Record-breaking 100+ hour delay? "You can travel on the Avanti service immediately after this train" ... in 5 days

[SJ21]

The tories dont care! They are the ones causing the problems and they are only going to get worse as they try to burn down as much as they can before being booted out

Exactly! The railways are a massive part of our economy, we need to be promoting them as a way of sustainable reliable transport, regardless of whether it is passenger or freight traffic. They need significantly looking at, contracts that are completely unfeasible with cost cutting measures will not work! We are slowly wondering into complete disarray, people still need to travel and will end up on the roads if the trains are useless, causing even more congestion.

 

[HSTEd]

whether the senior leaders of our industry are banging the table with DfT/Harper and really articulating how much staff across the all corners of the industry go out there way to keep the trains running. Prolonging this dispute is costing everybody but if it smothers goodwill it will cost the industry a lot more in the long run.

Ultimately, even if that is how the industry has run up to now, the Government (and I expect future governments) will no longer wish to have an industry running on such good will. Good will which can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason, without any repercussions.

The old railway is dead, it died over the last year, and it won't be back.

 

[SJ21]

Ultimately, even if that is how the industry has run up to now, the Government (and I expect future governments) will no longer wish to have an industry running on such good will. Good will which can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason, without any repercussions.

The railways should not have to run on Goodwill. Adequate staffing should be provided to run the services that are scheduled, people should not be able to give their free time as much as they are to work a train or to help it through its journey(dispatching, signalling ETC). All of the problems are cost cutting measures, it must be stopped now if not we are going to be in serious trouble

 

[dk1]

I applied in January as a qualified driver. Got an automated reply immediately and then nothing until a fortnight ago with an update. No chance I'm making the switch in the current climate though.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the current climate if applying for a driver vacancy. Would be foolish to delay your training.

 

[Mainliner]

The old railway is dead, it died over the last year, and it won't be back.

Sadly, that does appear to be the case, and as an early thread was closed for some reason before I was able to reply, I agree with those who said that rail travel is no longer enjoyable due to the uncertainty and unreliability, and I’ll be taking far fewer rail journeys in 2023 (both for work and leisure purposes) than in the past.

 

[Enthusiast]

If they took the 1230ish Liverpool and changed to a bus at Crewe they should easily be there by now, or if not now then within an hour or two.

Not bad, considering they should have been there by about 5pm.

 

[dk1]

The old railway is dead, it died over the last year, and it won't be back.

Seen so much ‘old railway’ over the years. It always sorts itself out eventually.

 

[class 9]

It beggars belief that Avanti don't take on qualified drivers more often. Not sure any have been taken on in past year or so, they seem to prefer to tinker about with trainees and apprentices. A qualified driver with traction or route knowledge could be up and productive in a couple of months, but instead they seem to prefer trainees who will take 16 months or so to become productive and even then only on initial minimal routes and traction etc.
GWR heavily recruited qualified drivers over past 5 years and as a result is not in such dire straits as Avanti. In fact for years GWR was recruiting qualified at almost all depots. When was the last time Avanti had an Ad for qualified drivers at Liverpool, Preston, Glasgow etc? Not often.

Not as straightforward as that for qualified Drivers, there won't be anyone starting with 390 traction knowledge and many TOCs(not sure about Avanti) don't take into account existing route knowledge, you have to do the agreed timescales that's layed down.
This happened to me when I moved, 3 quarters of my route learning was over routes I already signed!!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not bad, considering they should have been there by about 5pm.

Upside: free of charge due to 2 hour Delay Repay.

 

[flixtonman]

Posts 74, 85 and 120 are thought-provoking. They are examples of good practice, which should be adhered to regardless of whether industrial action or possessions are taking place. The DfT, the TOCs and the relevant trade unions should agree a policy which, absent exceptional circumstances. does its best to ensure that the last service of the night is not cancelled. Many of us workers have to phone home and report that we won't be back tonight because of some particular circumstance (and expect to be remunerated accordingly) and railway staff should be handsomely rewarded for the extra hours they are required to fulfil. But industrial action and possessions are not satisfactory excuses for the elderly, young or anyone to be stranded all night in somewhere which is not necessarily a city terminus with facilities.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The railways should not have to run on Goodwill. Adequate staffing should be provided to run the services that are scheduled, people should not be able to give their free time as much as they are to work a train or to help it through its journey(dispatching, signalling ETC). All of the problems are cost cutting measures, it must be stopped now if not we are going to be in serious trouble

No they shouldn't but they have and with staff complicity because the majority enjoy the job and the comrade and want see passengers delivered to their destinations. Given the scale of service withdrawal on some operators this week its going to need a fair increase in staff if the current service levels are to be maintained. You won't see DfT readily agreeing to that which is why they are pushing for changes in working practices so this will only lead to more service cutbacks which will reduce attractiveness of rail and drive passengers away where they have alternatives and on the spiral of decline will go.

 

[irish_rail]

Not as straightforward as that for qualified Drivers, there won't be anyone starting with 390 traction knowledge and many TOCs(not sure about Avanti) don't take into account existing route knowledge, you have to do the agreed timescales that's layed down.
This happened to me when I moved, 3 quarters of my route learning was over routes I already signed!!

And that's where the industry shoots itself in the foot! A GWR driver at Plymouth who signed London to Penzance inc Paignton and Penzance etc recently moved to XC and was made to re route learn all his routes! Absolute waste of time the guy had been driving the routes for years . Complete waste of taxpayer money. In the case of avanti, there are loads of drivers out there now who DO sign 22x as well as 80x although admittedly not 390s.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

And that's where the industry shoots itself in the foot! A GWR driver at Plymouth who signed London to Penzance inc Paignton and Penzance etc recently moved to XC and was made to re route learn all his routes! Absolute waste of time the guy had been driving the routes for years . Complete waste of taxpayer money. In the case of avanti, there are loads of drivers out there now who DO sign 22x as well as 80x although admittedly not 390s.

A great example of where the industry could offer self help but no need for TOCs to worry about that they just charge the cost of this driver to DfT and then add the management charge fee.

 

[class 9]

And that's where the industry shoots itself in the foot! A GWR driver at Plymouth who signed London to Penzance inc Paignton and Penzance etc recently moved to XC and was made to re route learn all his routes! Absolute waste of time the guy had been driving the routes for years . Complete waste of taxpayer money. In the case of avanti, there are loads of drivers out there now who DO sign 22x as well as 80x although admittedly not 390s.

I think it stems from a few incidents years ago where some Drivers moved mainly from FOC to TOC with impressive route cards, upon route assessment it turned out much of that knowledge was questionable!!

 

[HSTEd]

And that's where the industry shoots itself in the foot! A GWR driver at Plymouth who signed London to Penzance inc Paignton and Penzance etc recently moved to XC and was made to re route learn all his routes! Absolute waste of time the guy had been driving the routes for years . Complete waste of taxpayer money. In the case of avanti, there are loads of drivers out there now who DO sign 22x as well as 80x although admittedly not 390s.

Do you really want to trust a driver training infrastructure that you do not control?

Especially after the fallout from Ladbrook Grove?

 

[Dieseldriver]

I think it stems from a few incidents years ago where some Drivers moved mainly from FOC to TOC with impressive route cards, upon route assessment it turned out much of that knowledge was questionable!!

Easily solved by making them ‘refresh’ the routes with a couple of trips and then assessing them.
If they’re a professional Driver with proper route knowledge they’ll pass, if not, they’ll need more training.

 

[bramling]

Loads if the price is right, there are many people working 25th, Toby Carvery, petrol station staff and P Way to name three groups.

The problem is, the price being right often costs a lot of money. At my place I know of people on overtime over Christmas where the “price” is double (or more) overtime payment, plus a number of days off in lieu. As well as storing up problems for the future, this is hardly good in an industry which is supposed to be attempting to save money.

 

[matt_world2004]

Out of interest, which LAW is this that requires to take a Driver to have a PNB ?
To my knowledge RSSB standards / RAIB recommendations are not incorporated into law but I may be wrong.

Council Directive 2005/47/EC requires a 30 minute break for rail drivers for duties between 6-8 hours in length I presume this hasn't been removed from uk law

 

[43066]

Loads if the price is right, there are many people working 25th, Toby Carvery, petrol station staff and P Way to name three groups.

Part of the issue is that many people now seem to expect all kinds of services on Xmas day and Boxing Day, but few are willing to work those shifts themselves. We have become far too accustomed to cheap labour in this country, that has now evaporated thanks to Brexit. So prices will be drifting upwards.

The problem is, the price being right often costs a lot of money. At my place I know of people on overtime over Christmas where the “price” is double (or more) overtime payment, plus a number of days off in lieu. As well as storing up problems for the future, this is hardly good in an industry which is supposed to be attempting to save money.

Indeed. Thinking about my personal situation, as a railway worker, I would need several thousand pounds to be proffered, to even begin to entertain a possibility of working on Xmas day or Boxing Day. If I was offered in the region of £5k for each day (I’d only get £2.5k after tax), I might start to listen….


Otherwise, forget it.

 

[bramling]

Part of the issue is that many people now seem to expect all kinds of services on Xmas day and Boxing Day, but few are willing to work those shifts themselves. We have become far too accustomed to cheap labour in this country, that has now evaporated thanks to Brexit. So prices will be drifting upwards.

This exact issues crops up on here every year. “*I* refuse to work Christmas, but I expect all the normal things to be available to me”.

As an aside, at my work we have a variation of that, greatly assisted by Covid, which is “stuff everyone else I am damn well going to have the entire Christmas period off every year by one means or another”. Hence why in a team close to me we have five out of ten off sick as I write this, the self-same individuals as last year, with in most cases the self-same flu-like symptoms, pretty much repeated to the day.

There is always going to be this issue which is essentially impossible to fully reconcile.

Indeed. Thinking about my personal situation, as a railway worker, I would need several thousand pounds to be proffered, to even begin to entertain a possibility of working on Xmas day or Boxing Day. If I was offered in the region of £5k for each day (I’d only get £2.5k after tax), I might start to listen….


Otherwise, forget it.

That would be about the same for me. My answer is always “I don’t do overtime”, something I’ve never regretted.

 

[317 forever]

No idea re. the source, but sounds plausible. Re. the strikes, that’s right, and Network Rail rail have closed lines very early to allow possessions to start. Hence the train most likely wouldn’t have been allowed to run once it was known it would be late.

It’s quite likely to be a Preston driver? Potentially difficult for them to get home, too, of course!

Could the train not have been allowed to run after all, but just as far as Preston for example? It would still have finished in good time before the strikes.

As ABBA would have sung - 'Money, money, money'......................

Abba sang about Waterloo, not Euston. Sorry.

Is sticking to the letter of the strike more important than getting the passengers home for Christmas?

For the RMT, yes.

I don't think anyone is interested in keeping "to the letter of the strike". Network Rail have the right to ask Avanti to withdraw if they are proposing to do something, such as a substantially late start, which will result in more than a few minutes of delay to their possession.

It doesn't really have anything to do with the strike. The last train would have been passing just ahead of the block regardless.

This paints the picture that the TOCs are there to serve Network Rail rather than vice versa

 

[Megafuss]

And that's where the industry shoots itself in the foot! A GWR driver at Plymouth who signed London to Penzance inc Paignton and Penzance etc recently moved to XC and was made to re route learn all his routes! Absolute waste of time the guy had been driving the routes for years . Complete waste of taxpayer money. In the case of avanti, there are loads of drivers out there now who DO sign 22x as well as 80x although admittedly not 390s.

How does the new TOC really know they have the route knowledge?

At the end of the day, it's their bum on the line, and they don't want a c××k up.

 

[duncanp]

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if one day we wake up to see the message "..Sorry, Avanti West Coast have suspended all services today..."

Cancelling the last train to Glasgow on Christmas Eve really marks a new low.

You can argue all you like about who is responsible for the situation, but at the end of the day it is the passengers who suffer.

 

[RochdalePioneers]

Tweet thread here https://twitter.com/Kellives/status/1606705048540647427) from a passenger trying to get to Sanquhar. Posted on the coach north from Crewe asking about what happens when they get off at Carlisle. AWC didn;t know if there would be station staff there or what would be happening. Last tweet was several passengers organising themselves to share a taxi.

Not good enough is it.

 

[Falcon1200]

There are NO exceptional circumstances for holding off a possession tonight. 1800 is an iron curtian

For what reason?

Due to possessions booked on which a late running train would delay - Possessions can be held off.
Due to Signallers all walking off the job at 1800 regardless of any trains still running - Possible I suppose but very, very unlikely (and outrageous if it did happen, leaving trains, passengers and Traincrew stranded)
Due to Signallers leaving once all trains had terminated but before possessions could be granted - Definitely possible, but I would have expected Network Rail to have a plan in place for such a contingency, and delays could of course happen with trains already en route and with no suitable location to terminate short.

Personally I believe that the last train on Christmas Eve is one, if not the only, exceptional circumstance in which rail staff could have worked together to get people home, despite the undoubtedly desperate state of industrial relations on the railway. It might also have been an opportunity for positive publicity for the RMT and ASLEF, showing how they (and not the management) bent over backwards for passengers.

 

[Gloster]

To give one example from the early 1980s. There was an ASLEF strike starting at midnight, but around 10 p.m. the previous night somebody dug through a signalling cable outside Paddington. A number of drivers stayed on in order to get those trains that should have cleared before the strike started through, even though some were several hours late.

As said in #98, the passenger would know when the strike was due to start and would expect trains to run up to that point. The staff would oblige by running those trains, even if they ran late and ran during the period that the strike was on. However, we wouldn’t run anything else.

There was a certain amount of playing off of goodwill between staff and management. We would keep to the spirit of running all trains normally outside of the strike and they wouldn’t try to slip something in. We all knew that once the strike was over we would have to go back to all being part of one organisation that had plenty of difficulties as it was, a bit of ‘us against everybody else’. I suspect that there is no longer any goodwill between the two sides.

 

[nlogax]

Not good enough is it.

Takes me back to just over a year ago. Along with four other random passengers left stranded by Avanti we organised a cab from Glasgow to Crewe. I guess none of us realised at the time it would be one the new normal.

 

[Skiddaw]

I'm just hoping that some/all of them made it to their respective destinations. It's just about your worst nightmare isn't it? I'd have been beside myself...

 

[45107]

Council Directive 2005/47/EC requires a 30 minute break for rail drivers for duties between 6-8 hours in length I presume this hasn't been removed from uk law

Thanks. Found it.

My reading of it is that it applies to “cross border’ services rather than internal/domestic traffic.

 

[class 9]

How does the new TOC really know they have the route knowledge?

At the end of the day, it's their bum on the line, and they don't want a c××k up.

A route card ( a list of all routes a Driver signs) although not a legal document, most certainly would be produced in a court should the Driver be involved in a serious incident that resulted in fatalities, where sub standard route knowledge is or suspected to be a factor.
It is up to the Driver to request a route review if they feel they need it.
Route cards are part of Drivers records that transfer across to a new company when they move.