Short formed EMT - Nottingham to Liverpool

[ValleyLines142]

I really think this is starting to go off track now. Let's not digress and stay focused.

Haydn1971, my advice to you if you are unhappy with the current state of affairs on the Liverpool to Norwich route would be to email or tweet EMT, as only they will have the answers you're looking for and not anybody on here who is speculating.

 

[Max]

Slipping back off into that metaphorical siding again aren't we, defending a situation that doesn't work for anyone except the ROSCOs share holders

I'm not sure the ROSCO is at fault though, based on what other people are saying. Do you have evidence to suggest that the ROSCOs themselves are responsible for daily maintenance? As I think it's probably necessary to defend this position.

 

[Philip C]

The contractual arrangements are of no interest to passengers who are receiving what I hope we can all agree is a poor service. There is no future for an industry which seriously disappoints its customers on a scale such as appears to pertain on this EMT service.

East Midlands Trains is the customer-facing party, in the seemingly dysfunctional structure of organisations which interact to provide a train service and as such, is primarily responsible for making the passenger service work. Good organisations are aware of the risks to their business and manage these risks. Unless there has been a totally novel issue with the rolling stock then the normal rough and tumble of stock problems are easily modelled; this is still the case if there are known seasonal factors. In other words, in the context of risk management, the current problem was probably foreseeable. In a well run organisation plans should already have been in place to deal with this business risk. Even without such foresight it is management's role to establish and implement a plan to (a) understand the issue (b) resolve the issue (c) in the meantime mitigate the problem and (d) communicate effectively with its customers.

Evidence is presented on this thread that suggests that EMT lacks management capability appropriate to the challenges it is currently facing. If this is truly the case it should be career limiting for those in senior posts. I repeat there is no future in treating your customers in the manner reported in this thread.

 

[LowLevel]

Slipping back off into that metaphorical siding again aren't we, defending a situation that doesn't work for anyone except the ROSCOs share holders

The last thing I'm going to say on the thread is that in no way am I defending how the situation has panned out. I have however explained it from a boots on the front line perspective and put across my opinion that shy of a book of signed, large, blank cheques it's not something you can click your fingers to solve, and even then not overnight.

I'm sure you can take it as written that it's certainly frustrating at every level when it happens from train crew to fleet control - I've certainly seen the reaction on the person allocating the units face when they've been told in the dead of night that another one has failed or isn't ready for traffic in time and had to try and juggle it round and sort it out.

Certainly my heart drops when I turn up and find a short formed train waiting for me as it usually means I've got anywhere up to 6 or 7 hours of unpleasantness ahead. If I've come across as condoning the UK rolling stock position that's not my intention - I'm certainly resigned to nothing changing in the short term though.

EDIT - I've just noted that I certainly could do with reducing my usage of the word certainly!!

 

[455driver]

Whilst I appreciate you are trying to be helpful (LowLevel) you are explaining to me what I'm very aware of - my annoyance isn't over one train being missing, but allegedly 13 units requiring attention without any contingency plan put in place..

That said, I'm riding the earlier 185 from Sheffield today - after the EMT 158's the seats are really uncomfortable - anyway, I digress

What contingency plans?
If they don't have the units available then they don't have the units!
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Patronising doesn't help either I'm afraid - I'm not some numpty asking dumb questions, I'm asking reasonable questions and getting excuses from people that don't really know the answers :-/

They are telling you why it is how it is, they are the answers, the fact you don't like them doesn't change the fact that they are the answers!

If you don't like the answers perhaps you can tell them how to fix the problem, you are shouting everyone else down so lets have a workable solution, oh there are no extra units available anywhere in the Country so don't come out with the usual 'get 10 extra 158s' idea!
Good luck.

 

[Haydn1971]

Haydn1971, my advice to you if you are unhappy with the current state of affairs on the Liverpool to Norwich route would be to email or tweet EMT, as only they will have the answers you're looking for and not anybody on here who is speculating.

Done that Dan - nearly two working weeks later I'm still awaiting a response from them
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Evidence is presented on this thread that suggests that EMT lacks management capability appropriate to the challenges it is currently facing. If this is truly the case it should be career limiting for those in senior posts. I repeat there is no future in treating your customers in the manner reported in this thread.

Nicely summed up Philip
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I'm sure you can take it as written that it's certainly frustrating at every level when it happens from train crew to fleet control - I've certainly seen the reaction on the person allocating the units face when they've been told in the dead of night that another one has failed or isn't ready for traffic in time and had to try and juggle it round and sort it out.

I "certainly" appreciate the wall that you guys face, been there myself in a previous life dealing with road safety in a local government based role - it's like your banging your head against a wall that's moving ever closer towards you.
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If you don't like the answers perhaps you can tell them how to fix the problem, you are shouting everyone else down so lets have a workable solution, oh there are no extra units available anywhere in the Country so don't come out with the usual 'get 10 extra 158s' idea!

Good luck.

Morning 455

Think I covered this earlier - in that what I was originally (only) asking for was more information on the trains - both through staff being informed and notices on the trains. We have digressed significantly onto the dire state of the rolling stock industry.

The solution is coming slowly as we all know, electrification opens up cascades, means more carriages - that's kinda being pushed back a bit with the problems that GWML has uncovered - the blame is squarely at this and the previous government and its department for failing to deliver the engineering, communications and rolling stock required to match growth - this is mostly down to the lack of funding into Network Rail and the lack of stricter controls over the ROSCOs who aren't taking responsibility for keeping stock up to date or ensuring stock is maintained adequately - it's been alluded to above that EMT are responsible for maintenance - I'm actually quite staggered by this and had previously understood that maintenance was carried out by various parties on behalf of the ROSCO - regular by EMT, less regular by others - I'd be interested to know what the contractural arrangements really are, because the more I hear, the more I'm thinking I wish I'd got into the ROSCO business in the 90's rather than wasting my time designing transport infrastructure !

 

[222007]

If this train arrives back into Nottingham around 10:30 then it was a 4car today

 

[PHILIPE]

Not sure of the point you are making here... Issue is that running a two carriage train first thing in the morning isn't an issue until the unit gets towards the end of the run (early peak), but running a short formed unit in the evening peak is downright unacceptable. Whilst I can accept that this particular service runs a massively long route for a 158, making reforming potentially difficult. As a customer, it feels that EMT could have done much better with some shuffling to ensure four car units are maintained in the peak for the busiest service legs, or could have worked with its ROSCO to ensure impacts where mitigated against or indeed, explained the logic of their formation choices and the rationale for the work.

Just a point I have realised. What may be peak time at Nottingham may not be peak time at Liverpool. That is the situation where long distance trains ar concerned, especially XC.

 

[talltim]

If EMT can't run the service they are supposed to using the stock allocated as part of the franchise agreement, they shouldn't have taken it on, or should pay for the shortfall from their own pocket. I thought the whole point about privatization was that the private sector takes on the risk.
Although, as an occasional peak time user of the service I haven't seen a two car train on it for years.

 

[455driver]

EMT could run the service fine but they were overcrowded so had to start running as 4 coach trains, DaFTallocated a few extra units but these were not enough so the existing fleet had to make up tthe shortfall, this is okay as long as the fleet holds together but the fact they are getting old and are being worked harder means they will occasionally Breakdown, because the fleet is working harder there isn't any spare capacity so this results in short formed Trains. Please explain how that is the TOCs fault?

 

[Baxenden Bank]

A previous post gives EMT 58 units for their local services. 7 of these are expected to be stopped for their normal, scheduled maintenance. So a maximum of 51 units can be expected to be available for service on a given day. 51 out of 58 is 87% availability - not bad for units of this age I would have thought.

The off-peak timetable can be operated with 37 units.
The peak timetable can be operated with 39 units.

Both figures being the absolute minimum necessary to cover all timetabled passenger services but ignoring any strengthening for capacity purposes.

Doubling up the Nottingham to Liverpool workings, requires a further 7 units (6 if stepped up at Nottingham), taking the total requirement to 46 out of the planned availability of 51 units. I assume the final 5 are also out in service, strengthening other services, whenever they are available.

So, if EMT are up to 5 units down, the Liverpools can all run as 4 car, if EMT are more than 5 units down, somewhere a service has to suffer.

Given that they have parallel services at the same, if not higher frequency throughout, I would suggest that it is better for Liverpool to Nottingham services to be short formed than to cancel a service elsewhere on the sprawling EMT network where there is no parallel alternative provision.

If the train fairy is to magic up some spare units, as part of her grand rolling stock cascade, just how many should EMT get and where should they place them. 1 each at Crewe, Derby, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Lincoln, Grimsby, Peterborough and Norwich? That way there will be a unit to slip into service should any service interruptions or unit failures occur. They could all be hot standbys, with a crew ready and waiting.