Five don't go on a Great Western adventure

[HowardGWR]

Just staying with the footex example, consider this. A footex is advertised and 500 pax book it. If the return journey is the last train for that destination that evening, what is incumbent on the TOC to do if it suddenly can't run (train breaks down, driver falls ill, etc)?

 

[hexagon789]

Just staying with the footex example, consider this. A footex is advertised and 500 pax book it. If the return journey is the last train for that destination that evening, what is incumbent on the TOC to do if it suddenly can't run (train breaks down, driver falls ill, etc)?

You would hope a fleet of coaches; if that can't be done then overnight accommodation.

 

[nottsnurse]

The people who arrange road transport or hotels *are* the rank and file. They are not senior management. This will often be done by the junior member of the control team.

The senior management decide the budgets and thus set limits for the rank and file to follow don't they?

The senior management also set the budgets for recruitment and training. GWR are having issues with short-staffing aren't they?

 

[AlterEgo]

The senior management decide the budgets and thus set limits for the rank and file to follow don't they?

The senior management also set the budgets for recruitment and training. GWR are having issues with short-staffing aren't they?

The person with whom the decision rests to provide transport is a customer support controller in normal circumstances.

The issue isn’t budget at all. The limiting factor is how many hotel rooms or taxis or buses you can rustle up at the click of a finger when you’ve got a train full of 500 people that’s stranded. You can’t magic these out of thin air.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The impacts of training would have been coped with if it wasn’t for the considerably greater impacts of engineering-related disruption at weekends which could never have been anticipated. Remember the electrification should have been completed in December 2017 by the original programme. What we now have is a greatly extended and bloated impact of timetable rewrites each week (which use more crew than the base timetable) overlapping with the training programme for new trains. No surprises there aren’t enough crew to do both, but GWR are forced to do both anyway. Therefore both availability of trained crews and availability for additional work at weekends are severely under resourced. Now consider that the lead time on a new driver is 2 years, and do the maths.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

It isn't new drivers though - it's existing drivers on new trains. Up until the 180s were sent away at Christmas, there were no significant cancellations on the Cotswold Line despite ongoing engineering works.

Now, GWR have decided that only London and Worcester-based drivers will sign the IETs on the Cotswold Line. Not Reading, not Oxford - I presume for financial reasons around LTV T&Cs - but it has left them very, very vulnerable to the issues at the new Worcester depot. Oxford AIUI did sign 180s.

I'm also puzzled by electrification delays being given as the reason for driver shortages (not just your post, Wilts Wanderer - that was also what Jane Jones said addressing a public meeting in Charlbury the other month). These aren't electric trains, they're bi-modes. Could the drivers not have been trained in diesel operation only, with timetables readjusted if necessary to permit more frequent refuelling at Worcester and London?

 

[richw]

I believe there may be policing issues as well that stops replacing trains due to depart after football to coaches.
My friend did a rail dupe following a football match in Devon, he wasn’t allowed to board the queuing passengers until a BTP officer was in attendance. BTP officer then travelled the full journey.
I don’t know whether this is a requirement or is based on an assessment of the teams playing.

10-15 coaches would be needed to swallow up one full hst of football supporters and possibly the same number of BTP officers.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

It isn't new drivers though - it's existing drivers on new trains. Up until the 180s were sent away at Christmas, there were no significant cancellations on the Cotswold Line despite ongoing engineering works.

Now, GWR have decided that only London and Worcester-based drivers will sign the IETs on the Cotswold Line. Not Reading, not Oxford - I presume for financial reasons around LTV T&Cs - but it has left them very, very vulnerable to the issues at the new Worcester depot. Oxford AIUI did sign 180s.

I'm also puzzled by electrification delays being given as the reason for driver shortages (not just your post, Wilts Wanderer - that was also what Jane Jones said addressing a public meeting in Charlbury the other month). These aren't electric trains, they're bi-modes. Could the drivers not have been trained in diesel operation only, with timetables readjusted if necessary to permit more frequent refuelling at Worcester and London?

My point about drivers is that, to resolve the current situation, GWR would have needed to increase the number of drivers about 2 years ago, due to the time it takes to train them.

It's understandable that the link with delayed electrification isn't widely understood. To electrify the railway, Network Rail takes weekend (and increasingly, midweek) blockades. To operate amended timetables, GWR must;
A) Run trains at either end of the blocked section
B) Divert key services where possible, via longer routes
These timetables are inevitably less efficient in terms of resourcing, eating up more crew and units. This is bad enough when agreed and planned at reasonable timescales. Now consider that for months / years now, massively disruptive blocks have been imposed at as little as FIVE DAYS NOTICE. That is so ridiculously close that roster deadlines are missed, so although diagrams are rewritten by Train Planning the crews are (entirely reasonably) entitled to work their agreed rostered hours. On the day, large chunks of the timetable are uncovered. Control will beg and plead for further drivers to come in on overtime to cover the work. Inevitably some things will be cancelled. But the hastily rewritten plan may also have fundamental problems (haste causes mistakes, and planning is a largely manual process), so those crew who are giving up their weekends to work inevitably get caught up in disruption and chaos. If they finish late they might not be legally able to work their booked diagram the next day. So a bad Saturday inevitably means a worse Sunday. Try and recover Sunday and you don't have enough crew for Monday morning. So Sunday is sacrificed to save the Monday morning peak.

The point of this description is to demonstrate how an enormously disruptive engineering project, years late and floundering, but absolutely critical to ensure there is a railway capable of operating the Jan 2019 timetable, impacts on crew resources during a key period when a large number of drivers have to be released for training. If they aren't released then the HSTs gradually go off lease to be replaced by 800s that the drivers don't know how to drive. To date, GWR are just about managing to keep training sufficient crews to run the Mon-Fri timetable. The weekends are carnage, but when you consider everything I've written above, and remember that the electrification shouldn't have overrun into 2018, you'll hopefully see my point.

(Industrial disputes over the new trains also make things worse still, which is one of the reasons Oxford and Reading aren't even being trained yet.)

 

[BestWestern]

The senior management decide the budgets and thus set limits for the rank and file to follow don't they?

The senior management also set the budgets for recruitment and training. GWR are having issues with short-staffing aren't they?

You're making all sorts of nonsense links that don't exist in reality. A TOC has to get stranded punters home, or provide an alternative. Budget is utterly irrelevant.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You're making all sorts of nonsense links that don't exist in reality. A TOC has to get stranded punters home, or provide an alternative. Budget is utterly irrelevant.

If it reasonably can.

 

[BestWestern]

If it reasonably can.

Indeed. 'Reasonably can' covering most situations, except usually those involving exceptional weather issues, when there may well be incidents of stranded trains, and their passengers spending the night on board. And in those situations the subsequent payouts, usually coupled with some rather poor publicity, far outweigh any 'savings' that the cynical might suggest the TOC has attempted to engineer through their response.

 

[philthetube]

when the engineering work, delays to infrastructure is announced surely at that time they should be announcing realistic timetables, if this situation carries on into the summer then they are obviously doing it wrong.

 

[Mintona]

Now, GWR have decided that only London and Worcester-based drivers will sign the IETs on the Cotswold Line.

This isn’t true.

 

[FordFocus]

My point about drivers is that, to resolve the current situation, GWR would have needed to increase the number of drivers about 2 years ago, due to the time it takes to train them.

It's understandable that the link with delayed electrification isn't widely understood. To electrify the railway, Network Rail takes weekend (and increasingly, midweek) blockades. To operate amended timetables, GWR must;
A) Run trains at either end of the blocked section
B) Divert key services where possible, via longer routes
These timetables are inevitably less efficient in terms of resourcing, eating up more crew and units. This is bad enough when agreed and planned at reasonable timescales. Now consider that for months / years now, massively disruptive blocks have been imposed at as little as FIVE DAYS NOTICE. That is so ridiculously close that roster deadlines are missed, so although diagrams are rewritten by Train Planning the crews are (entirely reasonably) entitled to work their agreed rostered hours. On the day, large chunks of the timetable are uncovered. Control will beg and plead for further drivers to come in on overtime to cover the work. Inevitably some things will be cancelled. But the hastily rewritten plan may also have fundamental problems (haste causes mistakes, and planning is a largely manual process), so those crew who are giving up their weekends to work inevitably get caught up in disruption and chaos. If they finish late they might not be legally able to work their booked diagram the next day. So a bad Saturday inevitably means a worse Sunday. Try and recover Sunday and you don't have enough crew for Monday morning. So Sunday is sacrificed to save the Monday morning peak.

The point of this description is to demonstrate how an enormously disruptive engineering project, years late and floundering, but absolutely critical to ensure there is a railway capable of operating the Jan 2019 timetable, impacts on crew resources during a key period when a large number of drivers have to be released for training. If they aren't released then the HSTs gradually go off lease to be replaced by 800s that the drivers don't know how to drive. To date, GWR are just about managing to keep training sufficient crews to run the Mon-Fri timetable. The weekends are carnage, but when you consider everything I've written above, and remember that the electrification shouldn't have overrun into 2018, you'll hopefully see my point.

(Industrial disputes over the new trains also make things worse still, which is one of the reasons Oxford and Reading aren't even being trained yet.)

A very excellent post.

The two LTV depots position are interesting. Has Oxford lost a lot of work since the 180s leaving and Worcester opening?

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Thank you for your kind comment.

Oxford will have lost work as a lot of previous 180 work is now covered by 800s. I think they also lost work when the Oxford-Paddington stoppers were split at Didcot.

 

[Gagravarr]

The local paper is reporting - http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/1..._extra_track_for_railway_amid_regular_delays/ - that the local council wants to get the remaining single track section doubled as part of the central government bribe for allowing more house building in the area. Wouldn't help with the lack of drivers and trains, but would help with many of the other delays. Should even permit more frequent services for the Oxfordshire section of the Cotswolds line.

IIRC, part of the reason for not re-doubling the Charlbury - Wolvercote section (other than cost, especially the extra platforms as Finstock/Combe/Hanborough) was the Oxford area signalling. With that soon to be sorted, the business case for more re-doubling might look better. I'd be tempted to initially re-double Wolvercote to by Hanborough, which I think roughly halves the single section without needing any expensive station work, and should still bring most of the extra capacity / drop in headway, no idea if that's on the cards or not post-resignalling.