LNER unreliability caused by staff shortages

[yorkie]

Does anyone have any comments regarding LNER unreliability specifically?

if so, feel free to continue using this thread.

However, discussion regarding holding connections should be posted in a new thread, as it's not really on this topic. Also anything of a speculative nature must be posted in the appropriate forum section please.

 

[Watershed]

Of course, given there are already a large number of drivers at Inverness who work the route to Perth every day, simply having some of them learn 800s would probably be more robust than the than the Newcastle lodge turns are, and at a slightly lower long-term cost; enough to make back the cost of the traction course certainly.

But then, that simply isn't the way things are done in this world is it!

Oh absolutely. It just goes to highlight the madness of the way privatisation was implemented.

 

[800001]

The dialogue on this thread referring to the LNER service north of Edinburgh to and from Inverness has covered Drivers who are Newcastle-based.

What happens to LNER Train Managers working to and from Inverness? Are they also drawn from Newcastle's resources and work an identical diagram to the Drivers, travelling pass and lodging?

Edinburgh TMs work the Edinburgh to Inverness, lodge and work Inverness to Edinburgh.

 

[mildertduck]

With the number of staff shortages, you'd have thought that there would be a lot of advertised vacancies... except I can't seem to see any!

 

[800001]

With the number of staff shortages, you'd have thought that there would be a lot of advertised vacancies... except I can't seem to see any!

Because the Railway is ran using overtime as it’s cheaper than employing the correct amount of staff.

Dft hold the purse strings.

 

[Dave91131]

Shambles of a day today.

Multiple cancellations north of Newcastle and Edinburgh (doubtless disguised as short notice timetable change codswallop) as well as a fair few cancellations on the Leeds circuit as well as the 1330 ex London throughout.

Oh and the 0733 Harrogate getting to Carlton then giving up and returning to Newark after midday.

 

[800001]

Shambles of a day today.

Multiple cancellations north of Newcastle and Edinburgh (doubtless disguised as short notice timetable change codswallop) as well as a fair few cancellations on the Leeds circuit as well as the 1330 ex London throughout.

Oh and the 0733 Harrogate getting to Carlton then giving up and returning to Newark after midday.

Anything on Leeds circuit is to do with 1D04 suffering a Hot Axle at Carlton, had to return to Newark at 10mph where it now awaits a suitable 10mph overnight path back to Doncaster, that caused severed delays to services.

As for a fair few Leeds cancelled, one on the down and one on the up as a reaction to D04, and one on the down this morning as a result of no driver last night for 1N36 that meant 1D06 had to set this morning.

13:30 ex London late notice sickness, with no other available crew to work it.

And if you did your research you would see that LNER have for several weeks now, correctly putting out the alterations for the other cancelled services as ‘shortage of train crew’.

 

[Dave91131]

Anything on Leeds circuit is to do with 1D04 suffering a Hot Axle at Carlton, had to return to Newark at 10mph where it now awaits a suitable 10mph overnight path back to Doncaster, that caused severed delays to services.

As for a fair few Leeds cancelled, one on the down and one on the up as a reaction to D04, and one on the down this morning as a result of no driver last night for 1N36 that meant 1D06 had to set this morning.

13:30 ex London late notice sickness, with no other available crew to work it.

And if you did your research you would see that LNER have for several weeks now, correctly putting out the alterations for the other cancelled services as ‘shortage of train crew’.

I don't doubt the validity of your points, including the reasons given for the cancellations / short notice changes where I will concede I hadn't looked in perhaps as much detail as I should have.

Unfortunately though, regardless of reasons given the fact remains this another example of tens of thousands of passengers per day having their plans and schedules torn to shreds by what they will simply see as "the railway" yet again being unable to provide the services for which it has happily sold them tickets for.

 

[Dave91131]

LNER seem to be creeping close to Avanti, Northern etc territory based on today's abysmal performance.

30+ part of full cancellations were listed on their website at 0515 this morning, and now prior to 8pm tonight they are already beginning to list the cancellations for tomorrow.

What a mess.

 

[DanNCL]

Cancellations tomorrow because of fleet issues: https://twitter.com/lner/status/1584610833891721218?s=46&t=-MzQuTjox1LndikhOShaNw

⚠️ #LNERUpdate There are some short-notice changes to the timetable tomorrow Tuesday 25 October due to more trains than usual requiring repairs and a shortage of train crew.

Please check before you travel at lner.co.uk/travel-informa… for advice if your booked service is affected.

Is it the 80xs or the 91s that are the issue? I’m inclined to think it’s both as though as per most days they’ve been a Mark 4 set down down today, they’ve had issues on the 80x fleet today too and that’s with quite a few of the 80x workings partly or fully cancelled for other reasons already.

 

[800001]

Cancellations tomorrow because of fleet issues: https://twitter.com/lner/status/1584610833891721218?s=46&t=-MzQuTjox1LndikhOShaNw

Is it the 80xs or the 91s that are the issue? I’m inclined to think it’s both as though as per most days they’ve been a Mark 4 set down down today, they’ve had issues on the 80x fleet today too and that’s with quite a few of the 80x workings partly or fully cancelled for other reasons already.

80x fleet today was due to power failure at Ferme Park which meant sets were not services overnight last night.

 

[ainsworth74]

LNER seem to be creeping close to Avanti, Northern etc territory based on today's abysmal performance.

I'm not so sure. Looking at today's PPM figures (see here or image below) LNER achieved 80% of trains "On Time" (that is arriving within 10 minutes of their scheduled arrival at their destination) whilst Northern were at 77% (arriving within 5 minutes of their scheduled arrival time at their destination). Meanwhile Avanti were down at 32%. LNER and Northern cancelled or had delays of over 30 minutes on 12% and 4% of services respectively. Avanti were at 53%. Nationally the figure was 83% "On Time" and 4% cancelled/delayed by more than 30 minutes. So both Northern and LNER weren't a million miles away.

That being said LNER and Northern clearly need to do better, I'm not disputing that, and also that PPM isn't the best measure going (for instance by only consider times at the final destination it hides delays on route that were later made up) but lets not pretend that they're anywhere close to Avanti levels of performance!



(Image shows the national PPM for today so far by operator, details provided for relevant operators in text above)

 

[DanNCL]

80x fleet today was due to power failure at Ferme Park which meant sets were not services overnight last night.

From a quick look at RTT I can see they were also 2 sets short out of Craigentinny, 1 set short out of Heaton and 2 sets short out of Leeds today (one Mk4 one 80x). There’s more issues than just Ferme Park.

 

[800001]

From a quick look at RTT I can see they were also 2 sets short out of Craigentinny, 1 set short out of Heaton and 2 sets short out of Leeds today (one Mk4 one 80x). There’s more issues than just Ferme Park.

Not set issues though, crewing issues for the others.

 

[DanNCL]

Not set issues though, crewing issues for the others.

One of the Craigentinny sets (1E09) was announced to the public at stations as “a fault on this train” - I was at York station when it was announced.

It wasn’t a good show this morning heading south from Scotland or the North East, with 1E06 running over an hour late (publicly announced at stations as a train fault), 1E07 starting at Newcastle and 1E09 cancelled throughout.

 

[ComUtoR]

With the number of staff shortages, you'd have thought that there would be a lot of advertised vacancies... except I can't seem to see any!

With thousands of applicants per job vacancy, talent pools, and recruitment backlogs, it makes you wonder what they actually mean by staff shortages and what causes it.

 

[DanNCL]

With thousands of applicants per job vacancy, talent pools, and recruitment backlogs, it makes you wonder what they actually mean by staff shortages and what causes it.

Indeed. There’s no shortage of people wanting jobs on the railway. Most of the blame can be put on the DFT, although the TOCs aren’t completely innocent in this and some (particularly TPE and Avanti) seem to exacerbate problems even further.

 

[800001]

One of the Craigentinny sets (1E09) was announced to the public at stations as “a fault on this train” - I was at York station when it was announced.

It wasn’t a good show this morning heading south from Scotland or the North East, with 1E06 running over an hour late (publicly announced at stations as a train fault), 1E07 starting at Newcastle and 1E09 cancelled throughout.

1E06 was announced as a train late from depot, due to crew. 1E07 started Newcastle due to crew shortage again that is how it was announced.

I missed 1E09, apologies, yes that was a fault. All other 80x issues were crew and the Issues in London.

 

[43094]

‘800001’ is correct - in terms of cancellations, the only unit fault this morning was 1E09.

The rest this morning were a combination of the issues at Ferme Park, and various crewing issues.

 

[GalaxyDog]

Is it just drivers, or TMs theyre short of as well?

 

[DanNCL]

1E06 was announced as a train late from depot, due to crew. 1E07 started Newcastle due to crew shortage again that is how it was announced.

I missed 1E09, apologies, yes that was a fault. All other 80x issues were crew and the Issues in London.

Auto announcer at York station was definitely saying “a fault on this train” for 1E06 when I heard it earlier, although as we know what auto announcers say doesn’t always reflect what’s actually happened!

1E07 I knew about as I was on it to York. Boarding at Newcastle obviously we didn’t get an announcement, just the surprise of a completely empty unit turning up!

 

[800001]

Auto announcer at York station was definitely saying “a fault on this train” for 1E06 when I heard it earlier, although as we know what auto announcers say doesn’t always reflect what’s actually happened!

1E07 I knew about as I was on it to York. Boarding at Newcastle obviously we didn’t get an announcement, just the surprise of a completely empty unit turning up!

1E06 route message which feed Tyrell, which ultimately feeds the auto announcer was all ‘Train late from depot’, if it was announced as something different either a system error, or someone at the station has manually Amended it.

Either way, we are deviating from the main issue, that LNER performance lately is very poor with the daily alterations and cancellations, from a TOC, that previously was a very good performer.

 

[al78]

At least I don’t have to pay to fill the train up…

You will never win a car vs train argument using that line. It costs around £75 to fill my car which is sufficient for a trip to visit family and back, almost a 500 mile round trip, and I will have fuel left over for at least a fortnight's worth of local journeys. To get the train costs over £100 because it is virtually impossible these days to find advance tickets whenever I would wish to travel up north and I do look rigorously. Classic UK regression in action.

So far this year, the reliability of my once a week commute from Horsham to Farringdon has been so poor I have looked into whether it is worth driving. So far it isn't both in terms of cost and time but it won't take much more of a deterioration in service for it to become worthwhile. I think I am currently on my sixth delay repay.

 

[DanNCL]

I can honestly say that trying to travel between the North East and Kent the last couple of days assisting someone with autism and high anxiety has been an utter nightmare and almost all of it is down to LNER. I appreciate that 91130’s issues north of Doncaster have made things massively worse today beyond anyone’s control, but communication to the public has been utterly dire, and the level of service actually provided to the public has been poor.

Just to give a summary of this evening peak’s departures from Kings Cross that have had issues:
1600 Aberdeen - 55 late
1630 Edinburgh - cancelled
1718 Hull - 40 late
1730 Edinburgh - cancelled
1733 Harrogate - 30 late
1800 Edinburgh - 40 late
1818 Newcastle - cancelled
1830 Edinburgh - 20 late
1833 Bradford - 7 late and 5 vice 9/10
1903 Leeds - 5 vice 9

Of note is 3 consecutive Leeds departures formed of 5 coaches only, as the 1803 Skipton is also booked 5. I hate to imagine how busy the 1933 will be as the first reasonable length Leeds service for nearly 2 hours.

 

[800001]

I can honestly say that trying to travel between the North East and Kent the last couple of days assisting someone with autism and high anxiety has been an utter nightmare and almost all of it is down to LNER. I appreciate that 91130’s issues north of Doncaster have made things massively worse today beyond anyone’s control, but communication to the public has been utterly dire, and the level of service actually provided to the public has been poor.

Just to give a summary of this evening peak’s departures from Kings Cross that have had issues:
1600 Aberdeen - 55 late
1630 Edinburgh - cancelled
1718 Hull - 40 late
1730 Edinburgh - cancelled
1733 Harrogate - 30 late
1800 Edinburgh - 40 late
1818 Newcastle - cancelled
1830 Edinburgh - 20 late
1833 Bradford - 7 late and 5 vice 9/10
1903 Leeds - 5 vice 9

Of note is 3 consecutive Leeds departures formed of 5 coaches only, as the 1803 Skipton is also booked 5. I hate to imagine how busy the 1933 will be as the first reasonable length Leeds service for nearly 2 hours.

And as you have mentioned all due to the 91 failing between York and Doncaster!!

Tell me how else you would expect them to run a service when for nearly 2 and 1/2 hours the line was blocked heading towards London.

As for the 5 cars to Leeds, would you rather cancel them? Or take a 9 car of the Anglo Scot’s?

 

[43094]

The 1833 is booked a 10-car.

LNER were a 9-car short for a Leeds service due to the disruption.

The 10-car on the 1833 was split, to give at least allow both the 1833 and 1903 to run, albeit short formed.

That avoided a gap of 60 minutes, which would have put further pressure on the 1933.

I’ll not comment on the comms. I will say that a lot of people worked extremely hard today, in the face of a fundamentally poor set of cards.

I’ll also say that I understand that the disruption was extremely wearing for those travelling, both customers and staff alike - also that there’s been a lot of it lately.

 

[DanNCL]

And as you have mentioned all due to the 91 failing between York and Doncaster!!

No, because of a combinations of issues including the failed 91.

As for the 5 cars to Leeds, would you rather cancel them? Or take a 9 car of the Anglo Scot’s?

I didn’t say there was an alternative, I simply said it wasn’t good. Which it isn’t.

LNER were a 9-car short for a Leeds service due to the disruption.

The 10-car on the 1833 was split, to give at least allow both the 1833 and 1903 to run, albeit short formed.

That avoided a gap of 60 minutes, which would have put further pressure on the 1933.

I’ll not comment on the comms. I will say that a lot of people worked extremely hard today, in the face of a fundamentally poor set of cards.

I’ll also say that I understand that the disruption was extremely wearing for those travelling, both customers and staff alike - also that there’s been a lot of it lately.

I couldn’t remember if it was booked a 9 car or a 10 car

 

[The Middle]

I won't be revealing my Twitter identity on here. I have been polite to LNER staff within reason

For what it's worth Dan it took me less than 30 seconds to find you on twitter and unless you have deleted them I can't see any "frankly rude" tweets to LNER staff

 

[800001]

No, because of a combinations of issues including the failed 91.


I didn’t say there was an alternative, I simply said it wasn’t good. Which it isn’t.


I won’t be revealing my Twitter identity on here. I have been polite to LNER staff within reason, and I am always quick to thank them for their help (which you conveniently ignored) but if a company doesn’t take a matter seriously when you’re already under an extreme amount of stress from the situation you find yourself in you aren’t always going to be perfectly polite, and at the end of the day it is their job to deal with unhappy customers. A post on Twitter to a company is aimed at the company as a whole, not any individual working for them.

I will tell you one TOC I have been rude to and that is TPE. If you’d been told that you were stuck somewhere for many hours on end because of DFT incompetence and they couldn’t give a **** most people would lose it too.

I am a human. I can’t always be polite under stressful situations that is normal human behaviour. You haven’t exactly been polite to me either.


Utter nonsense. If you made even the slightest bit of effort to actually know what I’m like you’d know that wasn’t true. But you’d rather make quick assumptions as I’m firm, can be quite blunt, and will say things as they are no matter how bad that is.


I couldn’t remember if it was booked a 9 car or a 10 car

Except the line being blocked what were the other combinations of factors that caused the issue?

Would be nice to know what else caused issues, but also as 43094 has stated, they have wrote about one small piece of operational work undertaken to assist on the peak at london (something not gained just by sitting and looking at realtraintimes)

 

[DanNCL]

Except the line being blocked what were the other combinations of factors that caused the issue?

Would be nice to know what else caused issues, but also as 43094 has stated, they have wrote about one small piece of operational work undertaken to assist on the peak at london (something not gained just by sitting and looking at realtraintimes)

LNER themselves have said ongoing staffing issues and fleet issues. It’s on LNER’s Twitter. I do believe I linked to that post previously, but in case I didn’t here it is: https://twitter.com/lner/status/1584610833891721218?s=46&t=2ft78WZ-TEBqy-tkDeWJoA

I’ll reiterate that I didn’t say anything could have been done better for the consecutive 5 car formations to Leeds this evening, simply saying that from a public perspective it isn’t good. Obviously I appreciate it’s better than the alternative but 99% of the travelling public won’t.