Will the Night Tube survive the current crisis?

[8089]

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/casualties-of-covid-the-emergency-cuts-of-the-20s.206321/

Night Tube saved me when my plane to Gatwick (which was scheduled late as it was) was delayed and arrived in Central London (Victoria) in the early hours. Needed to get to my hotel in Ealing and with Night Tube on the Victoria and Central lines, I was still able to get to my destination as easily as during the day. Thank you Night Tube.

 

[43066]

Night Tube can be added to that list. In all fairness I don’t think many will be sorry to see that go, wonder whose “bright” idea it was in the first place?!

Is the withdrawal of night tube likely to be permanent?

I don’t think I’ve once used it. I’ve spent quite enough time on “vomit comet“ late night trains over the last few years when I’m at work!

 

[bramling]

Is the withdrawal of night tube likely to be permanent?

I don’t think I’ve once used it. I’ve spent quite enough time on “vomit comet“ late night trains over the last few years when I’m at work!

No one quite knows the answer, but it’s very strongly rumoured. It is highly likely the Night Tube drivers will be redeployed to full-time in order to cover for all the lack of recruitment / training over the last six months (most Night Tube drivers seem to aspire to this, and it’s now become the main route into full-time driving, which is in itself a contentious issue). This then raises the question as to whether it’s viable to devote training resources to people who require 100% training but are only at best 40% productive, in the current financial climate clearly that’s questionable.

But, on the other hand, Night Tube is a political construct, and with the leisure industry being politically sensitive now, who knows? Perhaps we could all get a voucher for a free Night Tube journey once a month ... I suppose it would create some cleaning jobs if nothing else.

If I was Mystic Meg I’d make a prediction of Night Tube not reappearing, and perhaps Sunday first trains changing to weekday times, and perhaps later last trains on the two nights in question.

 

[43066]

No one quite knows the answer, but it’s very strongly rumoured. It is highly likely the Night Tube drivers will be redeployed to full-time in order to cover for all the lack of recruitment / training over the last six months (most Night Tube drivers seem to aspire to this, and it’s now become the main route into full-time driving, which is in itself a contentious issue). This then raises the question as to whether it’s viable to devote training resources to people who require 100% training but are only at best 40% productive, in the current financial climate clearly that’s questionable.

But, on the other hand, Night Tube is a political construct, and with the leisure industry being politically sensitive now, who knows? Perhaps we could all get a voucher for a free Night Tube journey once a month ... I suppose it would create some cleaning jobs if nothing else.

That’s an interesting one.

Night tube has always struck me as something of an oddball job - it’s pretty well paid for the amount time spent at work, but a lot less than a full time driver would earn, and with the downside of very anti social shifts.

Out of interest, what is the objection to night tube being a “feeder” for full time driver jobs? It seems to offer a way into the driving position “off the street”, which is better than having to join as platform staff first.

As a general point, why anyone chooses to become an LU driver rather than a TOC driver beats me: Five days a week; no overtime; less money; ATO; the most intensive work possible.

 

[Journeyman]

Is the withdrawal of night tube likely to be permanent?

I don’t think I’ve once used it. I’ve spent quite enough time on “vomit comet“ late night trains over the last few years when I’m at work!

I moved away from London long before Night Tube started, but the Night Bus network is massive, with a number of long routes from central London to the suburbs, and loads of day routes became 24-hour. They were always sufficient for me, for work and pleasure.

 

[bramling]

That’s an interesting one.

Night tube has always struck me as something of an oddball job - it’s pretty well paid for the amount time spent at work, but a lot less than a full time driver would earn, and with the downside of very anti social shifts.

Out of interest, what is the objection to night tube being a “feeder” for full time driver jobs? It seems to offer a way into the driving position “off the street”, which is better than having to join as platform staff first.

As a general point, why anyone chooses to become an LU driver rather than a TOC driver beats me: Five days a week; no overtime; less money; ATO; the most intensive work possible.

The issue is that the traditional route for drivers is ex station staff (in fact going back further it was ex guards, but that’s long enough ago to be history now), so there’s a contention that people off the street are jumping a hypothetical queue. Add to that that they arrive with no railway experience or knowledge - but equally there is a school of thought that a blank sheet is preferable to someone who has been “polluted” with stations experience.

There are a small handful of ex mainline drivers on LU. Going back 20 years or so LU pay was at the time superior, now as you say it’s on par or even below in many cases. Ignoring cases where the move was simply done for geographic reasons, it has been said that LU driving is less stressful. It is true, especially on the ATP lines, that one can tear around driving on the limit of performance without too much immediate risk of having any kind of safety-related incident. Likewise under signals in the old days SPADs weren’t too much of an issue (very much not the case now!). That kind of needed to be the case as the sighting of some signals was dire!

Returning to topic, some of the original Night Tube drivers were “interesting” characters. One was asked to stop at a set of points so that they could be unsecured, and she responded with “what do you mean by points?”. Another wanted to know all the gory details of one unders. And there was another shady character who kept asking for cutaways, then one day he stopped turning up and it turned out he was on remand.

 

[Journeyman]

I used to be a DSM on LU, and station staff would join, do their 6 months probation and then go for Train Operator roles in droves. Otherwise they'd look at ticket office competency as a step towards supervisor roles. If both those routes to promotion have gone, the prospect of working your way up must be much tougher than it was in my day.

 

[bramling]

I used to be a DSM on LU, and station staff would join, do their 6 months probation and then go for Train Operator roles in droves. Otherwise they'd look at ticket office competency as a step towards supervisor roles. If both those routes to promotion have gone, the prospect of working your way up must be much tougher than it was in my day.

Yes the line of promotion for station staff is much more heavily biased towards that route. Drivers themselves find themselves caught with a glass ceiling as many find it hard to accrue examples of the competences required to progress to management roles. This can mean people are now going direct from stations to roles like train crew manager or even line controller, which can be a jump too far for many. Perhaps the lucky ones get themselves a secondment to a signal cabin or something, which can put them in good stead.

(this is an interesting discussion and could merit being separated off to a thread of its own).

 

[43066]

The issue is that the traditional route for drivers is ex station staff (in fact going back further it was ex guards, but that’s long enough ago to be history now), so there’s a contention that people off the street are jumping a hypothetical queue. Add to that that they arrive with no railway experience or knowledge - but equally there is a school of thought that a blank sheet is preferable to someone who has been “polluted” with stations experience.

I wondered if that was the reason. I must admit that’s a view I profoundly disagree with, as a “boil in the bag” driver myself . Driving is a different job to being a guard, or being platform staff, and there should be no expected “right of passage” from one role to the next. Certainly, at my old TOC, the training school‘s idea of a nightmare trainee driver was a railway enthusiast, or an existing staff member.

Let’s face it: the harsh reality is there is quite a bit of “dead wood” in the railway industry and that has fostered a certain sense of entitlement, and a culture which values seniority over ability.

There are a small handful of ex mainline drivers on LU. Going back 20 years or so LU pay was at the time superior, now as you say it’s on par or even below in many cases. Ignoring cases where the move was simply done for geographic reasons, it has been said that LU driving is less stressful. It is true, especially on the ATP lines, that one can tear around driving on the limit of performance without too much immediate risk of having any kind of safety-related incident. Likewise under signals in the old days SPADs weren’t too much of an issue (very much not the case now!). That kind of needed to be the case as the sighting of some signals was dire!

TOC to LU is an interesting move - I’d imagine the opposite direction is more common. I worked with an ex LU driver at my last place, and he said spads weren’t taken as seriously at LU as they are on NR infrastructure due to the trip cock/train stop system.

He made a bloody good train driver, and was the only trainee to pass out in minimum hours. His train handling was absolutely on point, so he spent his time with a DI just route learning.

Returning to topic, some of the original Night Tube drivers were “interesting” characters. One was asked to stop at a set of points so that they could be unsecured, and she responded with “what do you mean by points?”. Another wanted to know all the gory details of one unders. And there was another shady character who kept asking for cutaways, then one day he stopped turning up and it turned out he was on remand.

It beats me that people like this slip through the net, and there are quite a few of them. Quite frankly that reflects as much on the quality of the people doing the recruitment as it does on the candidates themselves. We certainly had some “special treats” on my rules course, only five of the eight of us who started ended up getting keys.

It’s a strange industry, and a great leveller! I’ve worked with people in the driver grade from all walks of life, ranging from those who have doctorates, to people who can barely string a sentence together. Academic prowess is also no predictor of performance in the job.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

No one quite knows the answer, but it’s very strongly rumoured. It is highly likely the Night Tube drivers will be redeployed to full-time in order to cover for all the lack of recruitment / training over the last six months (most Night Tube drivers seem to aspire to this, and it’s now become the main route into full-time driving, which is in itself a contentious issue). This then raises the question as to whether it’s viable to devote training resources to people who require 100% training but are only at best 40% productive, in the current financial climate clearly that’s questionable.

But, on the other hand, Night Tube is a political construct, and with the leisure industry being politically sensitive now, who knows? Perhaps we could all get a voucher for a free Night Tube journey once a month ... I suppose it would create some cleaning jobs if nothing else.

If I was Mystic Meg I’d make a prediction of Night Tube not reappearing, and perhaps Sunday first trains changing to weekday times, and perhaps later last trains on the two nights in question.

Very interesting - and with a precarious "night economy" (whatever happened to the "Czar" on this ? - I despise the term) , nothing much happening for airports and crack of dawn journeys for them and continuing empty dead early main line trains , - what specific unserved market is there now , when there plenty of night buses around (for now) , etc.

I would certainly suggest the view above on a few later last trains - earlier Sunday starts with the usual caveats etc.

After all , New York City shut the entire night operation down few months ago , partly to allow overnight heavy station and car cleaning , remove the homeless off the system and to eke out the crew resource pool. (roughly 0100 to 0500), - unimaginable , but it happened.

Great thread by the way.

 

[ChrisC]

I moved away from London long before Night Tube started, but the Night Bus network is massive, with a number of long routes from central London to the suburbs, and loads of day routes became 24-hour. They were always sufficient for me, for work and pleasure.

Some of those long night bus routes that run from central London to the suburbs served by the night tube saw their frequencies quite drastically cut a few years ago following the introduction of the night tube. Without the night tube passenger numbers may gradually increase again at the weekends and the frequencies may need to be increased.

A few times a year I stay in Hendon and visit friends in Hampstead and the N5 bus used to be every 10 minutes at weekends and every 15 minutes during the week. It is now only every 30 minutes. Before the night tube the buses out from London were extremely busy at weekends but it was good to be able to just turn up at a bus stop without worrying about timetables. Now it’s only every 30 minutes and I have to look at timetables to avoid a long wait out in the dark.

Night buses and night tubes are actually all quite a novelty to me as in the village where I live we only have an hourly service and have no buses after 6pm or on Sundays. We had no buses for about 8 weeks during the current crisis and even now we are only back to 2 hourly with no bus before 9am and none after 5pm. I hope our bus service will be fully restored soon.

 

[Tom B]

I can't see it returning. It loses money in normal times, let alone at the moment. TfL's finances are only going to get tighter, and realistically it's an easy thing to chop. Reinstate the nightbus services and push back the COT on Friday and Saturday nights to cover the pubs getting home, and that'd probably cover demand.

Another sneaky cut is the removal of ticket machines taking payment other than from another card. Once this is over, they'll get rid of it saying that only 7 people complained throughout the whole time, and not only can they save money by not getting Group 4 to pick up the takings, but if the ticket machines no longer have to be floated etc that reduces staff time and skills, just in time for the next round of FFTF?

Call me cynical if you will, but it'll probably happen.

 

[Tube driver]

Can’t see it returning. It was foisted onto LUL by a certain floppy haired mayor for political gain and has never paid for itself and diverted valuable resources to serve it.

it‘s implementation is still seeing repercussions today and, despite being in for years, new problems still crop up acting as a testament to the ineptness of both management and unions in getting it ‘over the line’.

Talking to some of my night tube colleagues, there’s little demand past 01.30 until about 05.00 when the workers start turning up - just moving a lot of fresh air from one end of the line to the other. It would have been far, far more beneficial had we ran the existing service one hour later on Fridays and Saturdays and opened up on a Sunday as per Mon-Sat. Yes, it would be a slight breach of the framework agreement but with the money they were throwing around getting ‘normal’ drivers to do night tube, I’m sure an accommodation could have been found and existing drivers would actually be quite positive towards it as ‘late’ drivers prefer the later start and ‘early‘ drivers hate the late start up time on a Sunday where working past 15.00 brings them out in cold sweats

Now, with TfL being in dire straits, I can’t see it coming back unless Boris via the transport secretary makes it conditional on future funding (emergency or otherwise) so once again it will be a political decision rather than a practical one.

 

[Mojo]

It would have been far, far more beneficial had we ran the existing service one hour later on Fridays and Saturdays and opened up on a Sunday as per Mon-Sat.

Part of this has already happened; ‘temporary’ schedules came into force on Monday and as part of this Night Tube sections will have a start of traffic in line with Mon-Sat times, so the first day of this will be tomorrow.

 

[bramling]

Part of this has already happened; ‘temporary’ schedules came into force on Monday and as part of this Night Tube sections will have a start of traffic in line with Mon-Sat times, so the first day of this will be tomorrow.

It’s a fair bet that this really will be a new normal.