Clearly a big push on traction training at the moment. There are currently more trainee drivers in various stages of training than we can shake a stick at, but they're not a priority at the moment, short term goal is getting enough existing drivers trained on the CAF stock for introductions onto new diagrams.
Train crew short term sickness will usually spike at this time of year (colds/flu/norovirus etc). Here's a thought - traincrew at Northern (and other TOCs) get into an inordinate number of minicabs, usually filthy. There's a fair few of them I've been in recently where the taxi driver is also streaming with a cold - that's one small detail but probably accounts for a surprising risk to traincrew sickness levels being in an closed car so often with someone so afflicted. Ten years ago we might have got in a minicab once every few weeks, the vast majority of the same journeys were made with a dedicated company car/minibus and a TOC employed car driver instead. There were generally fewer such journeys needing road or booked as 'passenger' transport back then anyway though as the diagrams were put together by experienced diagrammers who understood what constituted a robust traincrew diagram with reliability in case of minor delays or taxis not turning up. There are diagrams now with up to half a dozen taxi journeys per shift. A lot of diagrams now have 'triangulated' work where a driver books on, works a train from A to B, then B to C, then C to A. A B and C are more often not the train's origin or destination. Let's take a diagram at Manchester Victoria - a driver might book on and work a train (which originates at Rochdale and terminates at Clitheroe) from Manchester Victoria to Blackburn. So that train has three different drivers for a relatively short 90 minute journey - one who worked it up to Rochdale and back, one from Victoria to Blackburn and one to Clitheroe and back. Three drivers, three times the risk of delay if any one of those drivers isn't in the right place at the right time. Our driver who got off at Blackburn then might be booked as a passenger from Blackburn to Preston on a train which originates at York. When they get to Preston they might be booked to relieve a Blackpool man snd work a train originating from Blackpool and terminating at Hazel Grove, working it from Preston to Oxford Rd. Yet another train with three drivers. At Oxford Rd they might be booked a break, then to work a Liverpool-Manchester Airport train between Oxford Rd and the Airport and back again. Then they might be booked to travel passenger from Oxford Rd to Piccadilly and relieve another driver of a unit to work that train to Huddersfield and back again. This isn't an extreme example of a diagram, there are dozens of diagrams like this and more of them now even involve changes on pass rides - there's one job I can think of off the top of my head where a driver is booked to travel pass from Blackburn to Liverpool and another from Preston to Chester.
Since just over ten years ago the traincrew diagrams have been spat out of a computer program designed to squeeze more traincrew efficiency out of every diagram - anyone with half a brain can realise that if a member of traincrew is on a tight schedule to walk/get a taxi to catch a connecting train from A to B with minimal time allowances then it can go wrong far more easily. The experienced diagrammers have lost the skills needed because the computerised diagramming system is considered superior - and it is, on paper, in a perfect world, where everything runs right every day. Unfortunately this computer system isn't going anywhere fast, a large number of TOCs now use it and it's a big deal commercially - there are big contracts to adhere to.
So why is poor performance/reliability becoming much more of an issue in the last few years? Because in addition to the above we have reached the natural tipping point which is the consequence of traincrew not being trained up to competency in 100% of their booked work - some TOCs train just enough people on just enough of their routes to wing it and just about scrape a service from day to day. More fully productive drivers 'from the days when things were done properly' with full route and traction cards are leaving or retiring and being replaced by trainees who will take years to become fully productive because training is becoming more and more difficult due to the gridlocking effect of a bigger proportion of drivers not being fully productive. Any type of new work (new traction, new routes) to a depot has a disproportionate effect on the train plan as there is a mad scramble to get a select few people trained so that the new traction/route actually has (usually the bare minimum) bods trained to work it when it comes in to service.