Northern cancellations getting worse

[John S2]

I was recently informed by a member of staff that the cause of the Northern cancellations in the North West is the DfT refusing to allow depots to recruit sufficient staff. Can anyone confirm [or otherwise] that this is the main cause of the cancellations?

 

[Jamesrob637]

Which is fraudulently claiming delay reply if he put on the claim he was on the later train.

Meh, it was £1

 

[SuspectUsual]

Meh, it was £1

Northern have taken people to court over less than a quid in the past

 

[td97]

I was recently informed by a member of staff that the cause of the Northern cancellations in the North West is the DfT refusing to allow depots to recruit sufficient staff. Can anyone confirm [or otherwise] that this is the main cause of the cancellations?

Retention was blamed in this post

The issue more recently and especially in the last few months is failure to retain crew. People are leaving left right and centre. The main quoted reason is the low morale - essentially, staff feel superfluous as services are axed around them and their route cards shrink (let's not forget the "voluntary severance schemes" that keep getting mentioned - even if these don't directly affect drivers), then there's the lack of pay rise. Further, strikes cut both ways - they debatably help the union but they create hostilities in the mess room and between colleagues. Further, lots of staff do want RDW because they're used to it and view it as part of their income. It's one of the things a lot of my colleagues want back most of all (perhaps moreso as it can be used to "top up" what youve lost from strikes). It's just miserable when you think there's no light at the end of the tunnel - so lots of people are looking elsewhere for that light.

At my depot, the establishment of drivers has never changed since the heady days of Northern by arriva. In other words, we have sufficient drivers to crew all those additional services that were planned but never implemented (or, we do atleast when people aren't exiting in swathes). Bolstering the depot is unnecessary when the depots are already running with more crew than needed.

 

[Kite159]

Northern have taken people to court over less than a quid in the past

Didn't they once take someone to court for a zero fare (when someone purchased a ticket to station A but accidentally stayed on to station B where the fare from X to B was exactly the same as to A)?

 

[yorksrob]

A litany of cancellations on the Hallam line last night leaving everyone in the lurch.

Serco-Abellio Northern might have been rough around the edges at times, but at least they got you there.

 

[Adam0984]

A litany of cancellations on the Hallam line last night leaving everyone in the lurch.

Serco-Abellio Northern might have been rough around the edges at times, but at least they got you there.

Sheffield have had a lot of drivers leave at once through retiring, leaving the railway and drivers moving to other companies freight and passenger, this has created an unfortunate situation on all routes out of Sheffield and cancellations throughout the day

 

[Peterthegreat]

Sheffield have had a lot of drivers leave at once through retiring, leaving the railway and drivers moving to other companies freight and passenger, this has created an unfortunate situation on all routes out of Sheffield and cancellations throughout the day

You are right but this has been going on for 2 to 3 years. We have been told "things would get better" - but they haven't. And it's not just drivers. There is a shortage of guards/conductors too.

 

[Adam0984]

You are right but this has been going on for 2 to 3 years. We have been told "things would get better" - but they haven't. And it's not just drivers. There is a shortage of guards/conductors too.

The effects of covid on training and route learning had a big impact and then it's gone into the current problem, the shortage of conductors doesn't really have a big effect because they still have rest day working and it takes less time to train a new conductor (although I've heard that application numbers are well down on previous levels and in some cases struggling to get quality candidates)

 

[yorksrob]

Sheffield have had a lot of drivers leave at once through retiring, leaving the railway and drivers moving to other companies freight and passenger, this has created an unfortunate situation on all routes out of Sheffield and cancellations throughout the day

Shame they don't run it out of Leeds instead.

It's bad form cancelling the last two trains of the night.

 

[Adam0984]

Shame they don't run it out of Leeds instead.

It's bad form cancelling the last two trains of the night.

Leeds aren't exactly flush with drivers but can normally juggle to cover most services on Leeds diagrams

 

[skyhigh]

Meh, it was £1

Given they've taken people to court over 5p in the past I wouldn't find much consolation in that.

The cancellations are a pain in the backside and poor. But what I'm saying is don't let them get back at you. Look at Greater Anglia - they contacted people a year later and threatened prosecution if the delay repay wasn't repaid with an admin fee. Is it worth it for submitting an untrue claim for £1?

 

[northwichcat]

Which is fraudulently claiming delay reply if he put on the claim he was on the later train.

I think the Northern form asks you to type in the origin station, destination station and then select the date and time. You then have to select your intended journey and the delay you experienced from pre-selected options. You don't get to type anything else in unless you select 'my journey isn't listed'.

So in theory, your intended journey could be:
Departure: 15:00
Arrival: 15:30

But it was cancelled, so you catch the 14:00 instead of the 16:00. However, the 14:00 actually departed at 14:27 and arrived at 15:32 due to an infrastructure/train fault. You could answer both questions truthfully on the Delay Repay form and it would probably be accepted. Even though it would probably be based on you catching the 16:00, rather than the 14:00 arriving over 60 minutes late.

Given they've taken people to court over 5p in the past I wouldn't find much consolation in that.

The cancellations are a pain in the backside and poor. But what I'm saying is don't let them get back at you. Look at Greater Anglia - they contacted people a year later and threatened prosecution if the delay repay wasn't repaid with an admin fee. Is it worth it for submitting an untrue claim for £1?

If it was one of the £1 sale fares, I doubt many people would choose the cash option for Delay Repay when there's also the option of a complimentary single Northern only ticket. The value of these is unclear, especially if it ends up being used on a route with multiple operators where there's not a Northern only Anytime Single fare.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

If it was one of the £1 sale fares, I doubt many people would choose the cash option for Delay Repay when there's also the option of a complimentary single Northern only ticket. The value of these is unclear, especially if it ends up being used on a route with multiple operators where there's not a Northern only Anytime Single fare.

Depends on the person claiming, if they're someone travelling on business expenses, or someone who's trips are paid for (e.g. a college student who's train journeys are paid for by parents), they may well want any money they can get rather than extra train journeys that would've been paid for anyway.

 

[Jpr463]

The Ribble Valley line has had a dreadful service on Sunday for months now - we're lucky if there's only a 2hr gap between services in each direction due to cancellations. I think a lot have given up using it on Sundays. The rest of the week, it's a reasonably reliable 1/2 hourly service and now rarely curtailed at Manchester Victoria instead of going through to Rochdale.

 

[M1544]

The majority of Bradford to Huddersfield shuttle services have been cancelled again today. This route also seems to be struggling with resources currently

 

[J-2739]

A litany of cancellations on the Hallam line last night leaving everyone in the lurch.

Serco-Abellio Northern might have been rough around the edges at times, but at least they got you there.

That line has fallen off the reliability cliff recently.

 

[johntea]

One thing that annoys me greatly about the Hallam line is that pesky xx:42 Wakefield Westgate - Kirkgate (Knottingley) to xx:49 Wakefield Kirkgate - Leeds stopper 'connection'

I've done a Usain Bolt through the subway a few times (including this evening!) and made it by the skin of my teeth but usually it doesn't work out which is annoying as if only they could slightly retime the services slightly it is a useful connection for Normanton / Castleford / Woodlesford customers, but Northern don't really seem to do joined up thinking like that too often

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Didn't they once take someone to court for a zero fare (when someone purchased a ticket to station A but accidentally stayed on to station B where the fare from X to B was exactly the same as to A)?

I thought you were allowed to travel to a station in the immediate vicinity provided the fare was the same or lower than that shown on your ticket.

But if you have a "Manchester stations" ticket and you arrive at Piccadilly, are you allowed to catch a further train around the Ordsall Chord to Victoria?

I was very careful to buy a ticket to "Wrexham Central" last week to make sure I could catch a final train from General to Central without hassle. Likewise I have been careful to buy long distance tickets in the past to Watford High Street. In both cases the fare was the same as General and Junction respectively.

I have never had problems when connecting in Liverpool getting off at Lime Street HL and catching my Wirral Line train at Moorfields (near where all the best pubs are). Merseyrail use common sense.

 

[Watershed]

I thought you were allowed to travel to a station in the immediate vicinity provided the fare was the same or lower than that shown on your ticket.

But if you have a "Manchester stations" ticket and you arrive at Piccadilly, are you allowed to catch a further train around the Ordsall Chord to Victoria?

I was very careful to buy a ticket to "Wrexham Central" last week to make sure I could catch a final train from General to Central without hassle. Likewise I have been careful to buy long distance tickets in the past to Watford High Street. In both cases the fare was the same as General and Junction respectively.

I have never had problems when connecting in Liverpool getting off at Lime Street HL and catching my Wirral Line train at Moorfields (near where all the best pubs are). Merseyrail use common sense.

Whether or not the fare to another station is the same is irrelevant legally, and also practically as far as many hardline TOCs are concerned.

If you have a ticket to a group station, such as Manchester Stations, then it's perfectly permitted to break your journey at one station within the group (Manchester Piccadilly when arriving from the south, for instance) and later to continue to another group station.

But that's a different matter to what was originally discussed, as in this example your ticket is actually issued to the group and you are travelling within its validity.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Whether or not the fare to another station is the same is irrelevant legally, and also practically as far as many hardline TOCs are concerned.

If you have a ticket to a group station, such as Manchester Stations, then it's perfectly permitted to break your journey at one station within the group (Manchester Piccadilly when arriving from the south, for instance) and later to continue to another group station.

But that's a different matter to what was originally discussed, as in this example your ticket is actually issued to the group and you are travelling within its validity.

Thanks for clarification on that. I occasionally start and end return trips to (C) at different stations (A & B) where the same fare applies (e.g. A->C, C->B). I didn't realize I could be fined if the end station (B) was further away from my destination (C) than the starting station (A). This could be problematic if the starting station (A) doesn't have facilities to issue return tickets to (C) starting from (B) [assuming (A) & (B) are on the same line.]

 

[Mag_seven]

The topic of Northern Cancellations has now been done to death. This thread has now been going on for more than a year. It does not look like they are going to get any better anytime soon so we will now bring this thread to a close at this point.

If anyone has any questions about fares whenever Northern (or any other TOC for that matter) cancels a service then they are welcome to start a new thread in the relevant fares section.

Thanks everybody.