Northern- Why Can't we vent anymore?

[yorksrob]

They aren't for the 5 return service cancelled on the Hope Valley line since lunch time today. That included 2 successive trains leaving a 3 hour gap.

Thanks to the unreliability passengers who normally volunteer to use trains are opting to use cars, or stay at home.

Indeed - if no freight trains in the way, no excuse !

 

[Andyh82]

And on the way home from Sheffield yesterday evening Northern decided that rather than put on their standard 3 coach 150s, they'd run 2 coach units instead meaning trains to Barnsley were rammed and leaving people behind at Sheffield and Meadowhall.

Sometimes you have to wonder; are Northern deliberately running as poor a service as possible to deter people from travelling?

I observed some of that but thankfully was only travelling from Sheffield to Meadowhall as I’d driven to the P&R

One Huddersfield service lost ten minutes at Meadowhall as revenue protection staff tried to squeeze people up inside by shouting at them from outside to let more people board a 2 car 150. and then people who couldn’t board refused to step away when yelled at to do so. The next Barnsley service, a Leeds fast was cancelled so no wonder they weren’t stepping away at first time of asking.

Short forming was an issue on this line twenty years ago, and it seems there is no change. I suppose at least these days they can’t deploy a single 153 like they might have done at one time.

 

[Killingworth]

I observed some of that but thankfully was only travelling from Sheffield to Meadowhall as I’d driven to the P&R

One Huddersfield service lost ten minutes at Meadowhall as revenue protection staff tried to squeeze people up inside by shouting at them from outside to let more people board a 2 car 150. and then people who couldn’t board refused to step away when yelled at to do so. The next Barnsley service, a Leeds fast was cancelled so no wonder they weren’t stepping away at first time of asking.

Short forming was an issue on this line twenty years ago, and it seems there is no change. I suppose at least these days they can’t deploy a single 153 like they might have done at one time.

I saw 2 Northern 153s just south of York yesterday. A single unit could possibly be so deployed

 

[Jamesrob637]

I saw 2 Northern 153s just south of York yesterday. A single unit could possibly be so deployed

That was a 155. Northern don't own any 153s anymore.

 

[yorksrob]

The cancellations have now made the BBC news:

Britain's worst major train stations for cancellations named

The latest figures show almost one in 10 trains were cancelled at Manchester Victoria.

www.bbc.co.uk

Manchester Victoria has been the worst of Britain's busiest railway stations for cancellations so far this year.

About one in 10 of 10,506 scheduled stops were cancelled between January and November 2024, according to National Rail figures collected by train data website On Time Trains.

This contributed to the north-west of England being the region with the highest rate of cancelled railway stops across Britain at 6.5%, with 611,047 cancellations......

 

[Kite159]

The cancellations have now made the BBC news:

Britain's worst major train stations for cancellations named

The latest figures show almost one in 10 trains were cancelled at Manchester Victoria.

www.bbc.co.uk

But don't worry returning services into public ownership will solve everything according to the government quote on that article...

 

[D6130]

But don't worry returning services into public ownership will solve everything according to the government quote on that article...

The two TOCs that operate (or don't, as the case may be) those services from Manchester Victoria are already in public ownership!

 

[yorksrob]

But don't worry returning services into public ownership will solve everything according to the government quote on that article...

Although there have definitely been fewer strikes of late, so I don't know whether this would have been reflected in the figures, were it a comparison over time.

The irony is that we were told that these problems were due to a lack of training because of the pandemic, yet here we are four years later !

 

[CaptainHaddock]

The departure board at my local station of Elsecar this morning. All cancellations due to "a member of train crew being unavailable". Now I know it's the season of goodwill and all that but let's be honest, anyone knocking sick on Christmas Eve almost certainly isn't genuinely ill. Don't Northern have a disciplinary procedure for staff who have excessive and unjustified sickness records?

(picture shows a list of 7 trains, 5 of which are showing as 'cancelled').

 

[Peterthegreat]

The departure board at my local station of Elsecar this morning. All cancellations due to "a member of train crew being unavailable". Now I know it's the season of goodwill and all that but let's be honest, anyone knocking sick on Christmas Eve almost certainly isn't genuinely ill. Don't Northern have a disciplinary procedure for staff who have excessive and unjustified sickness records?

(picture shows a list of 7 trains, 5 of which are showing as 'cancelled').

How do you know the staff were sick?

 

[CaptainHaddock]

How do you know the staff were sick?

What other explanation could there be? Christmas Eve isn't a bank holiday so there's no reason why they would be booked off and if the missing staff are on leave then surely Northern should have ensured the missing shifts were covered before granting the leave? Or am I being hopelessly naive in thinking Northern care about their customers?

 

[Iskra]

I think the work is just uncovered due to lack of staff, with no volunteers for rest day working on Christmas Eve, which is understandable. Still, it’s an incredibly poor operation. Many other services are cancelled out of Sheffield today. It’s like a weekend.

 

[Iskra]

What other explanantion could there be? Christmas Eve isn't a bank holiday so there's no reason why they would be booked off and if the missing staff are on leave then surely Northern should have ensured the missing shifts were covered before granting the leave? Or am I being hopelessly naive in thinking Northern care about their customers?

Apparently staff are leaving as quickly as they can be replaced. If someone’s leave has been granted and somebody else leaves, it’s problematic to cancel that leave and if you do, that’s a reason for them to leave too!

 

[Lewisham2221]

What other explanation could there be? Christmas Eve isn't a bank holiday so there's no reason why they would be booked off and if the missing staff are on leave then surely Northern should have ensured the missing shifts were covered before granting the leave? Or am I being hopelessly naive in thinking Northern care about their customers?

The same explanation for the countless "a member of train crew being unavailable" cancellations every other day - Northern don't employ enough staff and rely on people working their rest days to cover the normal timetable. Moral is low enough that staff don't want to go into work on their days off, even more so when that day off happens to be Christmas Eve.

 

[BG2024]

It's been surreal over the last couple of days to see a normal service again. I thought JourneyCheck was broken on Thursday night when it was showing zero cancellations for Friday. Right now, there are just 19 cancellations (almost all variations of Blackpool-Manchester).

 

[Mcr Warrior]

It's been surreal over the last couple of days to see a normal service again. I thought JourneyCheck was broken on Thursday night when it was showing zero cancellations for Friday. Right now, there are just 19 cancellations (almost all variations of Blackpool-Manchester).

And an attempted cable theft somewhere between Knottingley and Leeds, which is seemingly affecting Northern services via Wakefield, but is hardly their fault.

 

[Jamesrob637]

It's been surreal over the last couple of days to see a normal service again. I thought JourneyCheck was broken on Thursday night when it was showing zero cancellations for Friday. Right now, there are just 19 cancellations (almost all variations of Blackpool-Manchester).

Most of those 19 are for tomorrow!

 

[Killingworth]

No posts since Saturday. Does that imply that the emergency Sunday timetables may have restored some semblance of reliability?

On the Hope Valley line that means the cancellation of 1 in 3 Sunday services that had been happening for many months is recognised as continuing ufn. Far from ideal but at least users know where they are. All those trains ran on Sunday despite the bad weather.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

No posts since Saturday. Does that imply that the emergency Sunday timetables may have restored some semblance of reliability?

On the Hope Valley line that means the cancellation of 1 in 3 Sunday services that had been happening for many months is recognised as continuing ufn. Far from ideal but at least users know where they are. All those trains ran on Sunday despite the bad weather.

The problem with allowing Northern to run a reduced temporary timetable is that it won't be long before they'll want it to be a permanently reduced timetable. This is why any application by Northern to run a "temporary" reduced service should aways be refused.

 

[Killingworth]

The problem with allowing Northern to run a reduced temporary timetable is that it won't be long before they'll want it to be a permanently reduced timetable. This is why any application by Northern to run a "temporary" reduced service should aways be refused.

Absolutely.

It has taken decades to get an hourly Sunday service into the Peak District. It's being well promoted along the Hope Valley, and increasingly popular, but seems to users that the railway industry is fighting against them.

The only welcome thing is that we seem to know which train is supposed to be running. In 2024 we had got used to 2 out of 3, at best probably, usually the same 2, running but not every week. You can't plan a walking group's day round that.

 

[3RDGEN]

The problem with allowing Northern to run a reduced temporary timetable is that it won't be long before they'll want it to be a permanently reduced timetable. This is why any application by Northern to run a "temporary" reduced service should aways be refused.

The Northern website currently makes no mention of it being temporary, it's the amended Sunday timetable for the West side;

"https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/check-before-you-travel" -

"Amended Timetable - From 22 December 2024, Sundays in the West (from 22 December) - From Sunday, 22nd December, an amended timetable will be in the North West due to conductor availability. This timetable is designed to provide more certainty about the services that will run and reduce short-notice cancellations."

TPE did the same in December 2023 and it was the best thing to happen to TPE for years, a service they could deliver with the available resources leading to a far more reliable service, only time will tell if the Northern West side goes the same way.

 

[BG2024]

No posts since Saturday. Does that imply that the emergency Sunday timetables may have restored some semblance of reliability?

Happy to pick up the ranting again if you want!

My morning commute from Broad Green to Manchester didn't show up. No info was given because all three PIS displays have been broken for months and Northern have no intention of fixing them. I should have been able to seek information from staff, because Northern are claiming during the building works that "the station is staffed from 06:30 until 18:30 each day to offer assistance to customers". Unfortunately, during the hundreds of journeys I've made through the station since they've been saying that, I've literally not seen a single person working there; either Northern are lying, or someone's doing an impressive job of getting paid despite never turning up for work!

 

[Peterthegreat]

So Northern have lulled me into a false sense of security. For the last week or so there had been no cancellations at Rotherham/Swinton due to staff non availability for over a week. However today has been a return to the pre-Christmas scenario, mega cancellations in the afternoon including the last train from Doncaster and the last train from Sheffield to Leeds (admittedly this due to the guard going sick). However it's not just the cancellations it is the absolute lack of sensible information. The first attachment shows what Northern are proposing for the cancellation of the last train from Doncaster - a bus for Conisborough (sic) and Mexborough only. What about Swinton and Rotherham?
And as TPE gave cancelled the last train from Cleethorpes to Sheffield what are they to do?
The second attachment shows that passengers who wanted to catch the last service from Sheffield to Leeds (intermediate stations) should catch the next Northern service - at 05.15 in the morning!

 

[skyhigh]

It seems there's a common theme, staffing and not enough if it either drivers or guards.

I've looked on Northern Rail website job page there don't seem to be many vacancies for guards and drivers for the routes that mattered.

I for one would have been happy to drive for Northern if there was a vacancy for my local depot but there's no openings so far.

The problem is not that nobody wants to work for them.

The problem is that there are a lot of people leaving to other roles in the industry, jobs somewhere completely new or retiring. There was a large intake of drivers in particular around the early 2000s who are now coming up to retirement age. It's just that training is slower than the rate of people leaving.

The training schools are full. There are loads of people waiting in talent pools for training places, so until the pools empty it's pointless recruiting more people.

If you expand training schools then the bottleneck just moves down the line to lack of minders (already a problem). People had been waiting months for a minder once leaving training school.

 

[Kite159]

The problem is not that nobody wants to work for them.

The problem is that there are a lot of people leaving to other roles in the industry, jobs somewhere completely new or retiring. There was a large intake of drivers in particular around the early 2000s who are now coming up to retirement age. It's just that training is slower than the rate of people leaving.

The training schools are full. There are loads of people waiting in talent pools for training places, so until the pools empty it's pointless recruiting more people.

If you expand training schools then the bottleneck just moves down the line to lack of minders (already a problem). People had been waiting months for a minder once leaving training school.

And I guess a problem with Northern is once drivers/guards are trained up, some end up moving to TPE/Avanti etc after a few years wanting a slightly easier life (in terms of working faster limited stop services compared to stopping services)

 

[Peterthegreat]

I have just seen some interaction on a Facebook page.
Apparently during the engineering work south of Sheffield last week the solitary northern service to Cleethorpes was due to be replaced by a bus. However Northern forgot to order it.....

 

[Killingworth]

I have just seen some interaction on a Facebook page.
Apparently during the engineering work south of Sheffield last week the solitary northern service to Cleethorpes was due to be replaced by a bus. However Northern forgot to order it.....

That may be true.

That's probably not true for Manchester - Sheffield. TPE organised a reasonably successful replacement service alternating between a direct coach or a train diverted to run from Sheffield via Swinton and Wakefield to Piccadilly. Inevitably in the hours with a direct coach it was quicker.

Northern didn't run west of New Mills, bus replacement from there to Chinley and again from Grindleford via Dore into Sheffield.

East Midlands diverted via the new Dore loop/chord between Dronfield and Grindleford thus saving about 20 minutes between Chesterfield and Stockport - just enough to add in stops at Dronfield (bus transfers to Sheffield and Chesterfield), Grindleford, Hathersage, Bamford, Hope, Edale and Chinley. Not, of course, at the normal Northern times.

In many journey planners EMR with one change at Grindleford or Dronfield was coming up as the quickest route between Sheffield and Manchester. Those who knew of the 600m hike up the hill to the Maynard Arms for the coach at Grindleford would have opted for the apparently longer TPE options without any changes.

Northern were remiss in not letting rail users know about the time changes and bus substitute details. That may have been due to confusion between their Central (Manchester) and Eastern (Leeds) Regions. Maybe that delayed the ordering of their bus replacements but they ran as far as possible to their planned timetable in the atrocious weather last week. The weather was against them. That meant too many passengers spent too long trudging up or down the icy station approach road at Grindleford and sitting around for an hour or so waiting in the cold for a train.

 

[NorthWestRover]

Fun on the 10.16 Wigan Wallgate to Manchester Vic this morning. Reduced Sunday timetable means one train every two hours, so we have a 2 car 150. On Chinese New Year and with Man United at home. Some passengers appear to have been left behind at Atherton and Walkden.

 

[Howardh]

Fun on the 10.16 Wigan Wallgate to Manchester Vic this morning. Reduced Sunday timetable means one train every two hours, so we have a 2 car 150. On Chinese New Year and with Man United at home. Some passengers appear to have been left behind at Atherton and Walkden.

If that's the case then I hope there's ticket acceptance on the bus.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Fun on the 10.16 Wigan Wallgate to Manchester Vic this morning. Reduced Sunday timetable means one train every two hours, so we have a 2 car 150. On Chinese New Year and with Man United at home. Some passengers appear to have been left behind at Atherton and Walkden.

What was the excuse there? Should've been 4-car but fault meant a short-form?