LNER unreliability caused by staff shortages

[Nicholas Lewis]

Unfortunately these cancellations may start to get worse now the drivers have balloted to stop rest day work, a lot of depots were heavily reliant on this to cover jobs

LNER was supposed to be the operator that had plenty of drivers

 

[T T]

LNER was supposed to be the operator that had plenty of drivers

Yes for sure, some depots are flush!
But even the others where 2/3 jobs a day are uncovered still results in 5/6 cancellations.
Nowhere near as bad as other TOCs but still frustrating for the punters!

 

[paul1609]

Of course if LNER was a private operator they would have weighed up the reputational cost to the bottom line of disruption and made an appropriate offer to the unions to avoid the situation arriving. Now we have all operators with their hands tied behind their backs causing disruption across the board might not matter to DfT on low income routes vs cost of paying overtime / rdw payments but on LNER it will hurt.

I can see no end to this as unions have staff support to dig in and government are not going to give way over 100k railway staff when faced with millions in other public sectors who will want the same.

If LNER were a private operator and they were 30% down (in real terms) on their income they would have already acted.
Fares would have been increased to the maximum they could. Services would have been slashed including some obvious basket cases as Harrogate, Bradford, Skipton, Hull, Glasgow and Inverness. Catering would be at best a trolley. A large proportion of the staff would have been made redundant. Sorry but that's the reality of the situation however much rail staff don't like it. You can't have extra unscheduled government support cake and eat it.

 

[Bungle73]

Unfortunately these cancellations may start to get worse now the drivers have balloted to stop rest day work, a lot of depots were heavily reliant on this to cover jobs

I thought it was already happening?

Honestly, why is the railway so reliant on people working on their days off? What sort of two bit operation are they running??

 

[Llanigraham]

If LNER were a private operator and they were 30% down (in real terms) on their income they would have already acted.
Fares would have been increased to the maximum they could. Services would have been slashed including some obvious basket cases as Harrogate, Bradford, Skipton, Hull, Glasgow and Inverness. Catering would be at best a trolley. A large proportion of the staff would have been made redundant. Sorry but that's the reality of the situation however much rail staff don't like it. You can't have extra unscheduled government support cake and eat it.

If "A large proportion of the staff would have been made redundant." how would that improve the service? Surely that would mean there were less drivers and guards?

 

[800001]

I thought it was already happening?

Honestly, why is the railway so reliant on people working on their days off? What sort of two bit operation are they running??

Because the government will not allow any operators to recruit enough staff for a 7 day railway.

It is cheaper to operate using rest day work for Sunday operations . If that is not part of the working week.

Yes for sure, some depots are flush!
But even the others where 2/3 jobs a day are uncovered still results in 5/6 cancellations.
Nowhere near as bad as other TOCs but still frustrating for the punters!

I’d love to see which depots have 2/3 uncovered each day, as I can assure you, you are so wrong on that!!!

 

[Bald Rick]

Because the government will not allow any operators to recruit enough staff for a 7 day railway.

To be fair, it wasn’t Government that caused this. It was (and still is) an arrangement that suited everybody. Right up until it didn’t.

 

[North-Valiant]

To be fair, it wasn’t Government that caused this. It was (and still is) an arrangement that suited everybody. Right up until it didn’t.

The government shouldn't routinely understaff a critical industry (even though they do it for everything of course)

 

[Bald Rick]

The government shouldn't routinely understaff a critical industry (even though they do it for everything of course)

They didn’t. The industry did it itself, in full agreement with the staff involved, as it was mutually beneficial.

 

[dk1]

I thought it was already happening?

Honestly, why is the railway so reliant on people working on their days off? What sort of two bit operation are they running??

Always been like that.

 

[Falcon1200]

Because the government will not allow any operators to recruit enough staff for a 7 day railway.

It is cheaper to operate using rest day work for Sunday operations . If that is not part of the working week.

To be fair, it wasn’t Government that caused this. It was (and still is) an arrangement that suited everybody. Right up until it didn’t.

The government shouldn't routinely understaff a critical industry (even though they do it for everything of course)

Sundays outside the working week, and Rest Day and 12-hour shifts to cover vacancies and shortages, were a feature of my railway career from the day I started in 1978 until the day I retired in 2016. That was under BR, the privatised railway, and both Labour and Conservative Governments. And make no mistake, plenty of staff were happy with the additional income from Sunday turns and overtime.

 

[londonmidland]

Quite a few alterations for services tomorrow. View here for the latest information.

 

[cuccir]

Lots more cancellations and/or partial cancellations today. Quite a few cancelled during the day. At least 40 services affected. Not a good sign for the forthcoming months

 

[800001]

Lots more cancellations and/or partial cancellations today. Quite a few cancelled during the day. At least 40 services affected. Not a good sign for the forthcoming months

6 cancelled today
19 services start/terminate short or have additional calls.

Where do you get 40 services affected from?

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

6 cancelled today
19 services start/terminate short or have additional calls.

Where do you get 40 services affected from?

Might not have been right about 40, but he was definitely right about lots, clearly then!

 

[800001]

Might not have been right about 40, but he was definitely right about lots, clearly then!

And if you look at detail of the 19 I mentioned 12 start/terminate short.

So 18 in total cancellations or amendments, so yes it is still a lot, yes still unacceptable, but way less that ‘40’.

 

[Dave91131]

A mountain of cancellations today, almost all of which are, from my experience, trains which would be heaving throughout.

Good luck to any front line LNER staff on duty today.

 

[TheBigD]

There are quite a few LNER trains reported as full and standing this afternoon.

I'm also guessing a couple of shortforms as well, like the 1222 Kings Cross to Newcastle being only a single 5 car (has been a double set when I've caught it previously).

 

[800001]

There are quite a few LNER trains reported as full and standing this afternoon.

I'm also guessing a couple of shortforms as well, like the 1222 Kings Cross to Newcastle being only a single 5 car (has been a double set when I've caught it previously).

1N16 the 1222 is booked a 5 car.

 

[TheBigD]

1N16 the 1222 is booked a 5 car.

No worries. I must have got lucky earlier this year!
I see it's one of the ones listed as F&S though.

 

[800001]

No worries. I must have got lucky earlier this year!
I see it's one of the ones listed as F&S though.

Most trains are full leaving London, starting with the very first train.

Add in all these cancellations and amendments, well, I wouldn’t like to be attempting to travel on LNER.

 

[TheBigD]

Add in all these cancellations and amendments, well, I wouldn’t like to be attempting to travel on LNER.

You should have tried the last couple of weekends with just the hourly service via the Joint Line . Horrendous overcrowding on some services.

 

[800001]

You should have tried the last couple of weekends with just the hourly service via the Joint Line . Horrendous overcrowding on some services.

I did, had no choice, on the weekend when it was one Edinburgh service every 2 hours with no reservations working. Was chaos

 

[43055]

There are quite a few LNER trains reported as full and standing this afternoon.

I'm also guessing a couple of shortforms as well, like the 1222 Kings Cross to Newcastle being only a single 5 car (has been a double set when I've caught it previously).

The Midland Mainline is also shut south of Luton so probably also got extra passengers to/from the East Midlands as well.

 

[cuccir]

And if you look at detail of the 19 I mentioned 12 start/terminate short.

So 18 in total cancellations or amendments, so yes it is still a lot, yes still unacceptable, but way less that ‘40’.

Yes, I suspect that was my mistake - I saw there were a higher number of cancelled/interrupted services at Newcastle and went to the LNER website and counted all the services that had 'Service Update' status, then added the number that I knew had been cancelled in advance the day. So with hindsight I also counted others that were just delayed, or which were listed as they had extra stops added. There has been a substantial increase since the middle of last week, but I overestimated here.

Hard to gauge the impact today (5th December) as the cable theft on the ECML is causing disruption anyway.

 

[Haywain]

The Midland Mainline is also shut south of Luton so probably also got extra passengers to/from the East Midlands as well.

Plus the EMR strikes on Friday and Saturday will have caused some to use the ECML for round trips too.

 

[DanNCL]

There are quite a few LNER trains reported as full and standing this afternoon.

I'm also guessing a couple of shortforms as well, like the 1222 Kings Cross to Newcastle being only a single 5 car (has been a double set when I've caught it previously).

1N16 the 1222 is booked a 5 car.

That one has always been a frustration of mine, as a Mark 4 set is booked to sit in London for the entire duration of the 1N16/1Y42 round trip from Kings Cross. If crew knowledge for them to work to Newcastle had been retained that Mark 4 set could have worked the diagram instead of the 5 car 801 and made it a bit more tolerable for the passengers.

It's always been one of the first services to suffer on a Sunday, before the 5 car 80xs it often ended up with a 90, so lost time en route.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

That one has always been a frustration of mine, as a Mark 4 set is booked to sit in London for the entire duration of the 1N16/1Y42 round trip from Kings Cross. If crew knowledge for them to work to Newcastle had been retained that Mark 4 set could have worked the diagram instead of the 5 car 801 and made it a bit more tolerable for the passengers.

Probably the more logical thing would be to send it to Leeds and back with the IET released doing Newcastle.

 

[greyman42]

There are quite a few LNER trains reported as full and standing this afternoon.

That can be said for any Sunday on the ECML.

 

[dk1]

That can be said for any Sunday on the ECML.

Always been the case on Sunday afternoons. Even in the 90s trains at Peterborough where shown as ‘Full & Standing from Doncaster’ ‘Full & Standing from Kings Cross’ on the then primitive display screens.