Delays due to "train cancellations"

[Tube driver]

London Underground is affected by staff shortages just like every other business out there. Staff are isolating, shielding or have been struck down with Covid on top of the normal sickness.

There is not a bottomless pit of control room staff or drivers to draw upon especially as training has effectively ceased and so shortages appear and have to be managed accordingly. Clearly it’s unsafe to run a railway with a decimated staffing level so the decision was made to close the line. Nobody wants this but it’s the reality we face.

Your sister’s management should foresee these problems and put mitigations in place (such as change of rest day, taxi, etc). In fact, your sister being frontline in this crisis should make her more acutely aware than most on how this virus is screwing up everything. It’s unfortunate but it’s just how things are at the moment.

 

[bramling]

London Underground is affected by staff shortages just like every other business out there. Staff are isolating, shielding or have been struck down with Covid on top of the normal sickness.

There is not a bottomless pit of control room staff or drivers to draw upon especially as training has effectively ceased and so shortages appear and have to be managed accordingly. Clearly it’s unsafe to run a railway with a decimated staffing level so the decision was made to close the line. Nobody wants this but it’s the reality we face.

Your sister’s management should foresee these problems and put mitigations in place (such as change of rest day, taxi, etc). In fact, your sister being frontline in this crisis should make her more acutely aware than most on how this virus is screwing up everything. It’s unfortunate but it’s just how things are at the moment.

I have a suspicion the Met Line’s issues aren’t entirely down to Covid.

 

[philthetube]

I have a suspicion the Met Line’s issues aren’t entirely down to Covid.

quite right, at least one controller has retired in the last fortnight. which is a relatively high percentage of a small pool

 

[bramling]

quite right, at least one controller has retired in the last fortnight. which is a relatively high percentage of a small pool

Yes and there’s seemingly quite a few reasons why that pool is small. Whilst Covid may be the straw which is breaking the camel’s back tomorrow, I have a strong feeling there’s quite a bit more to this.

 

[whoosh]

Meanwhile there’s the government versus mayor politics which has essentially set Khan up to commit to a 100% service with less than 100% resource to support it.

Even if a 100% resource was available, a 100% service cannot be provided at the moment:
Up on the mainline railways we have had several alterations to our diagrams made to not overload messrooms with their now reduced, socially distanced, capacity.
This, of course, means that as an effect of this, the diagrams aren't as productive.
It's a frankly ridiculous situation if the tube is being pushed to provide a near full service, as this is destined to fail.

 

[LU_timetabler]

Timetables for Covid are not produced, because timetables are prepared months in advance, for example in February we are writing timetables for engineering works in June. The availability of both driving staff and control room staff is such that it is impossible to know far enough in advance to write a suitable timetable. Therefore it is up to the line management to resolve issues as best they can in the circumstances. I do know there's a current/live recruitment drive for Service Control Room staff and ongoing internal recruitment of drivers. However the training of new drivers and the updating of existing drivers into new signalling systems is a significant obstacle, due to social distancing in cabs. There was talk, after a 6 month delay of getting driver training started again by forming a permanent "buddy" system between Instructors and Trainees, though I've no idea how successful this was/is. It is possible that due to Covid that both control rooms and driving pools are running with numerous vacancies that cannot be filled because of problems carrying out training safely during Covid. Therefore staffing gaps that should have been filled have not been. Lay on top of that on the Sub-Surface lines dealing with the phased adoption of the new signalling system and the phased closure of the old signalling desks and locations, creating more training required, and you can see that there are bound to be issues. The situation is just too volatile - and I think all the contributing factors have been mentioned above. LU's aim other than engineering works is to plan to run full service, and adjust as necessary as staffing shortages dictate. This is meaning highest priority to a full service in Mo-Fr peaks, and everything else takes second place. Decisions to close a whole line due to lack of control staff is sad to see, and will not have been taken lightly, but there's a limit to how many extra shifts one person can do. The very fact it is happening is proof positive of the need for transport workers to be high priority for vaccination.

 

[matt_world2004]

This is really not good enough. My sister is a nurse and now with the Met line suspended on Sunday she can't get into work, meaning that an already critically understaffed ward is now dangerously so...

So infectious control room staff should continue to travel into work , probably on public transport and infecting others and thus putting the NHS under more stress causing the critically understaffed ward to be unable to cope with demand?

 

[Taunton]

So infectious control room staff should continue to travel into work , probably on public transport and infecting others and thus putting the NHS under more stress causing the critically understaffed ward to be unable to cope with demand?

Why can't they drive? I'm sure they are well-paid enough to afford cars.

 

[bramling]

Why can't they drive? I'm sure they are well-paid enough to afford cars.

This takes us to some of the other issues I was alluding to. Road access to and parking at Hammersmith isn’t wonderful to say the least. This is the thin end of a rather thick wedge.

 

[bluegoblin7]

Why can't they drive? I'm sure they are well-paid enough to afford cars.

Plenty of us have neither the want nor need to drive.

One can always rely on forums to know our jobs and working environments better than we do.

 

[matt_world2004]

Why can't they drive? I'm sure they are well-paid enough to afford cars.

Do you know that the control room staff have driving licences even and again they would still have to interact with people who may not be infectious in their workplace.

 

[jacksmithyton]

Plenty of us have neither the want nor need to drive.

One can always rely on forums to know our jobs and working environments better than we do.

want or not, having a driver's license should be a requirement of the job, keeping the Tube running is of utmost importance.

 

[matt_world2004]

want or not, having a driver's license should be a requirement of the job, keeping the Tube running is of utmost importance.

Why?

And how would that solve anything you can't leave your house if your infectious.

 

[Domh245]

want or not, having a driver's license should be a requirement of the job, keeping the Tube running is of utmost importance.

And why doesn't your sister have a drivers license? Keeping the ward staffed is of the utmost importance...

 

[Taunton]

Do you know that the control room staff have driving licences even

Come on, this is 2021, not 1951.

 

[matt_world2004]

Come on, this is 2021, not 1951.

And it is in London where something like close to 50% of people don't drive. 0.3 cars per adult in london and 46% of households do not own a car.

It is still illegal that if you have to self isolate because of suspected covid (either symptoms or exposure) to drive to your workplace

 

[Domh245]

Come on, this is 2021, not 1951.

If anything that works against having a driving license. Londoners are increasingly car-free with ownership being increasingly full of hurdles

 

[700007]

This is getting silly and rather off topic. The decision to close a large part of the Underground for one day was not a light hearted one. To be a signal operator is an acquired skill and not any Tom, Dick or Harry off the street can be just be taken in and told to do the job in the event of a staff shortage. We're 12 months into this pandemic. It's difficult to train new people and other people do move into new areas of the business. I, like any other rational person, could appreciate that it is indeed disruptive to those that use the line - we really would obviously like a working train service.

To those working in the NHS, firstly we thank you for your continued service, but secondly for that's something that for one day, customers will just need to take the hit, get their compensation and seek alternative means of transport. There are frequent and regular rail replacement bus routes operating all day on the Metropolitan line. Use those and leave plenty of time for your journey.

No, it isn't convenient, but you can't force isolating or ill staff to come into a work environment to make everyone sick enough that parts of the London Underground cannot open for 3 or 4 weeks straight....

A further side note, we also shouldn't be encouraging additional car use in this traffic choked city when it isn't necessary.

Back to topic, the line is down this morning and the ML-1 buses are making it to Rayners Lane via North Harrow, operated by Sullivan's.

There is an unadvertised ML-4 service this morning between Rickmansworth and Amersham, supposedly to supplement (and in some cases replace) Chiltern Railways' hourly service.

 

[Taunton]

A further side note, we also shouldn't be encouraging additional car use in this traffic choked city when it isn't necessary.

I think that's far too much of the greenwash. One of the things that has kept London infection rates as low as they are is people moving over to driving in their own cars rather than being all stuffed together in the Underground. Those public transport supporters are just going to have to accept this at such a time of national emergency.

 

[matt_world2004]

I think that's far too much of the greenwash. One of the things that has kept London infection rates as low as they are is people moving over to driving in their own cars rather than being all stuffed together in the Underground. Those public transport supporters are just going to have to accept this at such a time of national emergency.

They aren't London infection rates are "low" because people have already had the virus and are at least partially immune.

 

[Dstock7080]

Piccadilly Line services South Harrow-Rayners Lane/Uxbridge resumed at 0930
District services resumed to Edgware Road at 1030.

 

[matt_world2004]

Piccadilly Line services South Harrow-Rayners Lane/Uxbridge resumed at 0930
District services resumed to Edgware Road at 1030.

Piccadilly now suspended between South Harrow and Uxbridge

 

[Andrew S]

want or not, having a driver's license should be a requirement of the job, keeping the Tube running is of utmost importance.

I think that's far too much of the greenwash. One of the things that has kept London infection rates as low as they are is people moving over to driving in their own cars rather than being all stuffed together in the Underground. Those public transport supporters are just going to have to accept this at such a time of national emergency.

What utter rubbish, both posts.

 

[bramling]

I think that's far too much of the greenwash. One of the things that has kept London infection rates as low as they are is people moving over to driving in their own cars rather than being all stuffed together in the Underground. Those public transport supporters are just going to have to accept this at such a time of national emergency.

There’s some strange stuff on this thread.

Whilst it’s undoubtedly true that the suggestion has been made for people to use the car where possible, this has been far from mandatory, and has tended to tail off over time. It was one thing asking people to think about taking the car during the height of the first lockdown when roads actually were fairly empty, but road use picked up again fairly quickly, along with removal of some of the incentives to use the car like free parking.

Meanwhile, if the notion that half of the Met control staff have Covid were true (I don’t believe it is!) then they wouldn’t be attending work in any capacity, be that by car or train.

As I posted elsewhere, whilst Covid may be part of this story, I’d bet a pretty considerable sum of money that it’s not by any means the full story. Indeed, there’s plenty of background info on what other issues may exist to by found with a bit of simple googling.

 

[jacksmithyton]

What utter rubbish, both posts.

What's rubbish about it? Plenty of occupations require you to have a driver's license...

 

[matt_world2004]

What's rubbish about it? Plenty of occupations require you to have a driver's license...

Not control room operator at London underground.

 

[bramling]

What's rubbish about it? Plenty of occupations require you to have a driver's license...

That might be the case, but the occupation in question doesn’t - and indeed the location in question isn’t particularly conducive to it. It’s also worth adding that the occupation in question is *extremely* selective in being able to find suitable individuals, so it isn’t viable to be narrowing the field by imposing unnecessary requirements.

I’d place a wager that many LU control staff live outside London for various reasons. One therefore wants to site a facility either on the outskirts, or centrally near main-line stations. The location in question ticks neither of these boxes (unlike the location it replaces).

 

[Andrew S]

I think that's far too much of the greenwash. One of the things that has kept London infection rates as low as they are is people moving over to driving in their own cars rather than being all stuffed together in the Underground. Those public transport supporters are just going to have to accept this at such a time of national emergency.

That's assuming that everyone has access to a car. As stated earlier, car ownership per person is lower in London than elsewhere.

want or not, having a driver's license should be a requirement of the job, keeping the Tube running is of utmost importance.

Does Tfl provide free travel to and from work on public transport? If so, that will be a big factor in weighing up the attractiveness of a job. To then be told that for certain jobs you have to learn to drive, buy and maintain a car which you might not want or need to use regularly would seem to be counterintuitive.

 

[philthetube]

Why can't they drive? I'm sure they are well-paid enough to afford cars.

So infectious control room staff should continue to travel into work , probably on public transport and infecting others and thus putting the NHS under more stress causing the critically understaffed ward to be unable to cope with demand?

If you are required to isolate you are legally bound to do so, there is nothing else to say about this. Too many people isolating then no trains, there is no short term solution to this.

 

[matt_world2004]

That's assuming that everyone has access to a car. As stated earlier, car ownership per person is lower in London than elsewhere.




Does Tfl provide free travel to and from work on public transport? If so, that will be a big factor in weighing up the attractiveness of a job. To then be told that for certain jobs you have to learn to drive, buy and maintain a car which you might not want or need to use regularly would seem to be counterintuitive.

Staff pass , valid on all tfl services and some parallel national rail services. A taxable season ticket discount of 75% for all other national rail services. And if you work in a role that requires you to travel when the transport network is not running (like control room staff) staff taxis that followed a fixed route.