GWR - Unacceptable for Xmas Eve.

[irish_rail]

I would also argue that society in general is more focused now on quality time and spending time with loved ones than perhaps was traditionally the case. I think for alot of drivers, the days of wanting to spend their lives at work as an escape from "her indoors and the kids" is a thing of the past. People are more aware of their mental health and wellbeing and realise living at work 7 days a week is not conducive to that.
All the more reason a proper solution is needed, whereby Sundays are NOT overtime but just a normal working day for drivers with an associated day off in the week to compensate.

 

[Skiddaw]

I've been following this thread with fascination.

I'd have probably found a creative route back to Reading had I been the OP but that's only because, especially since relocating to Cumbria, I've been bitten too many times and I've therefore come to expect I may well require a Plan B and even a Plan C when I travel anywhere by rail. I don't think anyone should be placed in that position.

I don't blame any rail employees for the state things are in (and I won't get into a political rant) but fundamentally, surely all any average punter wants is a basically reliable train service that means you don't have to assume your journey is doomed to become a 'Trains, Planes & Automobiles' style nightmare. It shouldn't be an impossibility.

 

[43066]

fundamentally, surely all any average punter wants is a basically reliable train service that means you don't have to assume your journey is doomed to become a 'Trains, Planes & Automobiles' style nightmare. It shouldn't be an impossibility.

Absolutely. I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree with that.

Also a very relevant film reference, given the time of year!

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

We must appreciate that all services on all days are optional. Whilst the vast majority run, run to time and without any issues there are no actual consequences for the railway when they don’t.

Really? I find that hard to believe. In the bus industry, failure to run on time, never mind not running at all, can lead to censure from the Traffic Commissioner, ranging from suspension or repayment of BSOG through to being barred from running new services, and in extreme cases, deregistration of existing ones on the grounds no service is better than an unreliable one.

Of course this is nothing like how the ‘real world’ works on the railway. For decades the railway has run on overtime and until a few years ago this was pretty successful. According to your model if a TOC employed only 90% of its full establishment of drivers, they should reduce the timetable accordingly, when in fact drivers working overtime and rest days meant that they could run the full timetable. Even now, rostering arrangements on the railway mean that a train that is currently unresourced tomorrow evening might be covered by a driver volunteering to work overtime just a few hours before the train is due to run. It’s a risky strategy but that’s the nature of the industry and has been for years.

For decades we gave people a cloth to chew on and chopped limbs off without anesthetic. For many decades, we saw nothing wrong with smoking, or the use of asbestos as a construction material, but new evidence came along, and we changed our views and behaviours accordingly. Running on overtime might have been mostly successful previously, it doesn't appear to be currently, so something has changed to cause that. Maybe the incentives need to be made better, but where do you stop with that? Dave got £1000 signing on bonus last week, I'm not coming in for less than that... Pretty soon you end up in a feedback loop that will cause costs to spiral. Now, is that better value than employing more staff, or changing T&C's with any associated pay changes? I don't know, and I suspect none of us do, and yes, it may come out with "let's keep doing what we already do", but surely the people subsidising the service have a right to know that the best use is being made of their subsidy? As a scout leader, we've got grants from various pots of funding, and every single one of them has asked for why we want the money, what the consequences of not getting it would be, and then a report afterwards on the impact of that. Or is that bundle of work available somewhere and you can link to it for us?

 

[12LDA28C]

For decades we gave people a cloth to chew on and chopped limbs off without anesthetic. For many decades, we saw nothing wrong with smoking, or the use of asbestos as a construction material, but new evidence came along, and we changed our views and behaviours accordingly. Running on overtime might have been mostly successful previously, it doesn't appear to be currently, so something has changed to cause that. Maybe the incentives need to be made better, but where do you stop with that? Dave got £1000 signing on bonus last week, I'm not coming in for less than that... Pretty soon you end up in a feedback loop that will cause costs to spiral. Now, is that better value than employing more staff, or changing T&C's with any associated pay changes? I don't know, and I suspect none of us do, and yes, it may come out with "let's keep doing what we already do", but surely the people subsidising the service have a right to know that the best use is being made of their subsidy? As a scout leader, we've got grants from various pots of funding, and every single one of them has asked for why we want the money, what the consequences of not getting it would be, and then a report afterwards on the impact of that. Or is that bundle of work available somewhere and you can link to it for us?

You've answered you own question with this final statement. If a TOC is short of staff (drivers, guards etc) and needs to embark on a large-scale recruitment campaign to address the shortfall, they need to get that expense approved and funded by the DfT, such is the level of Government control of our railways nowadays. And what do you think the DfT's answer would be to this request?

 

[Snow1964]

Obviously this is a discussion about a Tuesday (so nothing to do with Sundays inside or outside)

Of course, school holidays, public holidays, important football and sports events, sunny summer days etc are going to see less volunteers than the average day.

What I am yet to hear from those defending the railway, or suggesting overtime often works, is if the amount of overtime varies by day/week/season/event, and is planned to be negligible on something like Christmas Eve when only tiny numbers are likely to take it up.

Just because there are times of the year when opting for overtime might be more popular, doesn't mean the same amount should be offered on unpopular overtime days. And unless anyone advises the quantity varies substantially is what happens at GWR, my gut feeling it was bad planning of assuming overtime would be wanted hours before Christmas (and common sense says no one wanted to accept the overtime offered on that date)

 

[43066]

What I am yet to hear from those defending the railway, or suggesting overtime often works, is if the amount of overtime varies by day/week/season/event, and is planned to be negligible on something like Christmas Eve when only tiny numbers are likely to take it up.

Nobody is defending the industry, they’re just explaining why things are the way they are, which isn’t the same thing. Overtime clearly often does work as the entire industry has relied heavily on it for decades(!). You can’t “plan for overtime to be negligible” on Christmas Eve, because it falls on a different day of the week each year, and base rosters are drawn up accordingly well in advance to facilitate the base timetable.

What you need to do, if you know your business is reliant on overtime, is offer enough to generate sufficient volunteers. Clearly that amount will be higher on Boxing Day, or New Year’s Eve, or Christmas Eve, especially when these fall on a Sunday. The DfT isn’t allowing the TOCs to do that, whereas they could have done pre Covid national rail contracts.

Put another way, why do you think we didn’t experience the issues we’re currently seeing anything like as regularly until the past couple of years, despite heavy reliance on overtime for many decades?

 

[Horizon22]

What I am yet to hear from those defending the railway, or suggesting overtime often works, is if the amount of overtime varies by day/week/season/event, and is planned to be negligible on something like Christmas Eve when only tiny numbers are likely to take it up.

I think its more accepting that this is currently how it is and explaining why it happens as opposed to suggesting this is the "best" (depends on your viewpoint) way of doing this. ASLEF for instance would prefer overtime / RDW is broadly removed but they do have a slight alterior motive in trying to increase subs.

It has for many decades worked well because they has been a steady take up of a % of each depot wiling to do overtime. And for 90% of the year (so excluding those key events and seasons) through ad-hoc sickness / vacancies / leave / medical restrictions / other duties, this has been able to cope. Since Covid (and most recently the back pay deal) such assumptions have been dramatically lowered which has caused concern and an increase in crew shortage cancellations.

Many industries rely on overtime, however there it is not as simple to see - things might take longer, you may have to wait, the service might be worse etc. as instead of say 10 staff you have 8 staff who are having to do slightly more. Even in the railway this can be true; a shortage of dispatchers means more running around for those on duty and possible delays but unlikely to be cancellations. And there are mitigations (replatforming, assisted crew dispatch etc.) Whereas for train crew, if just 1 person is missing (driver) that leads to an outright cancellation of a job/diagram which is much more explicitly and noticeably disruptive.

As has been said countless times, to reduce overtime you need more driver establishment which bluntly put requires more cold hard cash. Mostly the DfT and TOCs have not provided the money to do that and would rather live with the cancellation cost for the few occasions where it happens. If driver overtime rates remain below previous assumptive levels in the longer-term then a rethink is probably likely or higher incentives required.

Fundamentally, the principles are all quite simple but getting it resolved and into practice is more difficult operationally, economically and politically.

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

@12LDA28C Yet again, you point the finger at DfT, maybe correctly, but where are those costed proposals? Do you have examples where people have asked and been refused, or is it just the general resentment that seems to be felt towards DfT from railway workers on here leading to the instant dismissal?

@Horizon22 I'm glad someone else sees that it may be time for a rethink. Just because a reliance on overtime has worked before, doesn't mean it continues to do so

 

[Horizon22]

@12LDA28C Yet again, you point the finger at DfT, maybe correctly, but where are those costed proposals? Do you have examples where people have asked and been refused, or is it just the general resentment that seems to be felt towards DfT from railway workers on here leading to the instant dismissal?

Really it's the Treasury. Nobody would have such examples to hand because they would likely be commerically sensitive in the old franchise world, but there are some people who understand the economics and arrangements better (@Clarence Yard) who could probably give you a much more thorough answer.

It's not just "instant dismissal"; it is very real. You don't think railway managers who join daily service conferences, interact with public stakeholders regularly and appreciate establishment levels and budgets and have all the actual data to hand haven't come to the same - reasonably obvious - conclusions that many of the people in this thread have? GWR have tweeted about the ongoing issues in terms of Sunday contracts and the BBC have reported on it (see this post). The same is true of many sectors - look at teaching or the NHS - and the simple answer is more staffing = more money. There's a lot of poor quality economic thinking: save money in the short-term but with long-term consequences.

 

[Haywain]

Yet again, you point the finger at DfT, maybe correctly, but where are those costed proposals? Do you have examples where people have asked and been refused, or is it just the general resentment that seems to be felt towards DfT from railway workers on here leading to the instant dismissal?

It may help you to know that a couple of years ago I was working for a train operator on a fixed term contract and when they wanted to extend the contract they had to seek authorisation from DfT as well as having a business case for doing so. I went through this several times.

 

[MagicalWill]

You’re all arguing about whether GWR or the DfT or railway staff or some managers are responsible.
It doesn’t matter who ultimately is responsible on the day for a passenger, and they don’t care what GWR is contracted to do with the DfT or whether people are working overtime or not.

Ultimately, for the passenger - which is the only person that matters in this scenario - GWR is cancelling many trains from the timetable that they should be able to rely on, that they have looked at to plan their journeys, so it’s extremely reasonable to assume they’d cancel the rest of them too. And that’s simply bad performance and a very unreliable service.

 

[Horizon22]

You’re all arguing about whether GWR or the DfT or railway staff or some managers are responsible.
It doesn’t matter who ultimately is responsible on the day for a passenger, and they don’t care what GWR is contracted to do with the DfT or whether people are working overtime or not.

Of course not. But lots of people want to know the fundamental, core reason why this is happening and people are happy to provide context.

 

[43066]

Yet again, you point the finger at DfT, maybe correctly, but where are those costed proposals? Do you have examples where people have asked and been refused, or is it just the general resentment that seems to be felt towards DfT from railway workers on here leading to the instant dismissal?

The national rail contracts are publicly available and, if you read the sections dealing with staffing arrangements, you will soon realise just how much control the DfT exercises over the industry.

 

[infobleep]

Of course not. But lots of people want to know the fundamental, core reason why this is happening and people are happy to provide context.

On this forum they are but I find it less so from the train operating companies.

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

You've answered you own question with this final statement. If a TOC is short of staff (drivers, guards etc) and needs to embark on a large-scale recruitment campaign to address the shortfall, they need to get that expense approved and funded by the DfT, such is the level of Government control of our railways nowadays. And what do you think the DfT's answer would be to this request?

Really it's the Treasury. Nobody would have such examples to hand because they would likely be commerically sensitive in the old franchise world, but there are some people who understand the economics and arrangements better (@Clarence Yard) who could probably give you a much more thorough answer.

It's not just "instant dismissal"; it is very real. You don't think railway managers who join daily service conferences, interact with public stakeholders regularly and appreciate establishment levels and budgets and have all the actual data to hand haven't come to the same - reasonably obvious - conclusions that many of the people in this thread have? GWR have tweeted about the ongoing issues in terms of Sunday contracts and the BBC have reported on it (see this post). The same is true of many sectors - look at teaching or the NHS - and the simple answer is more staffing = more money. There's a lot of poor quality economic thinking: save money in the short-term but with long-term consequences.

Well yes... As they say, money is the root of all evils, and having spent most of my working life in local government, I'm quite aware of how hard it can be to get funding for things - apart from traffic cones, we always seemed to have too many of those!

The thing I find frustrating is that every time something is suggested that needs funded, there's a very quick "DfT won't authorise that" (RailUK Forums standard answer no53 ), but there's never a case of "oh, so and so tried that and got rejected", and as a result it isn't clear if people are asking and getting knocked back or if people are just guessing it would be knocked back and not bothering to ask. That may, as you suggest be due to commercial sensitivity in the past, although with so much tax payer subsidy going in, you'd like to think there was some public record... Maybe things will be clearer under GBR, but I'm not holding my breath.

To your point about more staffing=more money: yes, but certainly in schools there are places where better use of staff would actually be better than just putting more staff in. As an example, multi academy trusts having one staff member as a subject leader for the trust rather than each school having their own allows more time for teachers to do other things, with minimal extra outlay apart from some travel costs, as opposed to buying in a cover teacher at an exorbitant hourly rate (most of which would go to an agency)

It may help you to know that a couple of years ago I was working for a train operator on a fixed term contract and when they wanted to extend the contract they had to seek authorisation from DfT as well as having a business case for doing so. I went through this several times.

Thanks @Haywain - so it is happening. Were those approaches (and the results of those approaches) publicly available anywhere?

The national rail contracts are publicly available and, if you read the sections dealing with staffing arrangements, you will soon realise just how much control the DfT exercises over the industry.

Thanks. I've a fair idea from reading around on here, the question for me is are ToCs accepting the status quo or actively looking for change where they could improve things; the pay negotiations would suggest they very much just accept what they are told. I'll have a rest of those over the next few days to get a better idea.

 

[Haywain]

Thanks @Haywain - so it is happening. Were those approaches (and the results of those approaches) publicly available anywhere?

No idea.

 

[43066]

Thanks @Haywain - so it is happening. Were those approaches (and the results of those approaches) publicly available anywhere?

They won’t be available, however you can see the framework by which these things need to be negotiated if you refer to the contracts I linked to above.

Thanks. I've a fair idea from reading around on here, the question for me is are ToCs accepting the status quo or actively looking for change where they could improve things; the pay negotiations would suggest they very much just accept what they are told. I'll have a rest of those over the next few days to get a better idea.

Nowadays? Of course they are. Again, evidence is in the above contracts!

The TOCs (as in the owning groups such as Abellio) do exactly what they’re instructed to do by the contracts they’ve signed up to. Nobody can blame them for that, in fact that’s what any organisation in their position would do, based on their need to act in the best interests of their shareholders.

I do get why this is a frustrating situation for all concerned, and it’s also true that nobody (not the TOCs, not the unions, and not the DfT) is thinking about the passengers, which I guess is where a lot of the frustration comes from.

However the criticism is with the way the system has been set up and, of all the above groups, it’s the DfT who should be looking out for the interests of passengers (or at least balancing them with those of taxpayers).

 

[12LDA28C]

On this forum they are but I find it less so from the train operating companies.

And you think that TOCs are likely to issue official statements highlighting the shortcomings of the organisation that they have a contract with and which provides their funding? Seriously?

 

[infobleep]

And you think that TOCs are likely to issue official statements highlighting the shortcomings of the organisation that they have a contract with and which provides their funding? Seriously?

Well given everything is being nationalised overtime, what have they to lose?

I don't expect then to do that however, but I would like them to.

 

[43066]

Well given everything is being nationalised overtime, what have they to lose?

They’re currently being paid fees by the DfT, so they certainly won’t be speaking out against them!

 

[infobleep]

They’re currently being paid fees by the DfT, so they certainly won’t be speaking out against them!

If the DfT stopped those fees that would be breech of contract.

I do hear what you are saying though.

 

[43066]

If the DfT stopped those fees that would be breech of contract.

I do hear what you are saying though.

I haven’t checked this, but the contracts might contain non disparagement clauses, or other terms that could be breached if the operator started criticising the DfT in public.

The saying about not biting the hand the feeds springs to mind!

 

[officewalla]

I'm afraid I already treat timetables as optional these days. I know roughly what time I should be leaving, but 27 delay repay claims in the last 6 months suggest it's a bit of a gamble if you'll get to where you expected to be on time. Incidentally, I've used trains about once a week this year, usually out on one day, back two days later, so that's pretty much every time I've used the train!


It's not this staff making those decisions, and credit where credit's due, the government seem to be able to make a right dog's breakfast of any thing they touch. However, there are numerous examples of staff who seem to agree with DfT that things would be much easier and simpler if these passengers would just go away, which doesn't create a great impression, as seen in the post you were replying to.


At busy times? I'm not sure it can cope now, never mind if a couple of hundred extra passengers turned up in rush hour. There's probably some leeway outside of that, but even when I try and get off peak Avanti trains, they're still pretty full. Aside from that, it feels like one little incident can knock the railway out of kilter over a huge area - a track defect in the Trent Valley can make trains running between Penrith and Glasgow late, but a pothole in Rugby doesn't affect those in Carlisle, for example.

Apples and pears!

 

[Clarence Yard]

The NRC has clauses in it about publicity and the DfT can actually tell a TOC what to say.

A substantial part of the contract performance fee is about “co-operation” so you would be mad to throw that away by dissing the DfT.

 

[robbeech]

If you are going to require people to think of plan B as routine, then the fundamentals change. Effectively it becomes buy a ticket, and you might (or might not) get published train.

Clearly in real world if you advertise something and sell tickets for it, you do not under resource it. You ensure you have resources (human and physical). If can't manage that then you revise achievability 3 or 4 months beforehand, not once people have bought tickets and started their evening, expecting the return train.

The fundamentals have changed. The train might not run, and if it doesn’t the railway might not do anything about it, and you might be stuck somewhere without a plan B. Most of the time you’ll be looking at a short journey, you might get a bus, a taxi, stay at a friend’s house and get a train the next morning (and probably have to buy a new ticket or risk a criminal record).

As for the second paragraph. This is an example of what should happen. This is an example of what does happen most of the time but not all the time. The rest of the time they just don’t do this and nobody suffers apart from the passenger. As passengers don’t matter it’s rather a non issue for the railway. And with no regulatory body prepared (or with enough grasp of the situation) to do anything to stop it continuing then it will get worse. It’s ironically very similar to things like fare evasion. You are in a bit of a pickle one month and you think that because you never get a ticket check you’ll just chance it. It works and every so often you do it again, eventually you’re getting away with it so you do it almost every time. There are no consequences. The railway hates this, but it’s exactly how they behave with treating their customers only we as mere passengers can’t prosecute them for failing to obey the law, and the regulators will ignore it or at best wag their finger and say “naughty naughty” and then ignore it.

Really? I find that hard to believe. In the bus industry, failure to run on time, never mind not running at all, can lead to censure from the Traffic Commissioner, ranging from suspension or repayment of BSOG through to being barred from running new services, and in extreme cases, deregistration of existing ones on the grounds no service is better than an unreliable one.

I’m not sure what is hard to believe. We all know and likely agree on what should happen but the reality is, as seen here that they DON’T have to run a service and there aren’t any real world consequences for them if they don’t. What are regulatory bodies going to do? say they can’t double up the frequency on a line like they’ve been wanting to do? Take a line off of them and say NO TRAINS between A and B? There isn’t a real world punishment. A financial penalty? For who? Dock the CEOs wages? Not allowed to do that. Sack staff on the ground that mess up, not really allowed to do that and if they did, no skin off the nose of the TOC they’ll just employ a new one and run less of a service in the meantime if necessary, which is easier for them, win win.
There are no penalties for the railway, and this is emphasised knowing that they’re on borrowed time as private entities, and we see this behaviour from government run operators too, who can’t really be penalised.

 

[BazingaTribe]

It may help you to know that a couple of years ago I was working for a train operator on a fixed term contract and when they wanted to extend the contract they had to seek authorisation from DfT as well as having a business case for doing so. I went through this several times.

In the NHS facilities division that's how recruitment works. We take on people for six months at quite high levels and then scramble for money to keep them on permanently -- or even just for another year.

I do suspect it's because that for some roles there's a 'just passing through' element -- the roles are seen as stepping stones to greater things. The ones most likely to be recruited on the basis of contracts like these are basically what Gavin in The Office was -- the assistant (to the) regional manager. They're generally the protoges being groomed for more significant roles rather than there to stay in that comfort zone for too long.

My sui generis delivery administrator role, while guaranteed without even needing a probationary period, is also a kind of apprenticeship, where my boss genuinely did talent-spot me, put together a business case for a role where I could learn on the job (and how!). My aim is to get into a more backroom compliance role rather than be at the delivery coalface, but delivery is by far the most important part of any such organisation and before you can make changes or run compliance etc you need to know how it works and what is actually possible to achieve. We have compliance meetings every week and targets to hit, but that target is not 100% and everyone deserves a round of applause if they hit it. In the year I've been attending these meetings there's only been one week where all five teams hit 100%; we do now generally have one or two achieve that target (there's usually something that holds us back to 98-99%) but it's not expected, nor would it be sensible to demand it.

Hence I generally side with those explaining how the internal stuff works -- no, passengers generally need not be concerned with the nuances of delivery administration, but hopefully the explanations of the situation do go some way to help passenger voices make the best suggestions and have the most realistic expectations of what is achievable. The NHS has its equivalent Patient Voice network -- perhaps the railways need a similar constructive body working with railway delivery groups if it doesn't exist already. But when people who know about the ins and outs of delivery are summarily accused of 'defending the railways', it doesn't make for a hugely constructive atmosphere, and thus engagement becomes trickier to achieve.

However, even for us in facilities, the overarching mindset is 'patient first'. Although our customers are local clinical providers, mostly public but some private, we are all aware of who we are ultimately working for. As an outsider I wonder if the disconnect is that the TOCs and DFT have got so caught up in what must be insane logistics that they can't see the wood for the trees. The other benefit is that the corporate culture is outstanding, with a lot of what could come across to outsiders as cheesy management consultant jargon actually crystalizing into a corporate entity which cares about its workers' wellbeing. We are mindful of what our motivation is for being up at times most people in the country are still comfortably tucked up in bed at -- patients -- but also feel valued and listened to by management and made to feel that our personal lives are not distractions from the main task. I have to say that a couple of weeks before Christmas when I had a dodgy spring roll on the Friday night and spent the weekend dealing with the aftermath, my concern was getting better so I could go away on the Sunday evening to see colleagues at a distant site on Monday morning to 'read the meter' on a dodgy franking machine we were concerned about. In short, I actively enjoy my job because we know who we're doing it for and are actually respected while at work.

The railways could really learn something from our approach.

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

Well, yes - trains are always exceptionally busy on the 27th because of the pent up demand from the 26th in particular. Many people travel home on Boxing Day by car, but those who can't often have to get the train on the 27th.


Well, not on the 26th.


Not everyone has another form of transport. That is sort of the point.

Oddly, and slightly off topic... But that demand does get plenty up in all walks of life: my wife tells me she had an incredibly busy shift on the 27th, with many people having chosen to not disturb the midwives on the 25th/26th, despite having potentially deadly complications like reduced movements!

One way of assessing demand is to look at usage where the services are running. TfL make a ridership dashboard available at a per day level for Tube and Buses based on recorded entries and exits. Filtering down to Tuesdays, Thursday and Fridays for weekdays excluding Monday/Wednesday for Christmas day last/this year gives:
View attachment 171770
Boxing day is the lowest for tube and buses in both years by some margin. Christmas eve and yesterday this year were similarly very low. Tube might be lower from lack of connecting trains, however that would be less of a factor for buses - some of which people may have used where trains aren't running but buses are. The dashboard also allows viewing figures for individual stations which show the same pattern out in the suburbs, there are higher figures in some places e.g. Heathrow where tube becomes the only option on Boxing Day. Good Friday is the date in March 2024 with the lower ridership.

Clearly there will be differences between different regions and routes, some people would definitely want to travel and can't, but that data suggests reduced demand in London over the Christmas period compared to midweek any other week.

That's a cracking piece of info - thanks.

They won’t be available, however you can see the framework by which these things need to be negotiated if you refer to the contracts I linked to above.

I haven't had chance to read the frameworks yet, but I find it odd they aren't available anywhere, or at least the DfT responses, as when I worked in Local Government, we were told that anything we wrote could be subject to FoI requests, and to behave appropriately (implication being don't write anything derogatory about anyone, and don't write down anything you didn't want someone to find out about!)

Moderator note: As the matter was now nearly a week ago, and some of the recent posts have been discussing non-railway matters, this thread hs now been locked. However, as always, if anyone has anything substantial to add, please use the report button, thanks.