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Avanti West Coast cancellations

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londonmidland

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Over the past couple of months I’ve been noticing, as well as being caught out by, increasingly frequent cancellations of Avanti services. Most of them seem to be due to ‘a shortage of train drivers’.

The cancellations most commonly occur on the Manchester route, as well as some services starting and terminating at Preston. This is most common at the weekend it seems.

So does anyone know why there is a driver shortage? Is there a delay in training due to high sickness/drivers off due to sickness, or is there a disagreement on T&C’s/contracts?
 
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I believe its due to no Rest Day working agreement in place, there are other TOCs in the same position.
It is due to the DfT / treasury not authorising the additional costs they incur, they don't seem the slightest bit concerned about the resultant cancellations.
 

voyagerdude220

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Looking on the Avanti Journeycheck website, there appear to be numerous cancellations and amendments to several Avanti services tomorrow.
Having had a quick skim read of the list of cancellations I notice that tomorrow's 17:37/17:57/18:17 London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly services are all cancelled.
 

172101

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Only one train from Liverpool to London in 6 hours today. 0838/1147/1447 all the rest cancelled!
 

Efini92

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I believe its due to no Rest Day working agreement in place, there are other TOCs in the same position.
It is due to the DfT / treasury not authorising the additional costs they incur, they don't seem the slightest bit concerned about the resultant cancellations.
Avanti have a rest day work agreement.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been noticing, as well as being caught out by, increasingly frequent cancellations of Avanti services. Most of them seem to be due to ‘a shortage of train drivers’.

The cancellations most commonly occur on the Manchester route, as well as some services starting and terminating at Preston. This is most common at the weekend it seems.

So does anyone know why there is a driver shortage? Is there a delay in training due to high sickness/drivers off due to sickness, or is there a disagreement on T&C’s/contracts?
They’ve had lots retire and haven’t been able to train replacements up quick enough. Euston is one of the worst hit by it.
 

class 9

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Avanti have a rest day work agreement.

They’ve had lots retire and haven’t been able to train replacements up quick enough. Euston is one of the worst hit by it.
My mistake, I thought I'd read it had expired.
 

SCDR_WMR

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10:38 departure was cancelled because of a fault with the Driver's seat.
One of those reasons that normally annoy passengers, but I wouldn't drive my car if I couldn't get my seat in the correct position. It affects comfort and also concentration.
 

Bletchleyite

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One of those reasons that normally annoy passengers, but I wouldn't drive my car if I couldn't get my seat in the correct position. It affects comfort and also concentration.

My thought would be more didn't they have, or couldn't they find, a spare unit for that crew to avoid a 5 hour gap?

It sounds to me that an emergency timetable is urgently needed.
 

SCDR_WMR

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My thought would be more didn't they have, or couldn't they find, a spare unit for that crew to avoid a 5 hour gap?

It sounds to me that an emergency timetable is urgently needed.
You would think so, but then this was the reason given for only 1 cancellation. You would also like to think that a fitter wouldn't be too far away possibly with spare parts
 

Bletchleyite

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You would think so, but then this was the reason given for only 1 cancellation. You would also like to think that a fitter wouldn't be too far away possibly with spare parts

I seem to recall reading on here a while back that Edge Hill depot is not open Sundays other than early morning so a spare set could not be obtained from there. If I have understood correctly this is ridiculous; unit depots should be open for the full period of service for this exact kind of eventuality.

Still a thinned out timetable.

Either way, if they can only run 4tpd Liverpool-Euston reliably, that's what should be timetabled. Random cancellations are always the worst option.
 

Watershed

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I seem to recall reading on here a while back that Edge Hill depot is not open Sundays other than early morning so a spare set could not be obtained from there. If I have understood correctly this is ridiculous; unit depots should be open for the full period of service for this exact kind of eventuality.
Yes, that's correct. It's closed after 10am on a Sunday.

For the sake of hiring a few extra depot staff it's a disproportionate loss of flexibility.

Lots of SSOs being made (with concomitant delays) as a result of these cancellations.
 

peter166

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The cancellation saga continues today. With 15 cancellations currently listed including 0747 and 12.47 from Liverpool and 1007, 1207 and 1907 from Euston to Liverpool.

 
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nuneatonmark

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For the normal railway timetable to rely on drivers, or anyone, to work rest days, doesn't this show just how archaic railway working practices are? Railways are a 7 days a week, in some cases 24 hours a day, service. It's about time railway working practice and employment contracts caught up with the 21st century to provided proper contracted cover across all the working days and times of the railway. I don't necessarily mean railway workers getting paid less either, I imagine there would be winners and losers. Are there any good examples in the industry where unions and employers have worked together to agree a solution to these issues; or is it union/employers inflexibility/mismanagement?
 

Bletchleyite

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For the normal railway timetable to rely on drivers, or anyone, to work rest days, doesn't this show just how archaic railway working practices are? Railways are a 7 days a week, in some cases 24 hours a day, service. It's about time railway working practice and employment contracts caught up with the 21st century to provided proper contracted cover across all the working days and times of the railway. I don't necessarily mean railway workers getting paid less either, I imagine there would be winners and losers. Are there any good examples in the industry where unions and employers have worked together to agree a solution to these issues; or is it union/employers inflexibility/mismanagement?

This I think has more to do with an unwillingness to accept in all lines of business that COVID has changed everything. For the foreseeable future sickness rates (short and long term) will be considerably higher than before, and thus it is going to be necessary to recruit. Some businesses are having trouble with this, but the railway has never had such issues - if they advertise traincrew jobs people will apply for them because they are very attractive.

In the meantime, an emergency timetable is necessary, because random cancellations make the railway useless.
 

Efini92

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For the normal railway timetable to rely on drivers, or anyone, to work rest days, doesn't this show just how archaic railway working practices are? Railways are a 7 days a week, in some cases 24 hours a day, service. It's about time railway working practice and employment contracts caught up with the 21st century to provided proper contracted cover across all the working days and times of the railway. I don't necessarily mean railway workers getting paid less either, I imagine there would be winners and losers. Are there any good examples in the industry where unions and employers have worked together to agree a solution to these issues; or is it union/employers inflexibility/mismanagement?
It’s not about flexibility, these days have been coming for 20 years. When the private companies had their first big recruitment, they mainly took on people in their late 30’s/early 40’s, this puts their retirement dates around now. Which is the same time as all the BR drivers from the late 70’s/early 80’s (they were all 16-18). So we’ve ended up with 2 generations worth of retirements instead of one. 35 retired from my depot last year.
 

peter166

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It’s not about flexibility, these days have been coming for 20 years. When the private companies had their first big recruitment, they mainly took on people in their late 30’s/early 40’s, this puts their retirement dates around now. Which is the same time as all the BR drivers from the late 70’s/early 80’s (they were all 16-18). So we’ve ended up with 2 generations worth of retirements instead of one. 35 retired from my depot last year.
Yes, but any well managed company would have forseen this potential problem & recuited accordingly early to maintain or even increase the workforce to compensate for the planned retirements.
Avanti has currently published temporary timetables on its website for 4 to 8 July, 9 July & 10 July which it clearly has no chance of keeping to as the numerous short term cancellations today already confirm. It is a complete & utter shambles.
 

87015

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Yes, but any well managed company would have forseen this potential problem & recuited accordingly early to maintain or even increase the workforce to compensate for the planned retirements.
Avanti has currently published temporary timetables on its website for 4 to 8 July, 9 July & 10 July which it clearly has no chance of keeping to as the numerous short term cancellations today already confirm. It is a complete & utter shambles.
Avanti weren't in charge when these issues could have been tackled, the previous franchisee was well aware and happy to leave the bomb behind...
 

peter166

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Also I believe they are planning to increase the Euston to Birmingham service to 3 trains per hour for the duration of the Commonwealth Games. No doubt this is a priority and will lead to alot of adverse publicity if it is not delivered because of staff shortages.
What is the likely impact on other services like the hourly services to Liverpool and to Glasgow ....long gaps through the day ? On recent performanc, particularly at weekends, I predict a guaranteed certainty.
 

peter166

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Avanti weren't in charge when these issues could have been tackled, the previous franchisee was well aware and happy to leave the bomb behind...
This implies that Virgin new they were not going to keep the franchise and planned no recuitment to replace retirees?
 

SCDR_WMR

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This implies that Virgin new they were not going to keep the franchise and planned no recuitment to replace retirees?
The whole railway were recruiting drivers from other TOCs/FOCs for years, even my TOC are still recruiting FOC drivers in the late 50s. Only recently (18months or so) has there been a real effort to hire younger, fresh drivers. Due to training issues and lack of instructors, training is well behind. Perfect storm
 

gazzaa2

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Either way, if they can only run 4tpd Liverpool-Euston reliably, that's what should be timetabled. Random cancellations are always the worst option.

4 trains per day is bad enough but what happens when a couple of them get cancelled for train faults or the myriad of other issues that can cause cancellations?

In fairness Avanti may as well not bother running a service at the weekend
 
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