Couldn't agree more - the frontline staff are as much victims of this as the pax are, and TPE have a lot of genuinely excellent guards etc.. To be fair, it is my strong suspicion that many TPE managers too will be very unhappy with the way they have been forced to go over the last 2ish years - presumably as a result of pressure from the owning group - and would prefer to be running a railway that tried to do what's best for passengers.
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Transpennine Express December 2019 Proposals
- Thread starter Paul Duck
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Liverpool - Glasgow and Edinburgh should have been postponed until at least May 2020 to allow time for TPE to finish their driver training programme and get the new trains running reliably. Similarly Northern has started a new Hull - Leeds (-Halifax) service running seven minutes behind the TPE service at a time when they too are short of trains and crews.
This situation could have been avoided if we had gone for a London Buses or MacDonalds type of franchising instead of one where each operator is trying maximise its own revenue and passenger numbers. Each of the many players in the industry (too many) has an incentive to pursue its own objectives and many of these are in conflict. Sorry we are straying a bit from the TPE December timetable but perhaps the Williams Review will recommend this.
Unlikely to be any significant changes as a result of Williams (see "Avanti West Coast") given the political situation, not only in terms of the general election but also the culture and ideology which permeate DfT (and therefore RNP). Sorry, but 41% of voters have just voted to do nothing about rail.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
With TPE and Avanti West Coast having the same-ish ownership, is there any sign of closer working between the two franchises on WCML services?
It was always my impression that Virgin was very flexible with TPE during disruption of the northern WCML, including rerouting on GNER and XC.
It would be very odd if the two operators had become more distant under the new management.
It was always my impression that Virgin was very flexible with TPE during disruption of the northern WCML, including rerouting on GNER and XC.
It would be very odd if the two operators had become more distant under the new management.
Greybeard33
Established Member
Oops, l see from looking back that indeed you did, in post #196, which I missed while on holiday.And didn't I use a very similar misquotation too...?!
But to quote Charles Caleb Colton, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"!I also came across your subsequent misquotation of George Orwell's "Animal Farm", which I think bears repeating as it is so apposite:
Numerous reports on Twitter of tpe passengers being refused use of west coast trains.
I expect the management of west coast don't want tpes problems impacting on their shiny launch and dragging them in.
Stern announcements here at Man Picc that TPE passengers who intended to travel on the cancelled 13.26 to Glasgow should board alternative Northern services to Preston and await the next TPE service to Scotland there, they should not board Avanti West Coast services as they will not accept TPE tickets! Charming!
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Just to lighten the tone of this thread with a little Christmas cheer and hilarity, noting the title of this thread, it could feature as one of the "door opening shots" in the McGuigan Wines TV advert, with a RailUK personage appearing, saying "I've brought the TransPennine Express Proposals"....
Failed Unit
Established Member
I guess they are full with Anglo Scottish travellers. But I am surprised they are rejecting because the are the same parent company.
I can understand LNER and XC not co-operationing. Considering this service is designed to extract their revenue, if they don’t help passengers won’t use it and it protects their revenue stream.
Nothing of the sort! Virgin have been known to refuse acceptance of 15 pax very late at night from Carlisle to Glasgow, let alone large scale TPE disruption. If anything, one would hope that the same owning group brings TPE and AWC together in a way that TPE and VWC never could.
Ironically, passengers for Edinburgh were advised to take the TPE Newcastle service and change at York (not even Newcastle!) onto LNER services as tickets would be accepted.
Given events over the past couple of weeks especially, I suspect First want rid of TPE, or something else, such as a renegotiation of the franchise. I don't believe that the poor performance, which is significantly worse than any other operator nearly every day, can not be mitigated against in some way if the motivation were there. I hear stories about messrooms full of 'spare' traincrew whilst the service is going to the dogs outside, of units being pulled from service for trivial reasons where previously they would have been allowed to run to their end of day. If there isn't some ulterior motive sanctioned by the Group, I do not see how senior TPE managers can still be in a job. The previous M.D. Nick Donovan fell on his sword when performance fell to levels which were not remotely like as bad as they are now. Its as though TPE has been deliberately driven over a cliff at the timetable change, despite multiple warning signs leading up to 15 December.
DannyMich2018
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Plenty of cancellations for TPE again today, on one of the busiest travel days of the year too....I'm so glad my local operator is not TPE!!
YorkshireBear
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Train to work cancelled. Train home cancelled.
It's a joke. Simply not acceptable, it's no longer minor disruption.
Driving people away in droves I imagine.
It's a joke. Simply not acceptable, it's no longer minor disruption.
Driving people away in droves I imagine.
86247
Member
I wonder how long TPE can keep letting people down like this. No train service for hours and hours, people with a TPE only ticket who can't get another service waiting and waiting or hopeing a train will turn up to take them home. I wanted to go to either Glasgow or Edinburgh on TPE but if the services are cancelled I could be stranded in Scotland.
Numerous cancellations this afternoon when I was coming home from work, there is something seriously wrong. I don't believe the lack of drivers and training, why don't they slow down the train schedule then if it's impacting on day to day running of the timetable?
86247
Member
The more this shambles goes on the more I think TPE couldn't care less, front line staff are doing their best to get through this, but the management are closing their eyes and hopeing this situation goes away. when all this ends and everything is back to normal will people still have trust in TPE , or avoid it like the plague.
E100
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I just completed a Newcastle to Chester journey today. I should have gone to Liverpool but changed at Manchester Vic onto a Northern 195 rather than using Merseyrail, as I would have waited forever for a TPE to take me to Liverpool and very tempted to submit a claim all the same for the disruption/overcrowding etc.
I think as a start they should just focus on the York to Manchester service. This is the critical one as worst-case ticket acceptance on LNER/Northern can handle the ends. We can manage without Newcastle to York (Chester-le-Street and Northallerton notwithstanding as service will be dire for them but not huge numbers of ppl). Get that running well and then expand to the heady heights of Liverpool and Newcastle let alone Edinburgh. There were 5 trains in a row canceled today from NCL down to Liverpool/Man when I last checked at 11 am (possibly more since). There did seem to be an abundance of TPE staff at Victoria but I'm not going to read too much into that.
On the flip side, I got to have 1st class on LNER which was much better so for every cloud.
I think as a start they should just focus on the York to Manchester service. This is the critical one as worst-case ticket acceptance on LNER/Northern can handle the ends. We can manage without Newcastle to York (Chester-le-Street and Northallerton notwithstanding as service will be dire for them but not huge numbers of ppl). Get that running well and then expand to the heady heights of Liverpool and Newcastle let alone Edinburgh. There were 5 trains in a row canceled today from NCL down to Liverpool/Man when I last checked at 11 am (possibly more since). There did seem to be an abundance of TPE staff at Victoria but I'm not going to read too much into that.
On the flip side, I got to have 1st class on LNER which was much better so for every cloud.
Clarence Yard
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Put the tin foil hat stuff away, please. There is no dastardly FG plan to dump TPE by lowering the performance. This is a good old fashioned “muck up” (one letter has been changed to protect the innocent) with abject management failure (not all by the TOC) at the heart of it.
The TPE management know what is coming down the tracks towards them. There is phrase in business about having to “own your own failure” and I suspect many of them are having a very uneasy Xmas considering what is going to happen whilst still trying to rescue a very bad situation.
xotGD
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I just don't get why the timetable change has triggered such a shambles. Obviously trying to add the Newcastle - Edinburgh services was a daft idea, but surely this alone shouldn't be causing a total service meltdown every day? What else is going on to create this chaos?
I'm not convinced the Edinburgh service is contributing to the problem at all. Because most of them have been cancelled in advance, all the way through from Liverpool, surely the current timetable should be using fewer crews and units than the previous version, or at most the same number. So where have they all gone?
johnpeter3
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Wonder if staff have got the alleged deal Northern staff have of x days leave for x days training, and lots of those days booked over Xmas? If so that feels like a management and union failure.
johnpeter3
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Ps would be nice to know the real reasons.. and if problems getting 802s to Doncaster for maintenance why not hire Rail Operations Group or similar to drag them?
Only one working on to Doncaster and back (two units) - that doesn't appear to be the problem.
It was suggested elsewhere that there aren't enough staff trained on the new trains and they can't use 185s instead as they will lose time. Net result is that staff are sat around not able to operate trains because of this incompatibility.
Very poor this from TPE. If there is one time of year to avoid mass cancellations it's Christmas.
Appreciate the 350s need to go but don't see why staff training could not be deferred until January.
The cynic in me thinks not all of it is solely 'staff training' but a combination of under-staffing and increased numbers of staff using leftover annual leave as with Northern.
Appreciate the 350s need to go but don't see why staff training could not be deferred until January.
The cynic in me thinks not all of it is solely 'staff training' but a combination of under-staffing and increased numbers of staff using leftover annual leave as with Northern.
I fundamentally disagree, that this collapse in performance is some sort of unforeseen "accident". From what I have heard of Leo Goodwin most people report he has an astonishing mind for detail, and there were enough indicators leading up the timetable change that things were not going to plan. I do not believe that looking at all the warning signs he took the decision unilaterally to press on anyway and allow the service to descend to the level it has. A temporary timetable has been introduced only for services planned to be operated by Hitachi's, however the other new fleets are just as badly affected, the 397's probably more so, yet there is no amended timetable for those services. Given how First are very "image conscious" and now that, at last, the media and politians have picked up on TPE's woes rather than just Northern, without some sort of "air cover" Leo Goodwin would have been sacrificed long ago. Additionally, there are many platitudes, letters of apology etc, but visibly lacking is any sort of detail about what is going to be done to rectify the situation over the next few months, an extended amended timetable for Hitachi services only is not going to fix the current problems.
Bertie the bus
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There is one thing I don’t understand about this. After the May 2018 debacle there was much talk, mainly from Grayling, about an industry readiness board which I hadn’t heard of until then. If this board still exists how did this get through? It was obvious to any interested outsider that a TOC that was using about 5 or 6 of the new trains per day and cancelling many of those services due to lack of trained crew right up until the timetable change wasn’t in any position to suddenly start using 20 of them per day. How could people within the industry whose job it is “sanity check” changes not see that?
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