PHILIPE
Veteran Member
Sundays, this last week saw a number of HSS cancellations but the Regional side had none. Saturday saw a disgraceful service provided
Sundays, this last week saw a number of HSS cancellations but the Regional side had none. Saturday saw a disgraceful service provided
2O00 cancelled Swindon-Southampton due to no guard, last Melksham round trip caped due to same, 1830 Cardiff-Portsmouth pined Westbury (formed 150925) due to no forward driver, following Bristol-Frome caped throughout, following Portsmouth in doubt as well. Best part of 3hrs with no GWR services south from Westbury. What the hell is going on, it's a THURSDAY for crying out loud!
Worse in the other direction with the 18.23 (started Westbury) 19.23 and 20.23 ex Portsmouth along with the 17.02 ex Brighton all canned. Poor service from GWR on the Cardiff-Portsmouth line today.
Best part of 3hrs with no GWR services south from Westbury. What the hell is going on, it's a THURSDAY for crying out loud!
Combination of high leave levels due to holiday season; high levels of sickness due to it being winter; greater number of crew required due to amended diagrams in run up to Christmas; low take up of rest day working / overtime amongst crew who are working - again presumably due to holiday season.
If these were reasonable explanations then all other TOCs would be experiencing similar problems. Yet it would appear they are not. I'm afraid the blame can only be down to management failings, probably due to under-recruitment or mis-management of leave. Unless of course someone can provide reasonable evidence of some other reason...
Training on the Turbos?
You say Thursday like it’s the busiest day of the week!
Ohh. Ah, that’s egg on my face...It is the busiest day of the week...
There is an awful lot of traction training going on at GWR right now, LTV drivers converting to 387, HSS to 800, West to 16X, all at the same time. The original plan as I understand it was that it wouldn't all coincide, but that went out the window a long time ago, due to the infrastructure delays.Other TOCs have managed to introduce "new" rolling stock without the training leaving them so horribly short staffed. That's done by proper forward planning. GWR appear to be severely lacking in that department. Again, unless someone can offer evidence of something else that's plausible...
There is an awful lot of traction training going on at GWR right now, LTV drivers converting to 387, HSS to 800, West to 16X, all at the same time. The original plan as I understand it was that it wouldn't all coincide, but that went out the window a long time ago, due to the infrastructure delays.
The need for those various different traction training programmes has been known about for some time even if the actual timing has been disrupted. As I said proper forward planning would have seen GWR recruit up to the maximum "allowed" by their staffing protocols (staff agreements and contingencies being the main limiting factors) and then carried that apparent surplus over normal levels until the timing of the training programmes is definitive at which point a decision is made about how much natural wastage is required before normal recruitment resumes. It may well be that their recruitment team lacks traincrew management experience/input. Though the cynic in me says it's standard First Group penny pinching. First's appalling handling of staffing levels during the 377 training at First Capital Connect should have provided them with suitable lessons but they seem not to have learned.
That's exactly what they did - they have now found out that the agreed maximum wasn't enough and the natural wastage was higher than expected. You can't just have a set of new drivers. Now playing catch up.
If true then something strange is going on. Traincrew rarely move on from the job in numbers: most consider it as near to a "job for life" as you can possibly find in this day and age.
But if you plan for them to retire at X age and a group of them go early, what can you do about it? Nothing.
Every HSS depot on GWR is over compliment! My own depot at Plymouth for example has 15 drivers over what we need at present so cannot blame this on GWR penny pinching etc......
But it's not HSS routes suffering mass cancellations!
Try telling that to passengers on the Cotswold Line in recent weeks - they might just tell you different... and that's before you get to services that have been turned back short at Oxford - so never even getting on to the Cotswold Line - or at Worcester instead of Great Malvern or Hereford.
This morning the 05.17 from Paddington to Great Malvern ran empty stock all the way from London to Worcester, presumably lacking a train manager. Someone from the Worcester depot looks to have been available to cover the return working, but that was started from Worcester, not Great Malvern.
Curiouser and curiouser. We have a HSS driver telling us that their depot is way over complement and yet seemingly an all-round shortage of Guards/Train Managers. I wonder if the latter group are having a totally personal/unofficial rest day working ban as payback for the premature DOO dispute of many months ago? It would certainly fit with my experience of management/staff relations within First Group operations!