How critical is the return of passengers and busy trains for railway jobs?

[Philip]

I'll also point out that Northern have recently been recruiting for numerous platform dispatch and booking office roles.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The most critical factor here is whether the railway has the leadership to confront this black swan event that has tipped the industry on its head from being in expansionary mode to a sudden loss of fare revenue. The TOC CEOs are just keeping their heads down whilst the taxpayer picks up the tab and RDG are as irrelevant as they have ever been with no vision. Only Andrew Haines and Peter Hendy have been vocal about the scale of the challenge the industry faces and how it will need to adapt. Andrew Haines rather cack-handed approach recently over how to deal with this with unions wasn't helpful to ensure stability is maintained just when its needed most but he at least recognises the risk the industry faces.

What's also exacerbating the situation is the government continuing to drag its feet over where it sees the industry going. The danger here is treasury cut off funding which is currently only an additional £2B for 21/22 financial year so come early summer its going to find itself in the same place as TfL is currently with potentially draconian action required to reduce costs. Personally I doubt that will happen but industry needs to get ahead of the curve here to identify where the low hanging fruit is but also to demonstrate the link between service levels and revenue generation. Currently NR has been immune to much of this as its income has largely been protected via TOC bailouts but they will need to look closely at themselves and Haines knows that less costs TOCs face less likely it is they will cut services.

 

[HSTEd]

The real challenge is to prevent "rationalisation" turning into wholesale closure.

Rationalisation does not just mean "axe duplications" - it can involve spending significant amounts of money to enable long term savings.

The Hazel Grove chord being an obvious historical example.

 

[yorksrob]

The real challenge is to prevent "rationalisation" turning into wholesale closure.

Rationalisation does not just mean "axe duplications" - it can involve spending significant amounts of money to enable long term savings.

The Hazel Grove chord being an obvious historical example.

It has to be said that the Hazel Grove chord came about some time after the rationalisation of the Midland mainlint infrastructure.

Obviously wholesale closure has to be resisted (it won't be the routes that have experienced the biggest losses that are served up for closure, it'll be the regional railway that gets chopped).

 

[Snow1964]

There will be a return of the 2/3 day commuters. It won't be as big a base, but it will be a base.

So will that mean end of Mon-Fri timetables
Possibly Tue-Thur (commuting) with Friday being same as Saturday

I see a bigger problem of one day commuting, people going into office one day for meetings etc. But rather than starting from traditional commuter towns, doing it from country areas that suddenly find people doing journeys from places like Wiltshire, Devon, Norfolk etc.

Not going to be that easy to accommodate say 1000 people travelling from Tiverton Parkway to London or Birmingham for a Wednesday in the office. There is lack of suitable rolling stock, and can’t use spare commuter EMUs

 

[Mintona]

Two things here:

1) FOCs are very nearly back at pre pandemic traffic levels, and on some flows it is higher. Barring a complete collapse in intermodal and infrastructure traffic, they will be recruiting as usual.

2) TOCs are still in wait and see mode. There have been no instructions to permanently reduce train services (in this context, ‘permanently’ means more than a couple of years). Until it is clear what changes to demand emerge in the longer term, TOCs will retain their current driver establishments, and indeed be lifting them if required under their contract, and be recruiting to fill vacancies when they appear. However when service reductions happen, and these are in place for more than a couple of years, then establishments will be resized. In my opinion I don’t think redundancies will come, but I imagine a recruitment freeze will happen, and perhaps some encouragement for drivers to swap TOCs.

You’d like to think if there were redundancies coming there would be some dialogue between DfT and TOCs to stop recruiting trainee drivers now.

 

[yorksrob]

So will that mean end of Mon-Fri timetables
Possibly Tue-Thur (commuting) with Friday being same as Saturday

I see a bigger problem of one day commuting, people going into office one day for meetings etc. But rather than starting from traditional commuter towns, doing it from country areas that suddenly find people doing journeys from places like Wiltshire, Devon, Norfolk etc.

Not going to be that easy to accommodate say 1000 people travelling from Tiverton Parkway to London or Birmingham for a Wednesday in the office. There is lack of suitable rolling stock, and can’t use spare commuter EMUs

There'll be some pressure in that direction.

But there'll also be pressure from employers to ration work space and maintain team cohesion, which may mean adopting a policy of teams having specific days in the office throughout the week (rather than everyone gravitating towards Tuesday - Thursday).

Also, there's only so much affordable housing in those handsome country towns.

I think that a more consistent Monday - Saturday service pattern is the more likely outcome.

 

[dk1]

You’d like to think if there were redundancies coming there would be some dialogue between DfT and TOCs to stop recruiting trainee drivers now.

If there are any redundancies & it’s a big if, it will all be in a very controlled way & on a voluntary basis for traincrew. Things will all sort themselves out. It’s not something that concerns me to any extent.

 

[Philip]

If there are any redundancies & it’s a big if, it will all be in a very controlled way & on a voluntary basis for traincrew. Things will all sort themselves out. It’s not something that concerns me to any extent.

Do you just mean this in the context of guard/driving, or across all roles?

I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff which are at a similar level of pay to booking office.

 

[dk1]

Do you just mean this in the context of guard/driving, or across all roles?

I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff oddly.

Hi. No, I was replying to the posts regarding any reduced service effects on traincrew.

 

[yorksrob]

I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff which are at a similar level of pay to booking office.

I do hope we don't see a dissolution of the booking offices. They were threatening in VTEC a few years ago to have staff wandering around the concourse selling bog roll tickets, which seems the worst of all worlds to me.

 

[bramling]

Do you just mean this in the context of guard/driving, or across all roles?

I work in a (busy) booking office so may sound biased, but one or two in this thread have been very negative about the prospects of the role, even more so than for platform staff and revenue protection staff which are at a similar level of pay to booking office.

I don’t think anyone here wants to see booking offices go - on the contrary I like them, as whilst personally I’d be happy to use a machine, they keep less familiar users away from the machines which in turn benefits me by reducing queues.

However, the unfortunate reality is booking offices are often in the sights of those wanting to make savings. This isn’t just a railway thing - look at how branch banking is gradually withering away, my local bank once had something like six cashier windows, now it has two. In railway terms, we already have operators like LU who have almost completely eliminated the traditional booking office.

I’m not saying it’s something I want to see because it absolutely isn’t, just that it’s already been done in some places, so it can be done in others.

 

[Bald Rick]

You’d like to think if there were redundancies coming there would be some dialogue between DfT and TOCs to stop recruiting trainee drivers now.

But that would be a problem if demand does return in full on certain routes (which it will).

If there are any redundancies & it’s a big if, it will all be in a very controlled way & on a voluntary basis for traincrew. Things will all sort themselves out. It’s not something that concerns me to any extent.

AIUI the demographic of drivers is such that there is a relatively high turnover coming up in the next few years, so there will be little need for redundancy. In my opinion the most likely need for redundancies will be where work is moving between depots / TOCs, and individuals don’t want to move.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The real challenge is to prevent "rationalisation" turning into wholesale closure.

Rationalisation does not just mean "axe duplications" - it can involve spending significant amounts of money to enable long term savings.

The Hazel Grove chord being an obvious historical example.

Given Dept of Transport is still promoting reopening lines I believe this time we won't see that and rationalisation doesn't cost nothing especially if signalling is involved. What needs rationalising is the duplication of services but that won't happen unless the DoT tip the whole operating model on its head and plan from top down the routes with a robust connection policy. This does need a central body aka SRA to coordinate between regional bodies whilst specifying Inter City/Regional Routes. Then by all means use the private sector to operate it in. This all takes time but industry must rise to the challenge and eliminate the historical blockers that make change slow. The workforce should be protected during this period in exchange for two year pay freeze with the exception of the lower paid staff.

 

[unlevel42]

The Government is actively seeking to save a significant part of the £billion a month covid rail subsidy, this will be announced immediately after the May elections.

 

[yorksrob]

The Government is actively seeking to save a significant part of the £billion a month covid rail subsidy, this will be announced immediately after the May elections.

The Government needs to largely unlock society to bring in revenue. Work from home will still be encouraged at that time. Who knows what will be of hospitality by then. The lunatics at SAGE are still warning of restrictions in the autumn.

They'd better not cut/destroy routes.

 

[Bald Rick]

this will be announced immediately after the May elections.

Your crystal ball needs retuning.

 

[unlevel42]

Possibly, but also the planned cuts and reductions would impact on the election and the period of 'purdah' that exists before election.

 

[Pugwash]

As a regular commuter, Prior to Covid, I have absolutely no desire to return to regular commuting on the Railways.

Huge cost, being packed onto crowded trains, a big delay once every couple of months ruining an evening and generally terrible customer service to go with it. I am much happier and more productive at home and will be putting off going in for as long as l can.

 

[DorkingMain]

I think the days of peak time face-to-armpit crush loading may be gone for a long while. As a result I suspect most peak time extras will never come back and the daytime service level will be pretty flat.

What I hope doesn't happen is off-peak services being gutted. There's a big opportunity to draw people back to travelling on trains at a reasonable frequency which aren't claustrophobic levels of busy. I suspect people who travel for offices / business may try and do so at less busy times where possible.

I doubt traincrew roles are under much threat, because basically every TOC is run on quite large amounts of overtime, even now. There's been a lot of recruitment freezes also, which means some places are operating with huge numbers of vacancies. I am, however, more fearful for other roles such as station staff, who risk being seen as "non-essential" or having their jobs degraded by low-paid agency staff (this was already gathering pace even before COVID)

 

[Philip]

I think the days of peak time face-to-armpit crush loading may be gone for a long while. As a result I suspect most peak time extras will never come back and the daytime service level will be pretty flat.

What I hope doesn't happen is off-peak services being gutted. There's a big opportunity to draw people back to travelling on trains at a reasonable frequency which aren't claustrophobic levels of busy. I suspect people who travel for offices / business may try and do so at less busy times where possible.

I doubt traincrew roles are under much threat, because basically every TOC is run on quite large amounts of overtime, even now. There's been a lot of recruitment freezes also, which means some places are operating with huge numbers of vacancies. I am, however, more fearful for other roles such as station staff, who risk being seen as "non-essential" or having their jobs degraded by low-paid agency staff (this was already gathering pace even before COVID)

Reluctantly I can see that ticket office and revenue protection could be classed as 'non essential' if it got to the stage of dividing roles between essential and non-essential, albeit certainly not a role that belonged in the 1970s as one silly poster implied on the previous page!

However, surely station platform dispatchers and supervisors would fall into the 'essential' category, because their job is safety critical?

 

[Bald Rick]

Possibly, but also the planned cuts and reductions would impact on the election and the period of 'purdah' that exists before election.

Certainly - as I said it is too soon to make decisions on service cuts. The demand patterns for the medium to long term when lockdown is lifted are far from certain.

 

[73128]

I disagree.

Most office based jobs done by the kind of people who will pay for expensive railway commuting aren’t “widgets in, widgets out”. They’re more about building networks, developing relationships with colleagues and clients, and often about good old fashioned salesmanship.

Influencing people (as opposed to just speaking to them) can be achieved far better through face to face meetings than endless zoom calls. Of the people I know doing these kinds of jobs, all of them are looking forward to getting back into the office.

That might mean doing three days per week rather than five, but return to the office they most certainly will.

and return to travelling to see those clients, wherever they are

I can't even charge my phone on a typical intercity train.

you can on IETs, Pendolinos and on XC Voyagers at least (which is almost all InterCity trains), along with many other modern emus (eg 387s), and you could on GWR HSTs so imagine that the ScotRail HSTs still have charging points.

 

[Watershed]

However, surely station platform dispatchers and supervisors would fall into the 'essential' category, because their job is safety critical?

Their role may be safety critical with current methods of operation. But the methods of operation aren't necessarily set in stone.

The rationale for having dispatch at certain stations is that it reduces the risk of SPADs (and resultant collisions/incidents). But with the advent of TPWS, the resultant risk is massively reduced. In some cases, a new risk assessment may conclude that dispatch is therefore no longer necessary.

I imagine dispatch will probably remain for most major stations, but there are certainly some places where it could face being scrapped, or at least rationalised.

 

[387star]

Roads are getting horribly busy with lots of foul road rage. Roads could be busier than ever with people working from home... that will send people back

 

[Robertj21a]

The Government is actively seeking to save a significant part of the £billion a month covid rail subsidy, this will be announced immediately after the May elections.

Can you confirm that as fact - or are you just guessing?

 

[unlevel42]

Can you confirm that as fact - or are you just guessing?

The information comes from those involved with the response to the expected Government plan. They have no details, just an awareness that there is a great deal of effort going into this and an idea of the timing, magnitude and scope and a focus on the £billion a month price tag.

 

[Robertj21a]

The information comes from those involved with the response to the expected Government plan. They have no details, just an awareness that there is a great deal of effort going into this and an idea of the timing, magnitude and scope and a focus on the £billion a month price tag.

So, not a fact, despite your statement.

 

[unlevel42]

It is a fact that the Government will not continue to pay an additional £billion a month to the railway.
It is a fact that some of those who's job it is to watch Government think it will be a major event.
It is a fact that before a national elections a period called 'purdah' when certain Government activities are avoided.
What is not known is what steps the Government will take and how they will be influenced by money, covid and politics-that is for a "forum" to contemplate.
How the Government goes about releasing and acting on its plan is also not known and of course nobody knows what will happen next...

 

[73128]

Yes, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Covid is already doing a pretty good job at stripping all the nice things out of life, after all.

and Tfl has closed almost all booking offices, although their fare system is a lot simpler