WMR no trains New Street to Hereford after 13:50 today

[trainophile]

As per the heading, is this acceptable on a non-WMR strike day? There should be a (approx)**50 hourly service until 21:00 on a Friday.

I am booked on the 14:50. Luckily I saw the writing on the wall after travelling in the opposite direction on Monday, and have made other arrangements, travelling tomorrow instead and by a different route from Liverpool, but there’s likely to be some very unhappy people at New Street station this afternoon.

Hopefully there will be RRBs but they are not ideal. The service on this route is inadequate at the best of times being the only direct link between Birmingham and Worcester and often only two or three coaches.

 

[Class172]

Whilst it’s not a strike day the overtime ban is still in force I believe, which will impact on the number of services that can be run.

The WMR website is listing a number of trains already that won’t be running, though I must say the number of New St services even to Worcester seems much more limited than that lists suggests:

Friday 8th December

Birmingham - Hereford (via Worcester)
The following services will not operate:

• 07:11 Hereford to Birmingham New Street
• 10:40 Hereford to Birmingham New Street
• 14:40 Hereford to Birmingham New Street
• 18:48 Hereford to Birmingham New Street
• 22:59 Hereford to Worcester Shrub Hill (please note: this is the last service of the day)
• 05:56 Worcester Shrub Hill to Hereford
• 08:50 Birmingham New Street to Hereford
• 12:50 Birmingham New Street to Hereford
• 1650 Birmingham New Street to Hereford
• 21:00 Birmingham New Street to Hereford

RTT is also showing some rail-replacement buses in the timetable

Realtime Trains | Departures from Hereford all day on 08/12/2023

Train information at Hereford all day on 08/12/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[bleeder4]

It's the OT ban making its presence known. Wednesday was particularly bad. Signalling problems at Shrub Hill meant they could only get one unit out of the yard before the shunter booked off, so there was just one diagram all day.

 

[Mag_seven]

It's the OT ban making its presence known. Wednesday was particularly bad. Signalling problems at Shrub Hill meant they could only get one unit out of the yard before the shunter booked off, so there was just one diagram all day.

According to the website linked to above there has also been a spike in sickness absence at certain depots. Obviously in normal times uncovered turns would be resourced by drivers working overtime.

 

[GWVillager]

As per the heading, is this acceptable on a non-WMR strike day? There should be a (approx)**50 hourly service until 21:00 on a Friday.

It shouldn’t be acceptable, but it is. Hereford usually suffers quite badly from disruption, it had an elongated period of services being terminated at Malvern due to staff shortages a few years ago, and overtime bans always have quite a bad effect. As bleeder4 says, on Wednesday only one diagram ran (though this was also down to the signalling problems).

I am booked on the 14:50. Luckily I saw the writing on the wall after travelling in the opposite direction on Monday, and have made other arrangements, travelling tomorrow instead and by a different route from Liverpool, but there’s likely to be some very unhappy people at New Street station this afternoon.

Hopefully there will be RRBs but they are not ideal. The service on this route is inadequate at the best of times being the only direct link between Birmingham and Worcester and often only two or three coaches.

During overtime bans, a bus replaces one of the four diagrams. Usually, though, other cancelled services don’t get buses.

 

[trainophile]

Whilst it’s not a strike day the overtime ban is still in force I believe, which will impact on the number of services that can be run.

The WMR website is listing a number of trains already that won’t be running, though I must say the number of New St services even to Worcester seems much more limited than that lists suggests:



RTT is also showing some rail-replacement buses in the timetable

Realtime Trains | Departures from Hereford all day on 08/12/2023

Train information at Hereford all day on 08/12/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

According to NRE everything BHM-HFD after 13:50 is cancelled, not just those listed above. I wonder which is correct.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

WMT would know what dependency that have on o/t and RDW so should have constructed a timetable that reflects the base depot establishments but i suspect like many other operators these days they don't have planners to do it and probably don't have TCS's anymore who would have had the intimate knowledge.

Its blatantly obvious there is going to be no solution to this under current government so its about time all operators come up with timetables and rosters that are based on zero o/t and RDW. They can then at least deliver the best service they can within current establishments should ASLEF perpetuate this form of action which they will as its members aren't financially hurt by it unlike strike action.

 

[172007]

As per the heading, is this acceptable on a non-WMR strike day? There should be a (approx)**50 hourly service until 21:00 on a Friday.

I am booked on the 14:50. Luckily I saw the writing on the wall after travelling in the opposite direction on Monday, and have made other arrangements, travelling tomorrow instead and by a different route from Liverpool, but there’s likely to be some very unhappy people at New Street station this afternoon.

Hopefully there will be RRBs but they are not ideal. The service on this route is inadequate at the best of times being the only direct link between Birmingham and Worcester and often only two or three coaches.

Just to correct an inaccuracy in the last paragraph. There are two trains an hour timetabled from Birmingam Moor Stnand Birmingham Snow Hill that are direct links to Worcester.

Just in case your like many in Worcester who think that New Street is the only city centre station in Birmingham then Moor Street is next to Selfridges and Birmingham Snow Hill is a 5 minute walk from Bimingham New Street, probably slightly shorted than Shrubb Hill to Foregate Street.

WMT would know what dependency that have on o/t and RDW so should have constructed a timetable that reflects the base depot establishments but i suspect like many other operators these days they don't have planners to do it and probably don't have TCS's anymore who would have had the intimate knowledge.

Its blatantly obvious there is going to be no solution to this under current government so its about time all operators come up with timetables and rosters that are based on zero o/t and RDW. They can then at least deliver the best service they can within current establishments should ASLEF perpetuate this form of action which they will as its members aren't financially hurt by it unlike strike action.

WMR have Tcs's (Actually Duty Train Crew Managers) still and they are a band of highly knowledgeable, experienced members of staff who absolutely work their socks off in planning day before / on the day train crew issues. Many of the DTCM's are former drivers and conductors who know intermittently the traction, stations and diagrams.

 

[MattSGB]

Sorry, here comes a bit of a rant...

I have to wonder how much of this is now about deliberately causing maximum unpleasantness to passengers. I travel on the Snow Hill lines every day. This week, hey have been cancelling up to 7 out of 8 trains in a two hour period. I understand that services will be cancelled because of overtime bans, but are we really believing that the majority of services are dependent on overtime? WMT seem to have a lengthy track record of Snow Hill / Worcester cancellations coinciding with Birmingham and (especially) Worcester Christmas markets, and Christmas party seasons.

On top of that, usually the one train that they decide not to cancel is formed of two carriages - where four or five is the minimum standard. Is that really all they had available at the depot, despite mass cancellations? Also the trains that do run often have their toilets locked out of use.

Other operators seem to be up to similar tricks. I just sat waiting on platform 5B at new street and watched them lock the doors of a cross country voyager train 5 minutes before departure. The station made announcements not to board for your own safety because it was full and standing. The thing is, I could see that first class was mostly empty (so not declassified) and the two carriages next to it did have some people standing around the doors, but there were a few seats free and no one at all standing in the aisles. That's about as comfortable as it ever gets on a typical cross country service from New Street. What about the people with reservations? It seems to be done out of spite.

All this due to overtime ban? And Worcester via Bromsgrove is just as bad.

 

[Ashfordian6]

Sorry, here comes a bit of a rant...

I have to wonder how much of this is now about deliberately causing maximum unpleasantness to passengers. I travel on the Snow Hill lines every day. This week, hey have been cancelling up to 7 out of 8 trains in a two hour period. I understand that services will be cancelled because of overtime bans, but are we really believing that the majority of services are dependent on overtime? WMT seem to have a lengthy track record of Snow Hill / Worcester cancellations coinciding with Birmingham and (especially) Worcester Christmas markets, and Christmas party seasons.

On top of that, usually the one train that they decide not to cancel is formed of two carriages - where four or five is the minimum standard. Is that really all they had available at the depot, despite mass cancellations? Also the trains that do run often have their toilets locked out of use.

Other operators seem to be up to similar tricks. I just sat waiting on platform 5B at new street and watched them lock the doors of a cross country voyager train 5 minutes before departure. The station made announcements not to board for your own safety because it was full and standing. The thing is, I could see that first class was mostly empty (so not declassified) and the two carriages next to it did have some people standing around the doors, but there were a few seats free and no one at all standing in the aisles. That's about as comfortable as it ever gets on a typical cross country service from New Street. What about the people with reservations? It seems to be done out of spite.

All this due to overtime ban? And Worcester via Bromsgrove is just as bad.

Only the naive will believe the cancellation of trains is down to the Driver overtime ban and not the politics of the TOC's/Government deliberately trying to cause unpleasantness to passengers as some sort of PR game.

 

[2L70]

Snow hill lines do rely heavily on Overtime.

 

[trainophile]

They must love paying out delay repay or 'did not travel' claims. Considering the global Net Zero ambition, getting everyone off public transport and back into their cars seems a decidedly backward step.

Further checks on the BHM-HFD route today reveal that not only did nothing run after 13:50 but the earlier ones terminated at Shrub Hill or Foregate Street too. There's something very unpleasant going on with managing the railways in general, and it's time it was addressed.

 

[bleeder4]

Just in case your like many in Worcester who think that New Street is the only city centre station in Birmingham then Moor Street is next to Selfridges and Birmingham Snow Hill is a 5 minute walk from Bimingham New Street, probably slightly shorted than Shrubb Hill to Foregate Street.

There's a simple reason why us Worcester lot prefer to get the New Street train rather than the Snow Hill train when we go to Birmingham - it's quicker. The New Street train stops at just 3 stations on the way and takes 45 minutes. The Snow Hill train stops at 11 stations on the way and takes over an hour. If you run a train to Snow Hill that doesn't stop at so many stations then we would use it.

 

[172007]

There's a simple reason why us Worcester lot prefer to get the New Street train rather than the Snow Hill train when we go to Birmingham - it's quicker. The New Street train stops at just 3 stations on the way and takes 45 minutes. The Snow Hill train stops at 11 stations on the way and takes over an hour. If you run a train to Snow Hill that doesn't stop at so many stations then we would use it.

I get the journey time saving reasoning in theory* but once you add to getting stuck behind a X City or late XC and queuing for New Street etc then it's a more straight forward journey with usually a guaranteed seat on the Snow Hill service it also depends where you are going in the City. Jewellery Quearter is fantastic for food and drinks also Colmore Row.

*Yet many say 15-20 mins saving on HS2 is a waste of time but that's another argument for another day.

 

[Class172]

I get the journey time saving reasoning in theory* but once you add to getting stuck behind a X City or late XC and queuing for New Street etc then it's a more straight forward journey with usually a guaranteed seat on the Snow Hill service it also depends where you are going in the City. Jewellery Quearter is fantastic for food and drinks also Colmore Row.

*Yet many say 15-20 mins saving on HS2 is a waste of time but that's another argument for another day.

The journey time saving is certainly significant enough to be a major factor, an additional 20 mins on a 40 minute journey is a proportionately much larger difference that 20 mins on say a 90 minute journey. Whilst there is a possibility of getting stuck behind a Cross-City stopper, often at Kings Norton, the delay incurred is usually pretty small and certainly less than going via Stourbridge. The difference between the two routes has got worse with the recent(-ish) timetable recast that resulted in the Worcester services becoming the stoppers (previously they were semi-fast), resulting in more like 15 calling points vs 10 previously (there was some variation in the timetable). The New St services also cater for University station, which with the university and hospital nearby is a significant destination for customers who under no normal circumstance would choose to travel on another route; likewise I appreciate that Snow Hill, Jewellery Quarter and The Hawthorns are destinations in themselves.

It must also be pointed out that reliability on both lines has been less than stellar recently, so passengers will also often jump on whatever service isn't cancelled if heading to Birmingham.

 

[trainophile]

On my way up on Monday we were diverted into Snow Hill due to flooding at Bromsgrove. Managed to get across to New Street for my connection in about 12 minutes but it was a rush.

I was lucky, as later in the day there were reports of people being held in queues to get into Snow Hill as it was overcrowded. Not sure if that’s a regular occurrence, perhaps it was picking up a lot of New Street passengers due to the general chaos.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

WMT would know what dependency that have on o/t and RDW so should have constructed a timetable that reflects the base depot establishments but i suspect like many other operators these days they don't have planners to do it and probably don't have TCS's anymore who would have had the intimate knowledge.

Its blatantly obvious there is going to be no solution to this under current government so its about time all operators come up with timetables and rosters that are based on zero o/t and RDW. They can then at least deliver the best service they can within current establishments should ASLEF perpetuate this form of action which they will as its members aren't financially hurt by it unlike strike action.

The DTCM is based at Worcester for this route, are there 24hrs a day and are very good at short term covering.

If you have no spare crew and vacant turns due to illness given the time of year, it can decimate services. If there was no OT ban, they would have a chance of moving some crew around but that's not going to happen this week, drivers will be digging their heels in. As is their right.

On my way up on Monday we were diverted into Snow Hill due to flooding at Bromsgrove. Managed to get across to New Street for my connection in about 12 minutes but it was a rush.

I was lucky, as later in the day there were reports of people being held in queues to get into Snow Hill as it was overcrowded. Not sure if that’s a regular occurrence, perhaps it was picking up a lot of New Street passengers due to the general chaos.

Really shouldn't take 12 minutes to get from either Moor St or Snow Hill to New St. I guess the path from Snow Hill is slightly less well known and can be quite busy but door to door should be no more than 6 minutes having made that walk many many times.

 

[david1212]

On my way up on Monday we were diverted into Snow Hill due to flooding at Bromsgrove. Managed to get across to New Street for my connection in about 12 minutes but it was a rush ....

.....
Really shouldn't take 12 minutes to get from either Moor St or Snow Hill to New St. I guess the path from Snow Hill is slightly less well known and can be quite busy but door to door should be no more than 6 minutes having made that walk many many times.

From the Stephenson Street doors of New Street to the entrance of either Moor Street or Snow Hill I too have comfortably walked in well under 10 minutes. What I now think of as the back exit of New Street to Moor Street is quicker particularly at busier times and especially now with the Christmas stalls obstructing New Street. However for New Street station there is the time from either set of doors through the concourse then the barriers to the platform even if you are totally familiar with the layout. For Snow Hill there is the walk across the bridge then through the barriers down to the platforms. Moor Street is level except to the southbound platform 1 for Leamington and Stratford-upon-Avon. Is the separate entrance to Platform 1 still open? Even if it is you would have to know it exists plus you end up right at the end of the platform, which is quite narrow.

 

[BAFRA77]

Semi-related to this - was on 1M06 on Sunday morning travelling from Foregate Street to Birmingham New Street - to connect to Coventry for a work appointment.

Was on one of the new Class 730s that have been introduced recently.

Managed to get as far as Bromsgrove on time - and then we had the misfortune to hit the Lickey Bank - which took us 30 minutes to get over due to complete loss of any speed trying to get uphill. From speaking to a friend who works for WMT - they have this similar issue between Telford and Oakengates.

Finally got into New Street 36L - meaning I missed the connection I required to Coventry and was therefore late for the work assignment.

Realtime Trains | 1M06 0855 Worcester Foregate Street to Birmingham New Street | 10/12/2023

Real-time train running information for 1M06 0855 departure from Worcester Foregate Street to Birmingham New Street on 10/12/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I assume this issue is unique to the 730s?

 

[alex17595]

Semi-related to this - was on 1M06 on Sunday morning travelling from Foregate Street to Birmingham New Street - to connect to Coventry for a work appointment.

Was on one of the new Class 730s that have been introduced recently.

Managed to get as far as Bromsgrove on time - and then we had the misfortune to hit the Lickey Bank - which took us 30 minutes to get over due to complete loss of any speed trying to get uphill. From speaking to a friend who works for WMT - they have this similar issue between Telford and Oakengates.

Finally got into New Street 36L - meaning I missed the connection I required to Coventry and was therefore late for the work assignment.

Realtime Trains | 1M06 0855 Worcester Foregate Street to Birmingham New Street | 10/12/2023

Real-time train running information for 1M06 0855 departure from Worcester Foregate Street to Birmingham New Street on 10/12/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I assume this issue is unique to the 730s?

Do you mean 196s? 730s are electric only so can't go past Bromsgrove.

 

[Class172]

I assume this issue is unique to the 730s?

Just to point out that the service you travelled on would not have been formed of a class 730. They are EMUs that are currently only in service on local services from London Euston, but will eventually also be found on services around Birmingham. Any services from Worcester to New Street will either be formed of class 172 or 196 units.

 

[Jamesrob637]

The Lickey Bank is notorious in autumn so not surprised it lost some time. That said, half an hour is a lot.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Are the RHTTs still running at this time of year? A tremendous number of residual leaves (and green foliage from evergreens) came down in Peak District gales over the past couple of days. I didn’t dare trust the trains over the weekend for various reasons.

 

[BAFRA77]

Just to point out that the service you travelled on would not have been formed of a class 730. They are EMUs that are currently only in service on local services from London Euston, but will eventually also be found on services around Birmingham. Any services from Worcester to New Street will either be formed of class 172 or 196 units.

It was a Class 196 - my apologies - one of the new orange trains that I've seen recently