Philip
On Moderation
I'll also point out that Northern have recently been recruiting for numerous platform dispatch and booking office roles.
The real challenge is to prevent "rationalisation" turning into wholesale closure.
Rationalisation does not just mean "axe duplications" - it can involve spending significant amounts of money to enable long term savings.
The Hazel Grove chord being an obvious historical example.
There will be a return of the 2/3 day commuters. It won't be as big a base, but it will be a base.
Two things here:
1) FOCs are very nearly back at pre pandemic traffic levels, and on some flows it is higher. Barring a complete collapse in intermodal and infrastructure traffic, they will be recruiting as usual.
2) TOCs are still in wait and see mode. There have been no instructions to permanently reduce train services (in this context, ‘permanently’ means more than a couple of years). Until it is clear what changes to demand emerge in the longer term, TOCs will retain their current driver establishments, and indeed be lifting them if required under their contract, and be recruiting to fill vacancies when they appear. However when service reductions happen, and these are in place for more than a couple of years, then establishments will be resized. In my opinion I don’t think redundancies will come, but I imagine a recruitment freeze will happen, and perhaps some encouragement for drivers to swap TOCs.
So will that mean end of Mon-Fri timetables
Possibly Tue-Thur (commuting) with Friday being same as Saturday
I see a bigger problem of one day commuting, people going into office one day for meetings etc. But rather than starting from traditional commuter towns, doing it from country areas that suddenly find people doing journeys from places like Wiltshire, Devon, Norfolk etc.
Not going to be that easy to accommodate say 1000 people travelling from Tiverton Parkway to London or Birmingham for a Wednesday in the office. There is lack of suitable rolling stock, and can’t use spare commuter EMUs
You’d like to think if there were redundancies coming there would be some dialogue between DfT and TOCs to stop recruiting trainee drivers now.
If there are any redundancies & it’s a big if, it will all be in a very controlled way & on a voluntary basis for traincrew. Things will all sort themselves out. It’s not something that concerns me to any extent.
Hi. No, I was replying to the posts regarding any reduced service effects on traincrew.Do you just mean this in the context of guard/driving, or across all roles?
I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff oddly.
I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff which are at a similar level of pay to booking office.
Do you just mean this in the context of guard/driving, or across all roles?
I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff which are at a similar level of pay to booking office.
You’d like to think if there were redundancies coming there would be some dialogue between DfT and TOCs to stop recruiting trainee drivers now.
If there are any redundancies & it’s a big if, it will all be in a very controlled way & on a voluntary basis for traincrew. Things will all sort themselves out. It’s not something that concerns me to any extent.
Given Dept of Transport is still promoting reopening lines I believe this time we won't see that and rationalisation doesn't cost nothing especially if signalling is involved. What needs rationalising is the duplication of services but that won't happen unless the DoT tip the whole operating model on its head and plan from top down the routes with a robust connection policy. This does need a central body aka SRA to coordinate between regional bodies whilst specifying Inter City/Regional Routes. Then by all means use the private sector to operate it in. This all takes time but industry must rise to the challenge and eliminate the historical blockers that make change slow. The workforce should be protected during this period in exchange for two year pay freeze with the exception of the lower paid staff.The real challenge is to prevent "rationalisation" turning into wholesale closure.
Rationalisation does not just mean "axe duplications" - it can involve spending significant amounts of money to enable long term savings.
The Hazel Grove chord being an obvious historical example.
The Government is actively seeking to save a significant part of the £billion a month covid rail subsidy, this will be announced immediately after the May elections.
this will be announced immediately after the May elections.
I think the days of peak time face-to-armpit crush loading may be gone for a long while. As a result I suspect most peak time extras will never come back and the daytime service level will be pretty flat.
What I hope doesn't happen is off-peak services being gutted. There's a big opportunity to draw people back to travelling on trains at a reasonable frequency which aren't claustrophobic levels of busy. I suspect people who travel for offices / business may try and do so at less busy times where possible.
I doubt traincrew roles are under much threat, because basically every TOC is run on quite large amounts of overtime, even now. There's been a lot of recruitment freezes also, which means some places are operating with huge numbers of vacancies. I am, however, more fearful for other roles such as station staff, who risk being seen as "non-essential" or having their jobs degraded by low-paid agency staff (this was already gathering pace even before COVID)
Possibly, but also the planned cuts and reductions would impact on the election and the period of 'purdah' that exists before election.
and return to travelling to see those clients, wherever they areI disagree.
Most office based jobs done by the kind of people who will pay for expensive railway commuting aren’t “widgets in, widgets out”. They’re more about building networks, developing relationships with colleagues and clients, and often about good old fashioned salesmanship.
Influencing people (as opposed to just speaking to them) can be achieved far better through face to face meetings than endless zoom calls. Of the people I know doing these kinds of jobs, all of them are looking forward to getting back into the office.
That might mean doing three days per week rather than five, but return to the office they most certainly will.
you can on IETs, Pendolinos and on XC Voyagers at least (which is almost all InterCity trains), along with many other modern emus (eg 387s), and you could on GWR HSTs so imagine that the ScotRail HSTs still have charging points.I can't even charge my phone on a typical intercity train.
Their role may be safety critical with current methods of operation. But the methods of operation aren't necessarily set in stone.However, surely station platform dispatchers and supervisors would fall into the 'essential' category, because their job is safety critical?
Can you confirm that as fact - or are you just guessing?The Government is actively seeking to save a significant part of the £billion a month covid rail subsidy, this will be announced immediately after the May elections.
The information comes from those involved with the response to the expected Government plan. They have no details, just an awareness that there is a great deal of effort going into this and an idea of the timing, magnitude and scope and a focus on the £billion a month price tag.Can you confirm that as fact - or are you just guessing?
So, not a fact, despite your statement.The information comes from those involved with the response to the expected Government plan. They have no details, just an awareness that there is a great deal of effort going into this and an idea of the timing, magnitude and scope and a focus on the £billion a month price tag.
and Tfl has closed almost all booking offices, although their fare system is a lot simplerYes, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Covid is already doing a pretty good job at stripping all the nice things out of life, after all.