if the company/unions agree to it.

I.e. Sundays will become part of your working week in exchange for £10K.

Fine, now add in all the Network Rail staff that you will also need to include and tell me who will pay for it? It certainly won't be the government or the rail companies, so they only people left are YOU the passengers, and enough of them already complain about high fares!

 

[JN114]

Fine, now add in all the Network Rail staff that you will also need to include and tell me who will pay for it? It certainly won't be the government or the rail companies, so they only people left are YOU the passengers, and enough of them already complain about high fares!

You’ve pushed this point a couple of times now; but the number of signalmen (etc) is not related to the number of train services run, nor are there significant service-affecting alterations due to NR ops staff shortages.

 

[Llanigraham]

You’ve pushed this point a couple of times now; but the number of signalmen (etc) is not related to the number of train services run, nor are there significant service-affecting alterations due to NR ops staff shortages.

But if you want to change the contracts for all the train drivers then you are going to have to change the contracts for ALL the signalling grades and the ancillary staff that are needed to be on duty at the same time.
And I can assure you that there are staff shortages in the signalling grades and lines have had to be closed at short notice because of this.

And I note that you have conveniently ignored the question about who pays for any of this!

 

[cactustwirly]

But if you want to change the contracts for all the train drivers then you are going to have to change the contracts for ALL the signalling grades and the ancillary staff that are needed to be on duty at the same time.
And I can assure you that there are staff shortages in the signalling grades and lines have had to be closed at short notice because of this.

And I note that you have conveniently ignored the question about who pays for any of this!

Why?
Surely the signalling staff are employed by NR, on completely different contracts.

 

[1e10]

Why?
Surely the signalling staff are employed by NR on completely different contracts.

And presumably already working weekend shifts, or else no services would be running at weekends.

I fail to see though how passengers should need to concern themselves with the weekend working arrangements of a TOC and it’s drivers. The two parties to sort their differences and come to an agreement that allows the railway to modernise and provide the public service they should be.