Is it about time rail timetables returned to normal?

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Is it a kop out by TOCs to be running these emergency covid timetables when people are needing to travel again, rules are basically gone, and cases still continue to drop like a stone.

I feel they are using covid as an excuse and this is more of a money saving exercise and by offering hardly any advances also a money making exercise.

 

[ExRes]

Is it a kop out by TOCs to be running these emergency covid timetables when people are needing to travel again, rules are basically gone, and cases still continue to drop like a stone.

I feel they are using covid as an excuse and this is more of a money saving exercise and by offering hardly any advances also a money making exercise.

You would have to know the staffing availability of each TOC to answer that, if people keep testing themselves and getting positive results then full services won't be able to restart

 

[ainsworth74]

You would have to know the staffing availability of each TOC to answer that, if people keep testing themselves and getting positive results then full services won't be able to restart

Yes this is less an issue around running less trains because we're in a national emergency and no-one should be travelling unless absolutely necessary (see lockdown one) and more about running less trains because lots of staff are, or potentially will be, self-isolating and even when not there's often training backlogs meaning there are few staff that are able to be fully productive.

Oh, and the Treasury wanting to extract their pound of flesh from the industry and passengers. Rightly or wrongly.

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

You would have to know the staffing availability of each TOC to answer that, if people keep testing themselves and getting positive results then full services won't be able to restart

Only 112,000 positive tests out of country of almost 70 million yesterday. Its a tiny % , which out of that number an even smaller amount are rail staff I'm sure.

Like I said, I think the ToC s are milking it and could if they chose run a full timetable.
Transport for Wales who have well documented shortages of stock to run and I think will be quite happy to run busses up the conwy valley and finish services much earlier at night for as long as possible as it makes stock allocations much easier.

 

[ExRes]

Only 112,000 positive tests out of country of almost 70 million yesterday. Its a tiny % , which out of that number an even smaller amount are rail staff I'm sure.

The trouble with percentages is that they are wildly variable in reality, back in the 1980s I worked for Post Office Counters, in our district we had a problem with staff absence due to pregnancy, as a relatively small unit we had absence of nearly 40%, nationally it would have been nowhere near that, pregnancy wasn't crippling the country but it certainly was us

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

The trouble with percentages is that they are wildly variable in reality, back in the 1980s I worked for Post Office Counters, in our district we had a problem with staff absence due to pregnancy, as a relatively small unit we had absence of nearly 40%, nationally it would have been nowhere near that, pregnancy wasn't crippling the country but it certainly was us

Maybe staff could shed some light on this, are thy genuinely short of staff at work as of today? Or could a normal timetable be operated with the staff they have?

 

[plugwash]

and cases still continue to drop like a stone.

Where are you getting the idea that cases are dropping like a stone? the graphs i've seen showed they dropped to about half the christmas peak and then leveled out.

 

[johntea]

There are perhaps a number of issues with staffing

-Sickness
-Recruitment / Training (delays due to the pandemic)
-Retention (perhaps not so much of an issue in the railway but e.g. bus drivers are an issue as many decided to jump to other driving jobs for a much better pay and less hassle)

Can't agree that I've particulary seen 'hardly any advances' however, I've booked many advances recently at lower tier prices too

 

[anthony263]

There are perhaps a number of issues with staffing

-Sickness
-Recruitment / Training (delays due to the pandemic)
-Retention (perhaps not so much of an issue in the railway but e.g. bus drivers are an issue as many decided to jump to other driving jobs for a much better pay and less hassle)

Can't agree that I've particulary seen 'hardly any advances' however, I've booked many advances recently at lower tier prices too

I've stayed in the bus industry but as soon as the right job comes up in the rail industry I'm off

 

[Watershed]

Is it a kop out by TOCs to be running these emergency covid timetables when people are needing to travel again, rules are basically gone, and cases still continue to drop like a stone.

I feel they are using covid as an excuse and this is more of a money saving exercise and by offering hardly any advances also a money making exercise.

It varies between TOCs, but the timing of the move to emergency timetables belies the fact that - in most cases - the current reduced timetables have little to do with Omicron or even Covid.

They were introduced around mid-January, which in hindsight was at least two weeks after the peak had passed - and even at the time they were being worked on, it was clear that cases had levelled off (and would thus likely soon drop again).

For many TOCs, "Omicron" serves as a convenient cover story for other issues, including:

• General traincrew shortages and under-resourcing - often caused by a failure to adequately recruit and retain the complements needed, but more fundamentally also caused by things like building plans around assuming people are willing to work overtime
• A lack of traincrew with the required route and traction knowledge - at many TOCs this is exacerbated by the excessively long suspension of training in 2020 and the delay in removing bubbles, testing etc. last year, as well as a failure to maintain enough instances of work on uncommon routes/traction
• Industrial relations issues - several TOCs now have no Rest Day Working agreement with ASLEF, and I have no doubt that most will soon be in that position. There are also several guards' disputes active or brewing.
• Exceptionally high levels of non-Covid related sickness - it is alarming (to say the least) to hear of sickness rates of up to 15% in places. There seems to be little explanation as to why frontline operational roles at TOCs are seeing rates so much higher than other areas of the economy.
• DfT cost-cutting demands - often made in the crudest manner imaginable, for example slashing or shortforming services to save a few unit miles and a (relative) pittance in traincrew overtime.

Unfortunately several of these issues are long-term and hence reduced timetables (even just compared to last summer for example) are likely to continue for a number of weeks or months yet. In the worst cases I'm aware of, it might even be for the rest of the year.

None of this will do the railway any favours. The longer that people manage to make do with skeleton services, the harder it will be to justify the enormous public subsidies that are poured down the drain just to keep things ticking over, let alone capital investment.

Frankly, I think that the public - which represents the other side of the equation whether they're taxpayers, farepayers or both - deserves far better in accountability and transparency on what is going on.

 

[steamybrian]

Recently travelling on several London rush hour commuter services I found the trains were less than half full. Not only did I get a seat but there were a choice of empty seats. In the pre- pandemic days I would be a grateful of a "comfortable" standing position. I understand why not only are there less London commuter services running but also the off peak services have been thinned out. It would not have been possible to run full services if there are still staff absent.

 

[TPO]

It varies between TOCs, but the timing of the move to emergency timetables belies the fact that - in most cases - the current reduced timetables have little to do with Omicron or even Covid.

They were introduced around mid-January, which in hindsight was at least two weeks after the peak had passed - and even at the time they were being worked on, it was clear that cases had levelled off (and would thus likely soon drop again).

For many TOCs, "Omicron" serves as a convenient cover story for other issues, including:

• General traincrew shortages - often caused by a failure to adequately recruit and retain people
• A lack of traincrew with the required route and traction knowledge - at many TOCs this is exacerbated by the excessively long suspension of training in 2020 and the delay in removing bubbles, testing etc. last year, as well as a failure to maintain enough instances of work on uncommon routes/traction in the timetable
• Industrial relations issues - several TOCs now have no Rest Day Working agreement with ASLEF, and I have no doubt that most will soon be in that position. There are also several guards' disputes active or brewing.
• Exceptionally high levels of non-Covid related sickness - it is alarming (to say the least) to hear of sickness rates of up to 15% in places. Why are frontline operational roles at TOCs seeing rates so much higher than other areas of the economy? Something doesn't smell right about this.
• DfT cost-cutting demands - often made in the crudest manner imaginable, for example slashing or shortforming services to save a few unit miles and a handful of traincrew diagrams.

Unfortunately several of these issues are long-term and hence reduced timetables (even just compared to last summer for example) are likely to continue for a number of weeks or months yet. In the worst cases I'm aware of, it might even be for the rest of the year.

None of this will do the railway any favours. The longer that people manage to make do with skeleton services, the harder it will be to justify the enormous public subsidies that are poured down the drain just to keep things ticking over, let along capital investment.

Frankly, I think that the public - which represents the other side of the equation whether they're taxpayers, farepayers or both - deserves far better in accountability and transparency on what is going on.

You can also add the impact of furloughing staff who needed competence refreshers on return

Then there's a bunch of older staff who looked at the level of their pension fund, thought about the increased stress/hassle and decided "I don't need to do this any more" and either retired, or cut back their hours to a level where they could enjoy the job again, or went zero hours at one of the small FOCs, choosing what traction and shifts they drive.

Not many in each category but add a percent here, a couple of percent there and before long you're short of a significant percentage of the minimum staff level needed and no quick fixes.

TPO

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

It varies between TOCs, but the timing of the move to emergency timetables belies the fact that - in most cases - the current reduced timetables have little to do with Omicron or even Covid.

They were introduced around mid-January, which in hindsight was at least two weeks after the peak had passed - and even at the time they were being worked on, it was clear that cases had levelled off (and would thus likely soon drop again).

For many TOCs, "Omicron" serves as a convenient cover story for other issues, including:

• General traincrew shortages and under-resourcing - often caused by a failure to adequately recruit and retain the complements needed, but more fundamentally also caused by things like building plans around assuming people are willing to work overtime
• A lack of traincrew with the required route and traction knowledge - at many TOCs this is exacerbated by the excessively long suspension of training in 2020 and the delay in removing bubbles, testing etc. last year, as well as a failure to maintain enough instances of work on uncommon routes/traction
• Industrial relations issues - several TOCs now have no Rest Day Working agreement with ASLEF, and I have no doubt that most will soon be in that position. There are also several guards' disputes active or brewing.
• Exceptionally high levels of non-Covid related sickness - it is alarming (to say the least) to hear of sickness rates of up to 15% in places. There seems to be little explanation as to why frontline operational roles at TOCs are seeing rates so much higher than other areas of the economy.
• DfT cost-cutting demands - often made in the crudest manner imaginable, for example slashing or shortforming services to save a few unit miles and a (relative) pittance in traincrew overtime.

Unfortunately several of these issues are long-term and hence reduced timetables (even just compared to last summer for example) are likely to continue for a number of weeks or months yet. In the worst cases I'm aware of, it might even be for the rest of the year.

None of this will do the railway any favours. The longer that people manage to make do with skeleton services, the harder it will be to justify the enormous public subsidies that are poured down the drain just to keep things ticking over, let alone capital investment.

Frankly, I think that the public - which represents the other side of the equation whether they're taxpayers, farepayers or both - deserves far better in accountability and transparency on what is going on.

Great Post which shares a lot of my own thoughts too.

The blaming of covid on their websites just isn't true and joe public can see right through it. Work from home has cone to an end, sporting venues are full again, restaurants and pubs are full again and the public deserve a decent service again now to get them where they need to be.

 

[py_megapixel]

the public deserve a decent service again now to get them where they need to be.

So exactly what the railway didn't provide for most people, even pre-Covid, then!

 

[James H]

Work from home has cone to an end.

Many people are doing hybrid working - we are not back to pre-covid working patterns by a long chalk

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Many people are doing hybrid working - we are not back to pre-covid working patterns by a long chalk

That's choice though now. A lot of people have been told to be back at the workplace. They shouldn't have to leave ridiculous early or arrive home ridiculously late because the TOC s are finding emergency timetabling under false pretences beneficial to them.

So exactly what the railway didn't provide for most people, even pre-Covid, then!

Indeed, but now have an excuse for it...

 

[Jamiescott1]

With most working from home midweek could we eventually have a Tuesday to Thursday timetable and a Friday to Monday timetable?

 

[SurreyCommuter]

The other issue with these 'emergency' timetables is how early some the last trains are. Pre-covid if I wanted to go out in London I knew that the last train home was 23:45 which allowed time for a half decent evening out. However now the last train is 22:45 which may not sound that bad but given I finish around 5.30pm and am not working in London means that I can't actually meet people in London till around 7pm and even then you are severely limited in your potential activities. I can't be alone in thinking this is going to lead to city centre entertainment venues closing down or going out of business and people only meeting in places they can drive to.

 

[yorksrob]

The other issue with these 'emergency' timetables is how early some the last trains are. Pre-covid if I wanted to go out in London I knew that the last train home was 23:45 which allowed time for a half decent evening out. However now the last train is 22:45 which may not sound that bad but given I finish around 5.30pm and am not working in London means that I can't actually meet people in London till around 7pm and even then you are severely limited in your potential activities. I can't be alone in thinking this is going to lead to city centre entertainment venues closing down or going out of business and people only meeting in places they can drive to.

I sympathize, but at the same time, this has been the case up here for decades in many routes.

 

[dk1]

You can also add the impact of furloughing staff who needed competence refreshers on return

AFAIK no TOC traincrew where furloughed at any time.

 

[bramling]

Is it a kop out by TOCs to be running these emergency covid timetables when people are needing to travel again, rules are basically gone, and cases still continue to drop like a stone.

I feel they are using covid as an excuse and this is more of a money saving exercise and by offering hardly any advances also a money making exercise.

In principle, YES.

However unfortunately it isn't quite that simple. Training hasn't been able to keep up with people leaving over the last two years, and this will be even more of an issue for those locations who struggled to deliver their full service in the first place (for example GTR!). So, unfortunately, December 2019 timetables would be unachievable in some cases.

Look at LU for example of what endeavouring to run 2019 service levels is like in practice - significant numbers of cancellations, and massive workload for control staff. It's only happened on LU due to the political Johnson/Khan situation. It's one thing having ad-hoc cancellations on a metro service (though not so good if you travel from somewhere like Mill Hill East), but on a mainline service it risks very long gaps with no service.

No easy solutions, unfortunately.

I do think the industry should be *aiming* for 2019 service levels, though, long-term.

 

[Bald Rick]

It varies between TOCs, but the timing of the move to emergency timetables belies the fact that - in most cases - the current reduced timetables have little to do with Omicron or even Covid.

They were introduced around mid-January, which in hindsight was at least two weeks after the peak had passed - and even at the time they were being worked on, it was clear that cases had levelled off (and would thus likely soon drop again).

For many TOCs, "Omicron" serves as a convenient cover story for other issues, including:

• General traincrew shortages and under-resourcing - often caused by a failure to adequately recruit and retain the complements needed, but more fundamentally also caused by things like building plans around assuming people are willing to work overtime
• A lack of traincrew with the required route and traction knowledge - at many TOCs this is exacerbated by the excessively long suspension of training in 2020 and the delay in removing bubbles, testing etc. last year, as well as a failure to maintain enough instances of work on uncommon routes/traction
• Industrial relations issues - several TOCs now have no Rest Day Working agreement with ASLEF, and I have no doubt that most will soon be in that position. There are also several guards' disputes active or brewing.
• Exceptionally high levels of non-Covid related sickness - it is alarming (to say the least) to hear of sickness rates of up to 15% in places. There seems to be little explanation as to why frontline operational roles at TOCs are seeing rates so much higher than other areas of the economy.
• DfT cost-cutting demands - often made in the crudest manner imaginable, for example slashing or shortforming services to save a few unit miles and a (relative) pittance in traincrew overtime.

Unfortunately several of these issues are long-term and hence reduced timetables (even just compared to last summer for example) are likely to continue for a number of weeks or months yet. In the worst cases I'm aware of, it might even be for the rest of the year.

None of this will do the railway any favours. The longer that people manage to make do with skeleton services, the harder it will be to justify the enormous public subsidies that are poured down the drain just to keep things ticking over, let alone capital investment.

Frankly, I think that the public - which represents the other side of the equation whether they're taxpayers, farepayers or both - deserves far better in accountability and transparency on what is going on.

Whilst there is truth in all of th eabove, the reason the timetables were reduced across the board (nearly’ in mid January was very definitely because of the Omicron variant. Without that variant, it wouldn’t have happened.

It typically takes 2-3 weeks minimum from realising you might need to make a timetable change of this nature to actually implementing it. In this case, Christmas got in the way and many planning staff were off.

When stepping services back up the same is true - it takes 2-3 weeks to plan. Obviously you want to be reasonably sure that you will have staff availability before deciding to activate the new plan. Now absence levels are falling, albeit not consistently across all TOCs, services are being reinstated over the next few weeks.

There are a small number of TOCs who don’t have a rest day working agreement who will need to stay at reduced levels of service for now.

With most working from home midweek could we eventually have a Tuesday to Thursday timetable and a Friday to Monday timetable?

No. Partly because Friday is the busiest day of the week, Monday only a few % down on mid week, and mostly because the planners have enough to do creating 3 separate base timetables (Weekday, Saturday, Sunday) that doing another two increases their workload by 60%.

 

[AJW12]

Look at LU for example of what endeavouring to run 2019 service levels is like in practice - significant numbers of cancellations, and massive workload for control staff. It's only happened on LU due to the political Johnson/Khan situation. It's one thing having ad-hoc cancellations on a metro service (though not so good if you travel from somewhere like Mill Hill East), but on a mainline service it risks very long gaps with no service.

Absolutely this. I’m all for train services going back to a pre-pandemic level (or there abouts - we don’t need the same peak service into London as we used to, and pre-covid we stuffed so many trains down the infrastructure that reliability was going down the drain) - but I commute using the metropolitan line three days a week and whilst it comes and goes, there’s just no service regulation going on - trains just get cancelled here and there (and obviously because it’s TfL, you don’t get any info on which ones are cancelled) - but because of the lack of regulation there’s been many times I’ve had to wait 25 minutes for an Uxbridge service (or they cancel an Amersham/Chesham or a couple of Watfords, leaving a 30+ minute gap), but in the other direction there are no cancellations. They’re not being spaced out so it’s become pot luck now.

Not as dreadful on other lines but similarly it’s not unusual now to see an 8 minute wait for a deep level tube at any time of the week.

 

[Watershed]

Whilst there is truth in all of th eabove, the reason the timetables were reduced across the board (nearly’ in mid January was very definitely because of the Omicron variant. Without that variant, it wouldn’t have happened.

That was perhaps the trigger, but it didn't change the presence of the aforementioned underlying factors.

It typically takes 2-3 weeks minimum from realising you might need to make a timetable change of this nature to actually implementing it. In this case, Christmas got in the way and many planning staff were off.

I'm only too painfully aware of that. However, anyone with an ounce of sense would have realised that Omicron would follow the same pattern as every other wave in this pandemic - exponential increase followed by exponential decrease.

Therefore if an alternative timetable was needed to deal with the peak of Omicron, it should have been implemented - and withdrawn again - much more quickly. Through Control VSTP measures at first, if nothing else.

When stepping services back up the same is true - it takes 2-3 weeks to plan. Obviously you want to be reasonably sure that you will have staff availability before deciding to activate the new plan. Now absence levels are falling, albeit not consistently across all TOCs, services are being reinstated over the next few weeks.

Again, I'm well aware of all of these factors. The continuing high absence rates at many TOCs are concerning, and their root cause needs addressing.

However with Omicron infections demonstrably peaking and then dropping by early-mid January, the decision to reintroduce the December timetables should have been made pretty early on. Yet it will not be until mid-February, if not later, before the "full" December timetable is reintroduced on most operators. That is a poor response time, by any measure.

There are a small number of TOCs who don’t have a rest day working agreement who will need to stay at reduced levels of service for now.

Whether or not you call it a "small number" is a matter of semantics. But the underlying cause behind the latest dispute is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. It will require a major step-down from the Treasury to do so.

 

[david1212]

What do you define as normal ? The timetable as 2019 ? The timetable that should be running now ?

The reality is commuting has changed and will never return to the pattern and numbers of 3 years ago. I believe this was coming anyway but over a much longer time span. Hence the frequency of service on some routes can be cut with train lengths increased if required by the number of passengers. Even if 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes but other than extreme weather and circumstances outside control of the railway 99.5+% reliability of operation and 95+% punctuality is it a big loss ?

For other routes e.g. Cross-Country the 2019 timetable needs to return. The current reduced services to Bournemouth and Devon / Cornwall are unacceptable.

 

[Bald Rick]

However, anyone with an ounce of sense would have realised that Omicron would follow the same pattern as every other wave in this pandemic - exponential increase followed by exponential decrease.

That’s hindsight 6/6 vision. That was not a definite position in mid December. The clear advice being given by Government (the Medical part) was to expect a rapid peak building up to mid January, with high levels of absence until late February. Hence the advice to plan on reduced timetables until the end of February.

Which is what has largely happened - the 7day average of positive tests is still, now, 65% higher than it was in mid December.

Therefore if an alternative timetable was needed to deal with the peak of Omicron, it should have been implemented - and withdrawn again - much more quickly. Through Control VSTP measures at first, if nothing else.

It was done through control at first, as I thought you knew. But there is only so much work you can put control’s way before it gets too much.

Almost all TOCs have plans to reinstate services over the next couple of weeks, plans which were activated a couple of weeks ago. Also within this mix is planning engineering works for Easter, whichever the TOCs have been doing for the last couple of weeks.

The operators not going back to their planned timetable will be those with Rest Day Working issues or continued high levels of absence. AIUI there’s 3, maybe 4 of the former, and one of the latter.

 

[Watershed]

That’s hindsight 6/6 vision. That was not a definite position in mid December. The clear advice being given by Government (the Medical part) was to expect a rapid peak building up to mid January, with high levels of absence until late February. Hence the advice to plan on reduced timetables until the end of February.

Which is what has largely happened - the 7day average of positive tests is still, now, 65% higher than it was in mid December.

Not really. We had a perfect example in South Africa of how things would likely pan out with Omicron - and of the significantly lower hospitalisation etc. rates. Of course lots of people pooh-poohed that, but things have turned out remarkably similar here.

Even at the point that reduced timetables were being worked on, it would have been clear what the direction of travel for our wave here was. By the time bids were about to be submitted to NR, it was clear that we were on the way out. So to nevertheless go forward to bid a substantial reduction just does not make sense - if the reason is Omicron.

Now clearly it's not just about Omicron, as I've said above. GA have been amongst the more honest TOCs in admitting that this is about the DfT wanting TOCs to be seen to be saving money - even though short-notice, temporary cuts like these save barely anything and arguably cost more in lost revenue (and reputation) than they save.

It was done through control at first, as I thought you knew. But there is only so much work you can put control’s way before it gets too much.

Almost all TOCs have plans to reinstate services over the next couple of weeks, plans which were activated a couple of weeks ago. Also within this mix is planning engineering works for Easter, whichever the TOCs have been doing for the last couple of weeks.

The operators not going back to their planned timetable will be those with Rest Day Working issues or continued high levels of absence. AIUI there’s 3, maybe 4 of the former, and one of the latter.

Indeed I'm painfully aware of that decision. But as hard as it is on Control staff, I think it's still the wrong decision overall, because you end up over-cancelling services with any reduced timetable. For example it can't possibly be the case that Avanti would struggle to run more than 4tph on weekdays.

The system is inflexible, and it's difficult to see how that could substantively change even with a new structure. Accordingly, planned timetable alterations should only be put in place where it's reasonably foreseeable that you won't want to undo the changes anytime soon.

As for 4 TOCs having a RDW ban, well unless ASLEF are going to adopt fundamentally different negotiating positions with each TOC, the sticking point for them is going to mean that it will spread all TOCs in due course. Unless the government caves in, of course.

 

[The exile]

With most working from home midweek could we eventually have a Tuesday to Thursday timetable and a Friday to Monday timetable?

Isn't it the other way around?

 

[Djgr]

Just jumped on the train from (Birkenhead) Hamilton Square to (Liverpool) James Street.

Full to standing. And barely a mask in sight.

 

[Bald Rick]

Even at the point that reduced timetables were being worked on, it would have been clear what the direction of travel for our wave here was.

By the time bids were about to be submitted to NR, it was clear that we were on the way out.

It wasn’t clear, x2.