This series of strikes was announced on 22/11, and the overtime ban only started today. I don't think that's a reasonable excuse, sorry.
I disagree, these excuses are becoming extremely grating, that's nearly three weeks to sort out a satisfactory timetable, if the planning teams can't sort it out give the job to someone who can...
always easier said than done isn't it? who would this someone else be?
I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree here.
They NEED to advertise it as such. Warning about strikes on 16/17/24-27 Dec and January suggest to the public a half-decent service will run on other days which is completely out of order.
It's also extremely ironic now that unions seem to have accepted rest-day working practices for all this time, and suddenly just unleash this dissatisfaction and withdrawal with no threat or (reasonable) advance warning. I consider it to be leverage for their strikes.
The way things are done usually these days, by computer...
Not yet unfortunately, but one day many of the roles in the industry will, in time, be given to a computer, who thankfully do not have an ability to squeeze every bit of advantage possible out of the right to strike. See ticket offices for example, and their subsequent majority replacement with TVMs and online booking services. Automation looked into on Thameslink and the Tube. CCTV replacing signal boxes and active roles in dispatch.
SWR on Twitter are currently saying services will resume on January 3rd at stations affected by the reduced RDW timetables, completely ignoring that this is a strike day!
Who said they don't exist, the timetable planners who obviously don't want to lose their jobs and are a part of the RMT?
And what Union are they part of? Frankly I don't trust anyone in the rail industry to provide a service or tell the truth, not when relations are this bad.
Indeed. As discussed in another thread, there is no need to go into great detail talking about "working to rule" and the whole she-bang, but it needs to be stated clearly industrial action is taking place on all days where the severely impaired timetable (and it isn't much better than the actual strike day timetable) is implemented.
Having completed a wide range of interviews with many random members of the public in my city for an article on the strikes, this seems to be the general consensus of the public here. People are getting fed up, and rightfully so.
It's actually action short of a strike, people not working overtime isn't a strike, and we don't owe anyone our days off. The whole situation with this reduced timetable shows you how reliant the railway is on overtime.
Ironic that the practice was accepted for so long though and then suddenly SNAP - we're not happy, it ends here. No warning/notice or anything?
It was voted for as an option in both of our ballots so it was always a possibility of happening. They've had plenty of notice of it happening, it was announced when the latest strikes were implemented. But it is not a strike as we are still going to work on our rostered days, we just can't put forward for rest day work.
By this, do you mean there physically is no way of doing so and the T.O.C. will refuse you work, or are you just saying if you do so your colleagues/union will make your life difficult.
If someone wanted to they would be able to, but with this timetable, there's no chance anyone would be offered overtime anyway. You also have to remember that there are a few people who aren't part of a union and are more than welcome to put themselves forward for rest day work, but as I said there would be no chance of any being offered at this time.
I doubt they’ll be enormously threatened by the prospect of losing one customer.
Yeah, I was surprised at this as well. Vauxhall was closed on non-strike (or more accurately, action-short-of-strike) Sunday the 18th Dec. On strike days, Vauxhall is served by the Windsor Lines, but this Sunday, there were no Windsor Line services. So one could argue that non-strike Sunday was worse than a strike day.
www.railforums.co.uk
Very good post and this is the level of details TOCs should be going to. Obviously have a summery for those who don't want all the details but this makes people understand better.
But it seems for ehatever reason some TOCs with guatds such as GWR have been abke to run a nesr bormal timetable. Maybe their planning staff decided not to strike or they have more of them. Alternatively they rely less on overtime and rest day working.
Whilst I don't agree with everything people think here I do agree that the RBBs should not have been canceled and that is not the fault of the RMT.Yeah, I was surprised at this as well. Vauxhall was closed on non-strike (or more accurately, action-short-of-strike) Sunday the 18th Dec. On strike days, Vauxhall is served by the Windsor Lines, but this Sunday, there were no Windsor Line services. So one could argue that non-strike Sunday was worse than a strike day.
Anyway, something interesting to ponder:
Today, I was at Clapham Junction and there was an engineering works poster on display, which was obviously prepared way before SWR realised what was going to happen on Sunday the 18th. The poster said that the New Guildford Line would be closed on Sunday the 18th, with RRBs running from Guildford to Surbiton and Guildford to Leatherhead.
But none of the RRBs ran, so no service on the New Guildford Line on Sunday the 18th.
I know there was another thread discussing the cancellation of RRBs on strike days:
Already-planned RRBs on strike days
If replacement buses are scheduled due to planned engineering works, and a strike is then announced for the day in question, is it a safe assumption that the buses will run as planned (assuming no unrelated problems like bus driver availability)? My particular journey is from Heysham to...
I can understand the logic of cancellation of RRBs on strike days - because if no engineering works were taking place, then no trains would run either.
But on Sunday the 18th, the cancellation of RRBs made no sense as it wasn't a strike day anyway. From tomorrow, there will be a limited train service on the New Guildford Line. This means that SWR can run trains on this line despite the action-short-of-strike. So they should have ran the RRBs on Sunday the 18th.
It's just a list of excuses for a completely broken system and goes no way to explaining the lamentable performance of SWR.
Southeastern and Southern seem to be doing a lot better today (normal service startup, minimal cancellations), funny that this industry wide issue seems to be affecting one South London TOC only.
I don't believe for one moment that the planners at SWR are uniquely incompetent. From somewhere on high they've been given instructions to plan a pared down service well below the level that normal resourcing without the need for RDW and overtime would allow. I cannot think of any other credible explanation.
You have to understand that the train planning community are setup to deliver the long term plan (the timetable, along with stock diagrams and base crew rosters) then you have short term team amending that plan predominantly in response to engineering works along with special events like Twickenham. They are not resourced up to keep amending the plan for strikes nor are the crew resourcing teams have sufficient people to deal with a wholesale withdrawal of overtime working. Also in many cases these staff have continued to work despite being members of unions that have instructed them otherwise to do differently.