Transpennine woes and a moan...

[SuperNova]

I think it's fair to say that, whilst these withdrawals aren't uncontroversial, at least they are delivering a much better percentage of their advertised service. Stones and glass houses come to mind...

I find it rich to use Northern as an example, when their service has been stripped back making my journeys as a passenger longer and incredibly more difficult.

 

[Jamesrob637]

I think it's fair to say that, whilst these withdrawals aren't uncontroversial, at least they are delivering a much better percentage of their advertised service. Stones and glass houses come to mind...

Northern are far from the worst of late. For example, they've actually managed to operate the 07:24 Blackpool North to Hazel Grove every day this week: a prime Manchester commuting service.

 

[class397tpe]

I find it rich to use Northern as an example, when their service has been stripped back making my journeys as a passenger longer and incredibly more difficult.

Well transpennine is still running a vastly reduced timetable compared to pre-covid. Northern are able to pretty reliably run their stripped-back service, whereas transpennine are not.

 

[Killingworth]

Much as I might complain about services between Sheffield and Manchester, currently Northern are offering more stopping trains in each direction per day than either TPE or EMR on the fasts. All 3 operators trains are liable to be late or cancelled. It's no longer possible to know in adance how busy a train will be because it depends on the reliability of the other two in the preceding couple of hours. Many are shorter formed than they need to be as a result.

It's undoubtedly TPE shortcomings at the root of it all with Northern the saviour for many journeys.

 

[James90012]

That’s actually MUCH less than usual

Oh dear - I happened to be at Man Pic yesterday morning and saw all the morning Scotlands in both directions were cancelled which made me look!

 

[CAF397]

yes, I'm sure they've chosen to make some 3 coaches just to inconvenience passengers!

You may say that as a joke, but in the Summer of 2020, when lockdown was over and people were allowed freedom, again, TPE increased their services.

The hourly Liverpool-Newcastle remained 5 car 802.

The Piccadilly-Huddersfield and Huddersfield-Leeds stoppers were all run as 6-cars (requiring the Leeds ones to shunt to Marsden).

The Piccadilly-Hulls were 6-cars

The Cleethorpes-Airport services were 6 cars between Cleethorpes and Piccadilly (3-cars to the Airport).

The Redcar to Airports were consistently 6-car.

There was so much capacity in Summer 2020, and that was even with restrictions on events and number of people in groups.

TPE should be running as close to that as they can. The 185 fleet is not being used to the full potential as it was, there is no excuse that the Hull diagrams are regularly 3-car. There are still two full Cleethorpes diagrams missing. One is used for a training train using 68s and Mk5a coaches, but the other is unused.

 

[mike57]

TPE should be running as close to that as they can. The 185 fleet is not being used to the full potential as it was, there is no excuse that the Hull diagrams are regularly 3-car. There are still two full Cleethorpes diagrams missing. One is used for a training train using 68s and Mk5a coaches, but the other is unused.

To be honest I think TPE have given up. They are going to get their funding from the taxpayer even if the service is appalling. They have union problems, strikes, RDW issues. Even if the revenue drops significantly TPE still get the same amount of money. Issues with route learning and route competancy have been aired here, but from TPE point of view they want to run the cheapest possible operation.

Decisions wrt to rolling stock procurement were the wrong decisions with the benefit of hindsight, having multiple types of stock may please rail enthusiasts but it must be an operational nightmare as you cannot quickly shuffle stuff around to cover a problem. It increases training requirements on the staff, or staff areas of operation become reduced.

The biggest problem from a passenger point of view there is no ongoing penalty for failure on TPE, yes they may end up losing the business, and TPE become another DOR. In the short term it seems like even the delay repay doesn't come out of TPE earnings. You have to blame the bright spark in the DfT that gave them a contract that has no penalties for day to day failure. Even taking off money on the basis of 10% of services cancelled = 10% reduction in payment would have been a start.

What make this situation worse for passengers is that I cannot see any driver to sort it out.

 

[MDB1images]

Deleted, posted in wrong thread.

 

[Shernan]

To be fair, TPE is not making much money anyways with most of their train fares to delay repay. Got a train today at Durham to Manchester Piccadilly. All the services from Durham include 1758, 1900 and 2018 services were cancelled. Instructed to take an LNER to York and make a change. End up being more than an hour later and get delay repay. What a joke. I have heard the ticketing staff advising me that Cross Country was only accepting tickets on certain services now because they were quite fed up of the cancelations by TPE. The staff would still instruct the passengers to get on whatever services that arrives though to York (including Cross Country services) since waiting for the LNER could make passengers miss another connection at York and lead to further delays. TPE is just ridiculous

 

[sjm77]

Firstly, TOCs have a contract. As you and I do. This means that any negotiations on pay has to be first approved by DfT. Secondly, they're not going to bite the hand that feeds.

I also find it hard to fathom that most staff don't know what's going on. This has been talked about in messrooms for nearly a year and by managers too... the micromanagement of the DfT, struggling to get basic supplies without proving you need it first, - and then this week with the DfT crafted Avanti tweets!


Would this be the same Northern who still don't run services between Huddersfield - Wakefield, Scunthorpe - Doncaster etc? And have drastically cut frequencies?

Also note, you've quoted two OLR operators, who have much more freedom than TOCs under NRC's.

find it rich to use Northern as an example, when their service has been stripped back making my journeys as a passenger longer and incredibly more difficult.

I used LNER and Northern as an example because they are the operators I use the most (also TPEx). I was not trying to compare apples and oranges, just talking about my real life experience. I agree that Northern have made some journeys unviable, but people know this when they research the current timetable and make appropriate decisions. The difference is that with Northern, and as others have stated also so I know it is not me going mad, are far more succesful are runnind their paired back timetable than TPEx are at running their paried back timetable!
With a username like SuperNova I presume you are a fan of TPEx and their new rolling stock, fine. However the rest of us should not have to be subjected to their terribe reliability becuase of that.
I have tried to make my feelings known whilst respecting forum rules. I will not just accept terrible reliability becuase other Forum members like to make excuses. I don't think I'll check this thread again now, there is no point.

TPEx are truly dreadful and have given up, there are several of us on this page who think this and we cannot all be wrong.

 

[td97]

TPE seem to have decided neither PRO (EU Passenger Rights & Obligations) nor NRCOT apply to themselves today, particularly on the WCML route, as Avanti are obviously unable to accept tickets.

We are advising Customers to travel for essential purposes only. Please note NO ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORT will be provided. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Please check your service before travelling.

TransPennine Express JourneyCheck - Train times and live real time delay/cancellation/disruption information.

TransPennine Express JourneyCheck provides real time, up-to-date train times and train disruption information keeping you informed about any delays or cancellations on the network and helping you know what to do when your journey is affected. Train Cancellations, Delays, Alterations and...

journeycheck.com

 

[nr758123]

TPEx are truly dreadful and have given up, there are several of us on this page who think this and we cannot all be wrong.

+1

Plus, one suspects, the entire populations of Lockerbie and Penrith.

 

[Andyh82]

There is currently a 90 minute gap in services between Manchester and Leeds due to two consecutive cancellations in an already reduced engineering work timetable

 

[Clarence Yard]

To be honest I think TPE have given up. They are going to get their funding from the taxpayer even if the service is appalling. They have union problems, strikes, RDW issues. Even if the revenue drops significantly TPE still get the same amount of money. Issues with route learning and route competancy have been aired here, but from TPE point of view they want to run the cheapest possible operation.

Decisions wrt to rolling stock procurement were the wrong decisions with the benefit of hindsight, having multiple types of stock may please rail enthusiasts but it must be an operational nightmare as you cannot quickly shuffle stuff around to cover a problem. It increases training requirements on the staff, or staff areas of operation become reduced.

The biggest problem from a passenger point of view there is no ongoing penalty for failure on TPE, yes they may end up losing the business, and TPE become another DOR. In the short term it seems like even the delay repay doesn't come out of TPE earnings. You have to blame the bright spark in the DfT that gave them a contract that has no penalties for day to day failure. Even taking off money on the basis of 10% of services cancelled = 10% reduction in payment would have been a start.

What make this situation worse for passengers is that I cannot see any driver to sort it out.

Since March 2020 all the costs effectively get paid for by the DfT and all the revenue goes to the DfT. For the TPE owner there is a basic management fee and then there is a performance related fee, not all of which is actually related to train performance.

Every bit of the TPE budget now has to be signed off by the DfT. Staffing levels, recruitment, training costs, all of these have to signed off as does any reduced train service. It’s an intrusive cost control mechanism that the DfT has now introduced into all of its TOCs. The reason? Because the DfT is on a strict cost limit with the Treasury.

So when you say that TPE want the cheapest solution possible, that should read the DfT want the cheapest solution possible. I have no doubt that the management at TPE would probably like to spend a bit more to resolve the issue faster but the DfT currently doesn’t.

It is very hard to fine a TOC when the contracting entity has such a large hold over what is actually happening out there.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

@sjm77 Supernova is TPE staff, and a bit higher up the food chain than i am….

 

[Solent&Wessex]

One of the principal issues with TPE is that it has previously made (in my opinion quote ludicrous) agreements with ASLEF regarding what is called "more important work". In simple terms this means that drivers diagrams (what trains they drive each day) can't be altered from the base long term plan agreed with the unions, which matches the normal published timetable, unless for very specific reasons - even on the day itself. "Staff shortages / uncovered duties" are not one of these specific reasons.

So even if the driver's start and finish times remain the same, and don't alter, TPE cannot alter the content of their duty on the day to cover for staff shortages elsewhere - i.e. they cannot shuffle drivers around to cover as much as possible. Now admittedly many drivers will help out, but many won't, and thus the company will assume the worst and just cancel trains the evening before to avoid a last minute cancellation on the day if the driver refuses to do something different inside his working hours.

Combine this with the equally ludicrous way that the company has planned it's work allocations to depots and has planned things to often have multiple crew changes along the length of many services, then we have the chaos everyone now experiences.

Irrespective of how many qualified drivers you have there is always a need for some overtime and flexibility short notice, so until such time as the "more important work" rule is tackled, or rest day working returns, then things will still stay a mess.

The fact the Sunday timetable remains reduced when there is no Conductor industrial action at all, and seemingly plenty of staff available to work on Sundays in some locations, is obviously part of a wider plan to either punish staff and deny overtime or reduce the timetable in the medium to long term and reduce passenger expectations (and thus save wages in the long term) or another ploy to pit passengers against staff so the Government can steam in with some radical proposals to "break the unions" and modernise the workforce- which is their stated aim.

 

[Halish Railway]

Suddenly having all of TPE’s services though Leeds be worked by 80Xs (post-TRU maybe) looks like a very good idea seeing as staff can be more easily shuffled around and allocated, as well as handing back the Huddersfield to Leeds and Manchester stopping services back to Northern as end door 80Xs would be hilariously impractical on stopping services.

 

[43066]

One of the principal issues with TPE is that it has previously made (in my opinion quote ludicrous) agreements with ASLEF regarding what is called "more important work". In simple terms this means that drivers diagrams (what trains they drive each day) can't be altered from the base long term plan agreed with the unions, which matches the normal published timetable, unless for very specific reasons - even on the day itself. "Staff shortages / uncovered duties" are not one of these specific reasons.

So even if the driver's start and finish times remain the same, and don't alter, TPE cannot alter the content of their duty on the day to cover for staff shortages elsewhere - i.e. they cannot shuffle drivers around to cover as much as possible. Now admittedly many drivers will help out, but many won't, and thus the company will assume the worst and just cancel trains the evening before to avoid a last minute cancellation on the day if the driver refuses to do something different inside his working hours.

This will be because existing diagrams have been scrutinised for compliance with agreements, assessed for fatigue etc. So there are good reasons (beyond union intransigence ) why drivers can’t just be told “right there’s disruption today so we’re making it up as we go along”.

Spare and standby drivers are there to cover bits of diagrams/full diagrams (subject to timings) and to help out during disruption. This can and frequently does include cross covering the work of other depots, traction and route knowledge permitting.

 

[Lancy99]

This will be because existing diagrams have been scrutinised for compliance with agreements, assessed for fatigue etc. So there are good reasons (beyond union intransigence ) why drivers can’t just be told “right there’s disruption today so we’re making it up as we go along”.

Spare and standby drivers are there to cover bits of diagrams/full diagrams (subject to timings) and to help out during disruption. This can and frequently does include cross covering the work of other depots, traction and route knowledge permitting.

That’s the thing, there’s no spare drivers to pick up the bits that need covering.

 

[Seehof]

Came back on the 1938 train from Manchester Airport to York last Friday. It arrived at the time it was due out. 3 coaches instead of 6. No seat reservations. The lady conductor apologised for this but blamed this very emphatically on passengers getting on as the train arrived and the cleaners not able to do their job. She never came through the train and left it at Manchester Victoria. The next conductor (a man) announced that he would be at the back if anybody needed him.
Having been a conductor on the Airport North East TPE route, I loved going down, checking tickets, confirming connections and asking people about their holidays which you had time to do between the airport and Piccadilly.
I think TPE morale is rock bottom and train crew have taken a lot of stick with the general very poor level of service and are now nervous and reluctant to engage with the passengers. What a mess the railway is in now, it is all very sad.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

This will be because existing diagrams have been scrutinised for compliance with agreements, assessed for fatigue etc. So there are good reasons (beyond union intransigence ) why drivers can’t just be told “right there’s disruption today so we’re making it up as we go along”.

Spare and standby drivers are there to cover bits of diagrams/full diagrams (subject to timings) and to help out during disruption. This can and frequently does include cross covering the work of other depots, traction and route knowledge permitting.

Well Northern (definitely on the east side) manage to have "more important work" / cut and paste quite happily.

It wouldn't of course be completely made up. Resources/ Control would be well aware of the drivers hours rules and where and when breaks are required, as would the drivers themselves.

As far as I know the fatigue index scoring only relates to start and finish times, not the actual content of the work. And we are not talking about altering start or finish times, just altering the content of the work between those start and finish times.

Besides, such alterations are allowed if a) the diagrams are altered in advance due to pre-planned engineering work (union reps are not released every week or so to scrutinise every engineering work diagram) or b) there is on the day disruption caused by something else such as an infrastructure failure, incident, late notice engineering work. If diagrams can be cut and paste and altered ad hoc on the day for one type of disruption then surely they can be cut and paste and altered ad hoc on the day for another type of disruption?

 

[43066]

Well Northern (definitely on the east side) manage to have "more important work" / cut and paste quite happily.

I’ve never heard of this concept of “more important work”. Is it just the general principle that people work to their diagrams in normal circumstances?

It wouldn't of course be completely made up. Resources/ Control would be well aware of the drivers hours rules and where and when breaks are required, as would the drivers themselves.

Unfortunately that’s not necessarily the case. Resources can and do try and ask drivers to cut short breaks and do things they aren’t supposed to during disruption - whether that’s deliberate or accidental is another question (and depends who is in the chair). If a driver screws up the first thing the company will do is check whether they’ve taken their correct PNB etc.

A diagram of some sort always needs to be issued, printed and distributed because otherwise there’s a risk of a failure to call/call out of course. It’s therefore extremely difficult to alter this once said driver has departed, even during disruption (absent a call from the signaller to amend stopping patterns etc).

Besides, such alterations are allowed if a) the diagrams are altered in advance due to pre-planned engineering work (union reps are not released every week or so to scrutinise every engineering work diagram) or b) there is on the day disruption caused by something else such as an infrastructure failure, incident, late notice engineering work. If diagrams can be cut and paste and altered ad hoc on the day for one type of disruption then surely they can be cut and paste and altered ad hoc on the day for another type of disruption?

But ad hoc engineering diagrams are at least planned in advance. They can certainly cause issues when they turn out to be “illegal” and/or don’t have proper breaks, however there is at least a paper trail and they can be retrospectively scrutinised.

There are no agreements anywhere (AFAIK) that prevent flexibility around disruption on the day eg if the train you’re working leaves an hour or more late you will still generally be expected to work it, subject to breaks etc. Overall there’s already a great deal of flexibility shown by traincrew in order to recover from disruption. Of course when the goodwill disappears so does that flexibility, as is currently being seen at TPE and other TOCs.

I’m curious as to why you think the solution to staff shortages is moving existing staff around - ultimately a train driver can only drive one train at a time and if they’re taken off their booked working for whatever reason that train will then need to be cancelled unless there’s a spare/standby.

Do you work in train planning/resourcing yourself?

 

[Aaron1]

Just to provide a measure of how much TPE has affected my travel plans, in the last 3 months I have spent over £650 on train tickets (using split tickets) But I have/on course to receiving just over 1k back on delay repays, the vast majority coming from TPE


How am I getting more money back than the money I've spent on tickets? Well because the amount of 2 hour gaps in their timetables, 2 hour delays means i get every penny back including my return ticket cost , and then if there's delays on my return journey i end up making a profit!

my local station is a TPE run station and the services are terrible.

So the railway recently have actually ended up paying me to use the railways, rather than me pay them!

Once All the money is received, any more than my initial outlay will be donated to a charity of my choice (over £250 in total)

Bad times when passengers make a profit!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Thought 'Delay Repay' schemes were limited to / capped at 100% of the ticket price paid, so no "double bubble" if both the outward and return journeys are severely delayed. Is that not / no longer the case?

 

[SuperNova]

I used LNER and Northern as an example because they are the operators I use the most (also TPEx). I was not trying to compare apples and oranges, just talking about my real life experience. I agree that Northern have made some journeys unviable, but people know this when they research the current timetable and make appropriate decisions. The difference is that with Northern, and as others have stated also so I know it is not me going mad, are far more succesful are runnind their paired back timetable than TPEx are at running their paried back timetable!
With a username like SuperNova I presume you are a fan of TPEx and their new rolling stock, fine. However the rest of us should not have to be subjected to their terribe reliability becuase of that.
I have tried to make my feelings known whilst respecting forum rules. I will not just accept terrible reliability becuase other Forum members like to make excuses. I don't think I'll check this thread again now, there is no point.

TPEx are truly dreadful and have given up, there are several of us on this page who think this and we cannot all be wrong.

Firstly, I am not a fan of TPE. I work for them and chose my username based on the fact I've been fan of the band Oasis since the 90s. I'm not sure how you can be a fan of a TOC in all reality.

Secondly, they are not excuses in regards to terrible reliability. This is the reality of the situation. Until the DfT allow TOCs to negotiate properly with unions, then the whole industry won't be able to provide a service of any great reliability. Mick Lynch has said as much. Any resolution is in the hands of this Government and the DfT. Just because *you* don't like the answers doesn't make them excuses. And just because several people assume TPE have given up, that doesn't mean you're right. I point you towards post #224, which perfectly describes the situation.

I not only work on the railways but use the railways - Northern primarily. I still find it rich to compare Northern to TPE on this thread when one of my most frequent journeys now takes triple the time due do them abandoning that route. Plenty of other people are disgusted with that too.

Finally, I'll quite happily lay into TPE and decisions made which affects my work life - there's plenty I can criticise. But TPE aren't really at fault for the industry industrial relations issues right now. That's DfT and Government.

@sjm77 Supernova is TPE staff, and a bit higher up the food chain than i am….

A bold and inaccurate assumption.

 

[kels430]

The awful service is one thing and I understand that they can’t control that as they are hampered by the DfT. The really annoying thing is the lack of communication and often very late cancellations to services such as when passengers are stood on the platform waiting for doors to be opened only to be told its cancelled after the departure time. Surely at the start of the day TPE know which services will be allocated to a driver and which will have to be cancelled?

 

[northernchris]

I not only work on the railways but use the railways - Northern primarily. I still find it rich to compare Northern to TPE on this thread when one of my most frequent journeys now takes triple the time due do them abandoning that route. Plenty of other people are disgusted with that too.

I do agree that Northern being able to completely abandon routes is appalling, especially without stipulating when trains will return. However, since the May timetable change Northern are pretty reliable, so the withdrawals are helping the overall service.

TPE cut their December 2021 timetable back earlier this year, pre-plan cancellations the day before and still cancel a significant number of journeys on the day. Add in the short forms and the lack of info, and it creates an unpleasant environment to be avoided where possible. It's a shame things have got to this level, as summer 2020 TPE were one of the most reliable operators.

 

[Autoticketgate]

The awful service is one thing and I understand that they can’t control that as they are hampered by the DfT. The really annoying thing is the lack of communication and often very late cancellations to services such as when passengers are stood on the platform waiting for doors to be opened only to be told its cancelled after the departure time. Surely at the start of the day TPE know which services will be allocated to a driver and which will have to be cancelled?

You might think that's bad, you should have seen the 19:11 Glasgow Central to Man Airport that I was on this Tuesday - they decided to terminate it short at Preston while we were on the train and had already set off and gone a few stops! Fortunately there was a conveniently timed Northern stopping service from there which meant I was "only" about 20 minutes late to Piccadilly. A few people must have missed some connections from that though (which is especially not fun that late in the day), fortunately mine wasn't that tight.
I'm going to have to go to Glasgow and back a few more times in the next few weeks and between TPE and (I hear) Avanti's shoddy service I'm really dreading it to be honest. If I could drive I would.

It does raise the question though - what on earth is going on in operations that can cause that kind of thing to happen? Surely if they know a driver has to go home at a set time they would be able to announce it an hour or two ahead of time at least.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Is Preston invariably always a crew changeover location for services on the WCML operated by both TPE and/or Avanti?

 

[Watershed]

Is Preston invariably always a crew changeover location for services on the WCML operated by both TPE and/or Avanti?

For Avanti, yes (except a handful of the Blackpool/Lancaster short workings).

For TPE, usually yes - but again, there are some exceptions (including some of the Lancaster/Oxenholme short workings).