Northern's Problems in the North West

[jayah]

Independent Inquiry announced into Northern/GTR timetable trouble, blame being firmly laid by government at Network Rail for failing to deliver infrastructure on time and the regulator for advising the TOC's that nothing was wrong and they should only expect minor initial hiccups right up until it was too late while also saying the TOC's should have been more prepared by having a plan B timetable.

I don't think anything on the TL upgrade unravelled in the last month. Yet they were still bigging the scale of their timetable changes until the final hours. They really ought to have known by May 1 they couldn't deliver anything close to what was in public.

 

[RickSanchez]

A booked training day that has to fit inside 7hr is far worse than a spare turn that isn't going anywhere. I trust there aren't of those in Lancashire at the moment.

How so?

 

[jayah]

How so?

Because a 7hr training day is planned in advance. Someone with a couple of hours to run on a shift is not the same.

 

[RickSanchez]

Because a 7hr training day is planned in advance. Someone with a couple of hours to run on a shift is not the same.

But you seem to have a problem with being paid for 9hrs and only working 7hrs

Surely it’s the same difference whichever way you cut it

 

[jayah]

But you seem to have a problem with being paid for 9hrs and only working 7hrs

Surely it’s the same difference whichever way you cut it

If you really aren't going to get anything out of them in the 2hr what is the point?

 

[RickSanchez]

If you really aren't going to get anything out of them in the 2hr what is the point?

And how does that differ on a 7hr road learning shift

 

[jayah]

And how does that differ on a 7hr road learning shift

Because in 8hr45 depending where it was, it could be twice as productive.

 

[RickSanchez]

Because in 8hr45 depending where it was, it could be twice as productive.

8.45 can be twice as productive as 7 hours?

 

[Tringonometry]

O

8.45 can be twice as productive as 7 hours?

It can if the extra 1.45 hours means you can fit in two trips instead of one while route learning.

We (Workington) run into this issue when we learn Barrow to Lancaster.

 

[Tetchytyke]

DfT, who have already stated that the issues they currently face are the fault of Network Rail

Have they?

Source please.

 

[RickSanchez]

O


It can if the extra 1.45 hours means you can fit in two trips instead of one while route learning.

We (Workington) run into this issue when we learn Barrow to Lancaster.

Ok, so is it set that every 7hour road learning shift replaces an 8.45 shift or could the 7hrs be in place of a 5hr, 6hr, 7hr booked shift too

 

[Tetchytyke]

Clearly you have a strong dislike of the operator but this is a comment borne out of that hatred and thus devoid of common sense.

Ah yes, any criticism is "personal hatred". Can't possibly be anything to do with repeated failures at Northern, all of which lie firmly at the feet of Arriva.

Arriva are incompetent and should pay for their incompetence.

The staffing shortages have nothing to do with electrification. It is disingenuous to try and suggest that they do. Still, I don't expect anything other than mendacity from Chris Grayling.

 

[jayah]

Ok, so is it set that every 7hour road learning shift replaces an 8.45 shift or could the 7hrs be in place of a 5hr, 6hr, 7hr booked shift too

The rostered shifts balance, so a 7hr is balanced by a 10hr somewhere. When you come off the roster it should go to booked hours or 35/4 but instead goes to 7, which is probably as short as it ever goes on a 4 day week.

 

[RickSanchez]

The rostered shifts balance, so a 7hr is balanced by a 10hr somewhere. When you come off the roster it should go to booked hours or 35/4 but instead goes to 7, which is probably as short as it ever goes on a 4 day week.

So if you are on a set of 3 earlies and they are say 8hrs, 6hrs and 7hrs and they are replaced by 3*7 hour training days then the balance is equalised

I appreciate you may benefit from road learning but it is also possible to lose out.

Same as getting a 9hr 58 job off a 7 hr spare

You get paid for it but it is still an extra 2hrs58 at work

Swings and roundabouts

Also 7hrs might just be on the west there are 3 sets of t and cs within ARN now AFAIA

 

[WatcherZero]

Interestingly Tony Miles says that the previous RDW agreement was allowed to lapse because neither the company nor the union wanted it to continue. Northern have since made both a short term (to deal with the current training troubles) and a long term RDW offer tied to a salary settlement to ASLEF but the union has refused to put the offers to its members as they believe that not allowing RDW give the union more power.

 

[Howardh]

Has Grayling the authority to do what Tim Farron touched on, immidiately give the Manchester/Windermere route back to TPE?
And if he could, and did, does TPE have the staff and units to cover it?
It's really a hypothetical question as I can't see it happening, but...??

 

[Andyh82]

Has Grayling the authority to do what Tim Farron touched on, immidiately give the Manchester/Windermere route back to TPE?
And if he could, and did, does TPE have the staff and units to cover it?
It's really a hypothetical question as I can't see it happening, but...??

No

TPE have no spare units and no spare drivers, and if they did they wouldn't still be trained on that route

It's quite funny how TPE's own issues are being overlooked, and instead are seen as knights in shining armour

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Has Grayling the authority to do what Tim Farron touched on, immidiately give the Manchester/Windermere route back to TPE?
And if he could, and did, does TPE have the staff and units to cover it?
It's really a hypothetical question as I can't see it happening, but...??

The review he has just called will make recommendations like that.
You can see in the transcript of the Commons session, that Grayling is flexing his "franchise removal" muscles with GTR, but is waiting for the enquiry's result before getting his teeth into Northern.
I suspect that is probably because GTR have failed once on Southern performance last year, and this is a "first offence" for Northern.
There was also a cross-industry team on the GTR timetable, while Northern's performance has more Network Rail mitigating factors than GTR does.
Chris Gibb of NR also reworked the Thameslink plan to deliver it in phases (this was the first major phase), whereas Northern was dumped straight into panic by NR's delays (and late demand to rework the timetable).

TPE hasn't got the stock for Windermere, and the staff mostly transferred to Northern anyway.
Windermere interworked with Barrow (and to an extent Blackpool), and the whole service group went to Northern.

 

[swanhill41]

Never did I expect that when I started this thread as a bit of devilment to highlight what was serious issue, that by in 6 weeks there would have been the very large number of postings...But then did we expect the monumental b----s up that has been the Northern Fail franchise ,along with the silent partner Network Fail....A comedy show of dramatic proportions!.

 

[Greybeard33]

Northern MD David Brown has just been on BBC Breakfast explaining the interim timetable amidst the inevitable calls for Northern to be stripped of the franchise................I'm surprised nobody has suggested those knights in shining armour from TfL take it over!!

The full interview with David Brown has been broadcast on BBC North West local news programmes through the day, for example North West Tonight Evening News, 5 minutes in on iPlayer. He attempted to pin blame on the electrification delay, saying that the whole May timetable had to be "thrown up in the air and retimed" when Network Rail informed Northern of the delay at the beginning of January.

That reminded me of the letter from Liam Sumpter (ARN regional director) to Lisa Nandy MP on 11 January, when the electrification delay was announced. It was reproduced in full in Post #5932 of the Blackpool - Manchester Electrification thread and included these snippets (my bolding):

Despite all this additional engineering work Network Rail have confirmed that the required infrastructure will not be available in time for the introduction of our May 18 timetable as we planned. We have discussed a number of potential options with Network Rail including an additional extensive engineering blockade on the Bolton corridor during February & March, with the aim of recovering the programme.

As a responsible operator, we have always been very clear that we need to act in the best interest of our customers. If we were to agree to this extensive blockade it would present our customers travelling on the Atherton and Bolton lines with further disruption and delay at very short notice and with an uncertain defined benefit guaranteed beyond the closure. The impact of this closure would be a significant step-up in disruption from anything previously considered on what is one of the busiest parts of our network.

Having considered the significant impact that our customers with be faced with if we were to go ahead with this closure, we have decided not to agree to this in favour of weekend and overnight possessions throughout summer. This option protects our customers from significant disruption and we will crucially not be attempting to deliver something that is extremely high risk, but indeed adds certainty to future planning. It also provides us with the opportunity to deliver a ‘robust’ series of phased timetable improvements ensuring a seamless delivery of service improvements that will not impact negatively on our customers.

If Arriva had agreed to the alternative option of a two month blockade on the Bolton corridor, development of the original May timetable could have continued to the normal schedule. And some Northern drivers would have been temporarily released from normal duties in the corridor, enabling acceleration of route learning for the modified services planned elsewhere on the network.

It is a moot point whether or not the impact on Northern's customers of the blockade would have been as bad as the chaos of the last three weeks.

 

[Interlude]

Any reason why drivers can't learn new routes whilst driving under supervision of a trainer/instructor on trains with passengers? Surely it makes more sense to do that rather than having loads of empty trains shuttling around the already busy network. After all, they're already qualified to actually drive the trains, so with proper supervision should be safe enough to carry passengers?

I can't speak for all TOCs, but I'm currently learning a new route in full passenger service, and also signing off on a new type of traction simultaneously. For the previous new traction I learned, driving hours were accumulated on specific driver training paths (i.e. empty), so it can be done both ways. There's nothing to say route learning cannot be done in passenger service - indeed, I personally find it far more beneficial "doing it for real".

 

[Audioguy]

I can't speak for all TOCs, but I'm currently learning a new route in full passenger service, and also signing off on a new type of traction simultaneously. For the previous new traction I learned, driving hours were accumulated on specific driver training paths (i.e. empty), so it can be done both ways. There's nothing to say route learning cannot be done in passenger service - indeed, I personally find it far more beneficial "doing it for real".

I did wonder how Virgin could run a single Pendolino for technical purposes in the middle of the night one night and then have three or four Pendolinos daily in passenger service running in and out of Blackpool without large numbers of training runs in between. In fact there is a video on Youtube of the first run into Blackpool in service where the driver was interviewed and introduced a second driver in the cab who was on a training run with the driver.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Quite a feature on the BBC 10pm News tonight, with full politico analysis.
Grayling evidently under considerable pressure, and Peter Hendy admitting it was all NR's fault.
And yet somehow it's not really the figureheads who should take the can, it's those who promised that the big bang would be "all right on the night".
Labour will make what hay they can, but they know they would be doing the same if they were in charge.
If Northern and GTR TOCs were in public hands, what difference would it make?
The DfT would still want its moneysworth from the investments made through NR and the TOCs, and to keep operational costs down.

 

[kevconnor]

Has anyone any view on if DfT need to shoulder any responsibility for this whole sorry affair?

Were they too ambitious with the franchise agreement asking Northern to do too much too soon, or was this solely a NR fowl up on over promising exacerbated by poor handling by Northern?

 

[Magicake]

The full interview with David Brown has been broadcast on BBC North West local news programmes through the day, for example North West Tonight Evening News, 5 minutes in on iPlayer. He attempted to pin blame on the electrification delay, saying that the whole May timetable had to be "thrown up in the air and retimed" when Network Rail informed Northern of the delay at the beginning of January.

That reminded me of the letter from Liam Sumpter (ARN regional director) to Lisa Nandy MP on 11 January, when the electrification delay was announced. It was reproduced in full in Post #5932 of the Blackpool - Manchester Electrification thread and included these snippets (my bolding):


If Arriva had agreed to the alternative option of a two month blockade on the Bolton corridor, development of the original May timetable could have continued to the normal schedule. And some Northern drivers would have been temporarily released from normal duties in the corridor, enabling acceleration of route learning for the modified services planned elsewhere on the network.

It is a moot point whether or not the impact on Northern's customers of the blockade would have been as bad as the chaos of the last three weeks.

In hindsight, I suspect that despite the chaos at the moment Northern made the right decision on this one. The announcement was one week before Carillion went under. In practice I suspect that the extended blockade would have fallen in the period between Carillion and Amey when there was little direction and would have been wasted.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Even without hindsight I would say a short notice 2 month blockade shouldn't have happened.

However Greybeard33 must be thanked for finding that letter. Strange how in January when Northern were informed electrification wouldn't be complete by May they were confident of delivering a robust, seamless series of phased timetable improvements then when they don't it is all the fault of Network Rail for not completing a project Northern knew they wouldn't complete.

 

[superkev]

Would it be true to say that if ASLEF allowed there drivers to work rest days the shambles would not have happened?
K

 

[muz379]

Would it be true to say that if an agreement was made between Aslef & the company allowing drivers to work rest days the shambles would not have happened?
K

Let me fix that for you

 

[Bantamzen]

Even without hindsight I would say a short notice 2 month blockade shouldn't have happened.

However Greybeard33 must be thanked for finding that letter. Strange how in January when Northern were informed electrification wouldn't be complete by May they were confident of delivering a robust, seamless series of phased timetable improvements then when they don't it is all the fault of Network Rail for not completing a project Northern knew they wouldn't complete.

The additional blockade would have been one option for recovery of the programme, but not necessarily the only one. As the statement says:

We have discussed a number of potential options with Network Rail including an additional extensive engineering blockade on the Bolton corridor during February & March, with the aim of recovering the programme.

(my bold)

So it probably wasn't the only one, and when Northern requested that the blockade not take place NR will have opted for another option. Therefore at that point Northern probably thought NR could still recover sufficiently to allow the training etc, however with hindsight perhaps they should have been sufficiently nervous to have formulated a contingency plan. I think this is the real lesson to be learned, have a robust Plan 'B' even maybe a Plan 'C'.

 

[muz379]

The additional blockade would have been one option for recovery of the programme, but not necessarily the only one. As the statement says:

(my bold)

So it probably wasn't the only one, and when Northern requested that the blockade not take place NR will have opted for another option. Therefore at that point Northern probably thought NR could still recover sufficiently to allow the training etc, however with hindsight perhaps they should have been sufficiently nervous to have formulated a contingency plan. I think this is the real lesson to be learned, have a robust Plan 'B' even maybe a Plan 'C'.

Suppose it depends on exactly what NR said about the additional blockade as well . If there was still no guarantee that it would recover the program and deliver on time then perhaps it was best to defer the introduction of electric trains on the route for December . It would be frustrating for passengers to have a two month blockade for electrification works and then not be able to run electric trains . Had Northern got to the end of March thinking that they would be able to run Electric trains on Bolton and then found out they could not , the timetable change would have been even harder to deliver .

Plus making plans for a 2 month blockade at short notice is no easy task , especially at a station as busy as Bolton .