May 2021 Timetable Change

[HamworthyGoods]

Hi, does anyone know what's happened to the 07:30 Sheffield to Doncaster? It was always busy pre-covid so confused as to why it's disappeared.

There aren’t enough traincrew to revert to a ‘Full Pre-Covid’ timetable in May so services that existed Pre-Covid are having to be thinned out to match the available resource.

In a nutshell the number of railway staff retiring or leaving has remained steady throughout the past year but the number of newly trained replacements (especially drivers) is near on zero as training has been incredibly difficult with the distancing regulations so the net result is far fewer qualified traincrew than a year ago.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Hi, does anyone know what's happened to the 07:30 Sheffield to Doncaster? It was always busy pre-covid so confused as to why it's disappeared.

The last time I looked virtually the whole of the Sheffield to Doncaster stopping service in both directions has been moved to the other half hour!
What is more worrying is what was the first train from Sheffield (05.2x) has been withdrawn therefore severing connections with the 06.10 Doncaster to Edinburgh. Stupidity on a grand scale.

 

[Peter0124]

From the 12th of September it's showing the full timetable for Avanti:

Realtime Trains | Departures from London Euston between 0200 and 0159 on 13/09/2021

Train information at London Euston between 0200 and 0159 on 13/09/2021. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

It's different from pre-pandemic in that there seems to be less voyagers used on the Scotland-Euston services, particularly on weekends. The 20:30 has been extended from Preston to Lancaster as swell.

Let's hope this is a true change and I could see it happening if we don't get back into lockdowns.

 

[Peterthegreat]

There aren’t enough traincrew to revert to a ‘Full Pre-Covid’ timetable in May so services that existed Pre-Covid are having to be thinned out to match the available resource.

In a nutshell the number of railway staff retiring or leaving has remained steady throughout the past year but the number of newly trained replacements (especially drivers) is near on zero as training has been incredibly difficult with the distancing regulations so the net result is far fewer qualified traincrew than a year ago.

But some TOCs have managed better than others. Many Northern diesel services in Yorkshire have been halved. I wonder if, after withdrawal of the pacers, they actually have enough units.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

But some TOCs have managed better than others. Many Northern diesel services in Yorkshire have been halved. I wonder if, after withdrawal of the pacers, they actually have enough units.

Indeed, as it’s not an evenly spread percentage of resource shortage across TOCs, some are harder hit than others and some it varies by depot too so the depots where they are short will take the brunt of cuts.

 

[dk1]

In a nutshell the number of railway staff retiring or leaving has remained steady throughout the past year but the number of newly trained replacements (especially drivers) is near on zero as training has been incredibly difficult with the distancing regulations so the net result is far fewer qualified traincrew than a year ago.

It is very stark how some operators seem to have struggled with training during this last year & others have excelled.

 

[yorksrob]

There aren’t enough traincrew to revert to a ‘Full Pre-Covid’ timetable in May so services that existed Pre-Covid are having to be thinned out to match the available resource.

In a nutshell the number of railway staff retiring or leaving has remained steady throughout the past year but the number of newly trained replacements (especially drivers) is near on zero as training has been incredibly difficult with the distancing regulations so the net result is far fewer qualified traincrew than a year ago.

Northern were supposed to have gotten a grip on this issue last year.

I hope we're not going to be disproportionately affected by this issue yet again.

I will be livid if we're stuck with decimated services west of Skipton all summer like we were last year.

 

[northernchris]

Northern were supposed to have gotten a grip on this issue last year.

I hope we're not going to be disproportionately affected by this issue yet again.

I will be livid if we're stuck with decimated services west of Skipton all summer like we were last year.

Yes, it does appear that Northern will again be amongst the worst affected operators this year. I still can't understand why come May Northern will run les trains than the December 2020 timetable, and hope that the units saved are redeployed on to the routes which aren't up to full service. Hoping there isn't a repeat of last summer where crowded solo 158s were heading up the Settle Carlisle line whilst a 4 car sprinter was toddling around to Rose Hill, or 2 car 195s deployed on the Leeds - York stopper mostly filled with passengers travelling between the 2 cities leaving little capacity for those travelling to/from local stations!

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, it does appear that Northern will again be amongst the worst affected operators this year. I still can't understand why come May Northern will run les trains than the December 2020 timetable, and hope that the units saved are redeployed on to the routes which aren't up to full service. Hoping there isn't a repeat of last summer where crowded solo 158s were heading up the Settle Carlisle line whilst a 4 car sprinter was toddling around to Rose Hill, or 2 car 195s deployed on the Leeds - York stopper mostly filled with passengers travelling between the 2 cities leaving little capacity for those travelling to/from local stations!

Northern have been abysmal ever since Abellio-Serco were replaced. They don't even appear to have an email address now for enquiries.

It looks like the S&C will be stuck with the wholly inadequate "temporary" timetable over Easter.

 

[berneyarms]

There aren’t enough traincrew to revert to a ‘Full Pre-Covid’ timetable in May so services that existed Pre-Covid are having to be thinned out to match the available resource.

In a nutshell the number of railway staff retiring or leaving has remained steady throughout the past year but the number of newly trained replacements (especially drivers) is near on zero as training has been incredibly difficult with the distancing regulations so the net result is far fewer qualified traincrew than a year ago.

It looks as if they've reinstated the pre-Covid Sheffield-Adwick stopping services leaving Sheffield at XX:05, but at the expense of the Sheffield-Doncaster stoppers at XX:32 each hour.

Similarly in the other direction the Adwick-Doncaster-Sheffield services (leaving Doncaster at XX:35) have been reinstated but the Doncaster-Sheffield stoppers at XX:04 have been removed.

Here's the full list of stopping departures:

From Sheffield:

Realtime Trains - Departures from Sheffield

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

From Doncaster

Realtime Trains - Departures from Doncaster

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Northern were supposed to have gotten a grip on this issue last year.

I hope we're not going to be disproportionately affected by this issue yet again.

How do you propose an operator gets a grip on a shortage of traincrew following a natural turnover of staff that has continued during the Winter 2nd Wave of restrictions preclude training of replacements.

Yes, it does appear that Northern will again be amongst the worst affected operators this year. I still can't understand why come May Northern will run les trains than the December 2020 timetable

You also have to remember that traincrew are human, they may have been covering additional shifts on rest day working whilst the country is ‘closed’ but once things start re-opening they will be keen like the rest of us to do things on their days off other than work overtime. This means the actual number of traincrew available to an operator on a daily basis could drop this summer to lower than December 2020.

The railway has been instructed to run a level of service that it feels is reliably deliverable to run and that is the service you find planned here at Northern, some TOCs are worse off than others as natural wastage of staff doesn’t as a rule affect all TOCs equally - a lot will depend on the current age profile and retirements.

 

[Watershed]

How do you propose an operator gets a grip on a shortage of traincrew following a natural turnover of staff that has continued during the Winter 2nd Wave of restrictions preclude training of replacements.


You also have to remember that traincrew are human, they may have been covering additional shifts on rest day working whilst the country is ‘closed’ but once things start re-opening they will be keen like the rest of us to do things on their days off other than work overtime. This actually means the number of traincrew available to an operator could drop this summer to lower than December 2020.

It's clear that some operators have dealt with the issue of training during Covid much more effectively than others.

For example, since the pandemic started, EMR have successfully trained up staff on two new fleets (class 170 and 180), and are progressing well with a third (class 360).

It looks as if some TOCs are using Covid as a convenient excuse for unrelated failings.

 

[yorksrob]

How do you propose an operator gets a grip on a shortage of traincrew following a natural turnover of staff that has continued during the Winter 2nd Wave of restrictions preclude training of replacements.

By training people since the problem emerged last year.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

By training people since the problem emerged last year.

And how do you propose doing that when apart from a number of months last summer it has been impossible due to covid restrictions to successfully complete much training?

This isn’t the railway being awkward, this is due to in many cases not being allowed to have a second person in a small confined cab and in the case of driver training hands on learning under instruction is required.

This isn’t a situation the railway has chosen to get into but an enforced one.

It's clear that some operators have dealt with the issue of training during Covid much more effectively than others.

For example, since the pandemic started, EMR have successfully trained up staff on two new fleets (class 170 and 180), and are progressing well with a third (class 360).

It looks as if some TOCs are using Covid as a convenient excuse for unrelated failings.

Incorrect

There were a number of TOCs that took part in a national trial of allowing training during the easing of Covid last summer as agreed with the unions.

Just as that was starting to be rolled out nationally the 2nd wave started to hit and this was suspended. It has only relatively recently restarted.

That is why some TOCs are in better shape than others - those that had partaken in the trial did gain some productive new crew.

 

[yorksrob]

And how do you propose doing that when apart from a number of months last summer it has been impossible due to covid restrictions to successfully complete much training?

This isn’t the railway being awkward, this is due to in many cases not being allowed to have a second person in a small confined cab and in the case of driver training hands on learning under instruction is required.

This isn’t a situation the railway has chosen to get into but an enforced one.

And how come these other companies such as EMR (as quoted above) have managed it ?

Northern had managed to run a half decent timetable prior to January, so training must have been going on. These temporary timetables seem to come out at the drop of a hat, but linger like a bad smell.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

And how come these other companies such as EMR (as quoted above) have managed it ?

Northern had managed to run a half decent timetable prior to January, so training must have been going on. These temporary timetables seem to come out at the drop of a hat, but linger like a bad smell.

As above some operators took part in a national trial as agreed with unions such as ASLEF.

 

[yorksrob]

As above some operators took part in a national trial as agreed with unions such as ASLEF.

That's lovely, but why weren't Northern at the front of the queue in that case, particularly given the problems they had last year.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

That's lovely, but why weren't Northern at the front of the queue in that case, particularly given the problems they had last year.

Because they weren’t one of the agreed operators to take part in the trial. I’m not sure how the trials were chosen but it wasn’t just a case of an operator choosing to take part or not - like you mention there were some core priorities such as training EMR staff on new traction as the old stock was required legally to be withdrawn, that may have influenced the decisions of where would be prioritised.

 

[Dood75]

Anyone know if the XC HST diagram will revert to going to Paignton on Saturdays from the new timetable (0611 off Leeds 1V44)

Thanks for any info...

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Anyone know if the XC HST diagram will revert to going to Paignton on Saturdays from the new timetable (0611 off Leeds 1V44)

Thanks for any info...

Only GWR are running the ‘usual’ Summer Saturday Torbay service this year, XC are running the current Saturday level of service to Paignton which is just two trains from Bristol which are both timed for Voyager rolling stock.

 

[bramling]

By training people since the problem emerged last year.

If only. At my place there's been minimal classroom training, and whilst in-cab training resumed to some extent over the summer, it stopped around November again. The problem is that it's not just a case of things stopping, but if someone's training is suspended mid-way through it isn't necessarily just a case of picking it up again - some people have had to restart from scratch.

The training backlog is absolutely massive in some places, including relicensing / refresher training of extant staff. Likewise even getting long-term sick (and of course those long-term shielding) people back can have issues.

 

[yorksrob]

Because they weren’t one of the agreed operators to take part in the trial. I’m not sure how the trials were chosen but it wasn’t just a case of an operator choosing to take part or not - like you mention there were some core priorities such as training EMR staff on new traction as the old stock was required legally to be withdrawn, that may have influenced the decisions of where would be prioritised.

Given that EMR had a perfectly good service all through last year and we had to wait until August (august I think) to get a decent train service I think they should have prioritised us.

If only. At my place there's been minimal classroom training, and whilst in-cab training resumed to some extent over the summer, it stopped around November again. The problem is that it's not just a case of things stopping, but if someone's training is suspended mid-way through it isn't necessarily just a case of picking it up again - some people have had to restart from scratch.

The training backlog is absolutely massive in some places, including relicensing / refresher training of extant staff. Likewise even getting long-term sick (and of course those long-term shielding) people back can have issues.

If that's the case, Northern shouldn't have instituted the temporary timetable at the start of this year and continued through instead.

 

[dk1]

Only GWR are running the ‘usual’ Summer Saturday Torbay service this year, XC are running the current Saturday level of service to Paignton which is just two trains from Bristol which are both timed for Voyager rolling stock.

Extremely poor show from XC particularly with people staying home this year. Hopefully modifications will take place to improve their offering during the Summer.

 

[Dood75]

Only GWR are running the ‘usual’ Summer Saturday Torbay service this year, XC are running the current Saturday level of service to Paignton which is just two trains from Bristol which are both timed for Voyager rolling stock.

Cheers for that

 

[Watershed]

And how do you propose doing that when apart from a number of months last summer it has been impossible due to covid restrictions to successfully complete much training?

This isn’t the railway being awkward, this is due to in many cases not being allowed to have a second person in a small confined cab and in the case of driver training hands on learning under instruction is required.

The notion that close-contact training is 'not allowed' or 'impossible' during Covid is only present in certain parts of the railway. Such training has continued unabated in other industries, for example aviation, and indeed in the more sensible parts of the railway. Other sectors have never stopped close contact services.

Covid laws do not outright prohibit close contact between staff. They require employers to reduce risk to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP). There are many mitigation measures available which can balance the risk of staff being in close contact. The mitigation that all close contact training must cease goes well beyond what is reasonably practicable (as it leads to the decimation of operational capability).

This isn’t a situation the railway has chosen to get into but an enforced one.

No, it's an artificial situation certain parts of the railway have placed themselves under, because they've been unwilling to take the necessary measures to ensure that such training continues.

Incorrect

There were a number of TOCs that took part in a national trial of allowing training during the easing of Covid last summer as agreed with the unions.

Just as that was starting to be rolled out nationally the 2nd wave started to hit and this was suspended. It has only relatively recently restarted.

That is why some TOCs are in better shape than others - those that had partaken in the trial did gain some productive new crew.

I'm not going to go into it here (it is veering off-topic if nothing else), but suffice it to say that there is a lot more behind it than that.

 

[LowLevel]

Because they weren’t one of the agreed operators to take part in the trial. I’m not sure how the trials were chosen but it wasn’t just a case of an operator choosing to take part or not - like you mention there were some core priorities such as training EMR staff on new traction as the old stock was required legally to be withdrawn, that may have influenced the decisions of where would be prioritised.

EMR's training never stopped once it had started. Guards training on 170s paused as the rollout was delayed anyway but has now resumed, drivers however have been continual. As far as I know all agreed locally with the unions. Getting training agreed was seen as priority number 1.

The same with training new guards which didn't stop at all subject to instructor and trainee both being happy (some stepped back) and drivers came back after a comparatively short hiatus.

For me it shows the main problem - I thought the RICF (Rail Industry Coronavirus Forum) would be a national format to allow these sort of things to occur as well as things like revenue duties but instead it has been a piece meal mess with agreements or lack thereof being locally conducted messes.

 

[Bikeman78]

EMR's training never stopped once it had started. Guards training on 170s paused as the rollout was delayed anyway but has now resumed, drivers however have been continual. As far as I know all agreed locally with the unions. Getting training agreed was seen as priority number 1.

The same with training new guards which didn't stop at all subject to instructor and trainee both being happy (some stepped back) and drivers came back after a comparatively short hiatus.

For me it shows the main problem - I thought the RICF (Rail Industry Coronavirus Forum) would be a national format to allow these sort of things to occur as well as things like revenue duties but instead it has been a piece meal mess with agreements or lack thereof being locally conducted messes.

As far as I'm aware, the class 769 training has been ongoing since last summer. All three sets of loco hauled stock have been doing training trips this year. Still no firm date for the latter to start public service.

 

[Glenn1969]

Can someone explain the lack of trains after 11pm from Leeds to Bradford to me? We had them for years but both lines have had them removed in the May timetable? Surely 2257 is too soon for the last train between 2 such major WY centres?

 

[Starmill]

It is probably worth noting that with the industry facing a severe financial crisis, and that demands for additional "summer holiday" services probably need to be viewed in that light. A solid day-to-day service on urban and intercity routes is the real key. Of course, 'summer holiday' routes have prevailed over urban ones in some cases on the gamble that they'll genuinely be busier week-round.

Can someone explain the lack of trains after 11pm from Leeds to Bradford to me? We had them for years but both lines have had them removed in the May timetable? Surely 2257 is too soon for the last train between 2 such major WY centres?

I pointed out that the 2327 from Leeds appeared to be missing, which is a service from Hull to Halifax that isn't being restored.

 

[Glenn1969]

The Hull-Leeds part is listed on RTT but arrives Leeds 20 minutes later at 2343. Did they decide that was too late to send the train on to Bradford/Halifax?