Why are Northern cancelling the last train from Leeds to Sheffield via Castleford?

[yorksrob]

Last week, when I turned up at Leeds City station to find the last Hallam train cancelled, I thought maybe it might be an operational issue. I gave the industry the benefit of the doubt. Now I turn up and going that yet again the last Hallam is cancelled.

If be interested to know why this is, given there have been no warnings of closures of the line.

I want to know what Northerns excuse is over both weekends please.

 

[_toommm_]

I suspect lack of train crew. Most days this week, there's been cancellations of services from Leeds to Doncaster and Sheffield due cancelled with the TG code (train driver).

 

[yorksrob]

I suspect lack of train crew. Most days this week, there's been cancellations of services from Leeds to Doncaster and Sheffield due cancelled with the TG code (train driver).

True. It's bad form to cancel the last train on the line though.

 

[_toommm_]

True. It's bad form to cancel the last train on the line though.

Indeed. The last Doncaster to Leeds was removed from the timetable Monday and cancelled Thursday and Friday. Sheffield has been pretty hard hit too.

 

[yorksrob]

It wouldn't be so bad if the route didn't already have a worse service on Saturday to begin with. On weekdays there's an additional last train at the oh so late hour of 23:00.

 

[dk1]

Is there not an industrial dispute with Northern at the moment?

 

[Snow1964]

I suppose a variation of the question would be why is the last train being cancelled instead of one before, and that crew used instead.

Generally it is taken as very bad form to cancel very last train of day as potentially leave people stranded overnight (and at some intermediate stations with absolutely no facilities)

 

[dk1]

I suppose a variation of the question would be why is the last train being cancelled instead of one before, and that crew used instead.

You would have to get that crew to agree to that which is highly unlikely on a Saturday night.

 

[Surreytraveller]

True. It's bad form to cancel the last train on the line though.

If that's the driver that's missing, then that train isn't going to run. Unless you pull another driver off another duty, but chances are they'll be covering the last train on a different route

 

[Peterthegreat]

Unfortunately cancellations of last services in South Yorkshire is a regular thing. For example on :-
Wednesday night/(early Thursday morning) the following last services in to Sheffield were cancelled:-
From
Nottingham (last two!)
Retford
Hull
Doncaster
Leeds (via Rotherham)

Thurs/Fri
From
Lincoln
Hull

Fri/Sat
Retford
Worksop

In some cases substitute bus services are provided but this is hit and miss.

 

[tbtc]

We had the likes of Serco/ Arriva who had to commit to delivering a certain level of service for seven (or so) years, with timetables only changed every six months - failure to deliver that level of service would see fines (which would hurt the shareholders) and there was the threat of the franchise being taken away from them

Now we have a nationalised Northern who are accountable to nobody, able to change the timetable every week (there was a recent Private Eye column about this), nothing to worry about because there are no franchise commitments to breach

As @Peterthegreat rightly says, things have been a lot worse on local trains in South Yorkshire recently (e.g. the half hourly Sheffield - Doncaster stoppers dropping down to every ninety minutes at times), but it only seems to make the news when it affects people in West Yorkshire (or Edale!)

With Covid rates going back up again, I'm not sure I see much light at the end of the tunnel here - we'll probably start to see staff absences increase again - and even if rates are going down, there seems a culture high up at Northern that you can get away with this kind of thing (because they have been getting away with this kind of thing) - what's going to force them to up their game and meet the kind of commitments that Serco/ Arriva used to have to deliver (or face consequences)?

 

[Surreytraveller]

Its not only Northern. Cancelling last trains is now a regular occurrence on GTR, and no doubt other operators

 

[yorksrob]

You would have to get that crew to agree to that which is highly unlikely on a Saturday night.

Then that's just leaving the poor guard on the Sheffield via Moorthorpe service with an even more crowded Saturday night train !

To be fair to Northern, they did arrange a replacement bus last week (and I assume this week) so they weren't leaving people stranded. However, spending an hour on a coach with the toilet padlocked out of use isn't my idea of the perfect end to a Saturday

 

[Moonshot]

This is happening a lot all over the Northern network. It's down to lack of staff, and is a by-product of the industrial relations issues. It will only get worse I'm afraid.

 

[muz379]

I suppose a variation of the question would be why is the last train being cancelled instead of one before, and that crew used instead.

Generally it is taken as very bad form to cancel very last train of day as potentially leave people stranded overnight (and at some intermediate stations with absolutely no facilities)

If the crew on the second to last train are diagrammed to work that then they can't just have that changed at last minute or on the day . Depending on how the work is divided they might also work a return trip to their home depot .

If the last train doesn't run then a bus replacement should he run . That might not help people stuck at intermediate stations with no Passenger information provision I know but it's better than not running anything.

One area that could be better is in instances when the lack of crew is known of in advance there could be better Comms with customers. Thus might help some male the infirmed decision to get the second to last train . Granted this won't always be fool proof last minute issues can occur with crew .

 

[Ken H]

With Covid rates going back up again, I'm not sure I see much light at the end of the tunnel here - we'll probably start to see staff absences increase again - and even if rates are going down, there seems a culture high up at Northern that you can get away with this kind of thing (because they have been getting away with this kind of thing) - what's going to force them to up their game and meet the kind of commitments that Serco/ Arriva used to have to deliver (or face consequences)?

With an end to free testing and removal of the need to self isolate i would hope sickness rates would drop.

 

[class 9]

The DfT are preventing Northern(as well some other TOCs)from entering into a Rest Day working agreement, as a cost saving measure.

 

[ComUtoR]

I suppose a variation of the question would be why is the last train being cancelled instead of one before, and that crew used instead.

But what happens if people need that one before or have vital connections to meet with any onward travel.

 

[Moonshot]

The DfT are preventing Northern(as well some other TOCs)from entering into a Rest Day working agreement, as a cost saving measure.

Have you got a source for that?

 

[class 9]

Have you got a source for that?

Not in the public domain, the DfT publicly deny any day to day involvement in the running of TOCs, but hold the purse strings and are demanding cost savings across the board.
My TOC, management want a RD working agreement and the union aren't opposed, so draw your own conclusions.

 

[northernchris]

We had the likes of Serco/ Arriva who had to commit to delivering a certain level of service for seven (or so) years, with timetables only changed every six months - failure to deliver that level of service would see fines (which would hurt the shareholders) and there was the threat of the franchise being taken away from them

Now we have a nationalised Northern who are accountable to nobody, able to change the timetable every week (there was a recent Private Eye column about this), nothing to worry about because there are no franchise commitments to breach

I suspect this is the key problem, Northern have freewill to do as they please and it goes unchallenged. The same service levels should be applicable whoever runs the trains, it's somewhat ironic that Arriva were removed due to under performing yet their replacement is worse!

The DfT are preventing Northern(as well some other TOCs)from entering into a Rest Day working agreement, as a cost saving measure.

If this is true, is there actually much to be saved by refusing rest day working? Once the cost of replacement buses and delay repay are factored in it could be cheaper just to pay the overtime and run the train

 

[class 9]

I very much doubt that a rail replacement bus will be more expensive than running a train.

 

[Moonshot]

Not in the public domain, the DfT publicly deny any day to day involvement in the running of TOCs, but hold the purse strings and are demanding cost savings across the board.
My TOC, management want a RD working agreement and the union aren't opposed, so draw your own conclusions.

Your TOC being?

 

[class 9]

XC

 

[northernchris]

I very much doubt that a rail replacement bus will be more expensive than running a train.

But if the train exists in the timetable a lot of the expenditure has been budgeted for. Using the service in the opening title, the only additional money needing to be spent would be the drivers overtime payment (as their base salary would be paid anyway regardless) which must be less than the replacement bus and potential delay repay claims

 

[LowLevel]

Not in the public domain, the DfT publicly deny any day to day involvement in the running of TOCs, but hold the purse strings and are demanding cost savings across the board.
My TOC, management want a RD working agreement and the union aren't opposed, so draw your own conclusions.

Does it perhaps depend on the terms? The DfT have recently signed off a new deal for guards at our place which includes a rest day work agreement as part of the Conductors Restructing Initiative/contract. It's fairly modest - in acknowledgement of the fact you lose a day off by coming to work, then regardless of hours worked there's a minimum payment of 9 hours 15 minutes at the usual flat rate.

If substantial premiums are being requested as part of any agreement then they seem unlikely to be permitted at this point.

Unless we have a rest day working ban voted for by ballot as far as I'm aware the union have never really got involved with telling us that we aren't allowed to work our rest days without their agreement, I've always thought it reasonable enough for people to choose if they want to give up their time off for what is on offer or not.

 

[tbtc]

I suspect this is the key problem, Northern have freewill to do as they please and it goes unchallenged. The same service levels should be applicable whoever runs the trains, it's somewhat ironic that Arriva were removed due to under performing yet their replacement is worse!

Agreed - we've had over two years of Government controlled Northern and a lot of the biggest critics of Serco/ Arriva have turned a blind eye to the problems we've had since them (and I think that the subsequent problems should mean that folk reappraise their damning verdict on the Serco/ Arriva years now that we've seen how it's not that simple to run the franchise... but, at the same time, I know that politics means that people won't reappraise things!)

Any "bus company" that ran things as badly as we've seen over the past couple of years would have had many demands that they had the franchise stripped from them (petitions, angry MPs), but this is the publicly operated railway that people wanted so they aren't asking too many awkward questions...

...frustrating for the poor passengers who now have no certainty whether the operator will be able to manage to deliver all of the services on the thinned out timetable or whether they'll change the timetable again at short notice to deal with their failure to deliver...

...we got rid of the "bus companies" but we now have a publicly operated Northern that are running things more like a "bus company" than anyone was before (regular timetable changes, reliability out of the window etc)...

...be careful what you wish for...

 

[ComUtoR]

If this is true, is there actually much to be saved by refusing rest day working? Once the cost of replacement buses and delay repay are factored in it could be cheaper just to pay the overtime and run the train

The TOCs should not be running a service using rest days. Not just from a financial perspective either. You also need to factor in the good will of staff to volunteer for the overtime.

If the DfT are allowing rest day agreements then they could be seen as supporting a broken system. By telling the TOC they cannot have one it will potentially force the TOC to resolve the service issues by other means. Increase staffing levels, better rostering, etc.

 

[Watershed]

The TOCs should not be running a service using rest days. Not just from a financial perspective either. You also need to factor in the good will of staff to volunteer for the overtime.

If the DfT are allowing rest day agreements then they could be seen as supporting a broken system. By telling the TOC they cannot have one it will potentially force the TOC to resolve the service issues by other means. Increase staffing levels, better rostering, etc.

The problem is that it's the same DfT which also won't sign off on increasing establishment levels in most places - and on the few occasions where they have, it's been far too little, too late, meaning that many TOCs have training backlogs till kingdom come.

The DfT is quite content to allow the railway to limp along with reduced timetables for months and now years on end, from which trains are summarily removed at 10pm the night before, and even then there are many cancellations on the day. The railway is effectively suffering death by a thousand cuts.

 

[muz379]

The TOCs should not be running a service using rest days. Not just from a financial perspective either. You also need to factor in the good will of staff to volunteer for the overtime.

If the DfT are allowing rest day agreements then they could be seen as supporting a broken system. By telling the TOC they cannot have one it will potentially force the TOC to resolve the service issues by other means. Increase staffing levels, better rostering, etc.

Whilst I agree provision of the timetable shouldn't be reliant on RDW as there should be adequate spare coverage for sickness , drivers off through incidents and other release from train working. I do however think RDW agreements have their place for training for instance.

There's also always going to be those awkward jobs to cover which are either really early or late and have a rare route or piece of traction on. Better to bring someone in RD than cancel it.