Avanti West Coast cancellations

[Halwynd]

What I don't understand is that said MD worked for VTWC since 1999, and became their MD in January 2015, almost five years before Avanti took over. He surely understands all this. Is it just a case of DfT saying "you are going to spin it this way"?

I don't know, but I've come across a few pretty dire MDs who've been kept afloat by good middle managers. Did any leave when Avanti took over I wonder? Perhaps the Virgin 'brand' and organisation helped 'carry him'?

 

[the sniper]

Maybe you can tell I spent my working life in a non-unionised industry (IT), where large amounts of (unpaid) overtime were willingly worked for business and career improvement.
I'd also like to know how airlines manage this type of problem.
They are not in a good place either at the moment, with cancellations and capacity caps, and threatened industrial action.

If you were unhappy with your employer you'd just keep willingly putting in large amounts of overtime for business improvement...?

 

[gazzaa2]

A recent article in "Today's Railways UK" on planned WCML timetable changes refers to a second Euston - Liverpool train being phased in during 2023. There must be zero likelihood of this happening.

They've promised that since they first took the franchise and it does need the extra capacity. It won't happen though.

I'd just be glad if they can actually run 1 an hour.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't know, but I've come across a few pretty dire MDs who've been kept afloat by good middle managers. Did any leave when Avanti took over I wonder? Perhaps the Virgin 'brand' and organisation helped 'carry him'?

Or perhaps the Virgin brand micromanaged him so he couldn't show what seem to be his true colours? Virgin's approach has generally not been antagonism as it damages the brand.

It's funny how the attitude of the underlying TOC appeared, in many ways, quite clearly the second His Beardiness left the scene.

 

[Skiddaw]

They've promised that since they first took the franchise and it does need the extra capacity. It won't happen though.

I'd just be glad if they can actually run 1 an hour.

Me too. Would make life considerably easier.

 

[Snow1964]

Whereas I would have agreed with you until recently surely many people are going to want to work as much as possible given the deepening financial crisis they are going to find themselves in by the winter.

That would be the logical first reaction, but the Government is cushioning some of the financial crisis (cut in fuel duty, energy rebates, talk of NI cuts etc)

So how much overtime people choose is basically a choice of extra work and money, or more non-working time (leisure / personal time). If love your job will take the money, if morale is low and fed up at work, going to do bare minimum.

 

[91108]

No I get that, but there may be enough staff in Sept/Oct to restore more services? Even if it is not a full restoration?

There will be less on leave, and I guess maybe a few more trained drivers who are currently trainees.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If you were unhappy with your employer you'd just keep willingly putting in large amounts of overtime for business improvement...?

Maybe through gritted teeth.
But over several decades it worked out better than clock-watching.

 

[43066]

I'm just saying be honest with passengers. Who mentioned Grant Shapps?

So how is making allegations of “unofficial industrial action” (which Shapps himself doubled down on) being honest?

As I said, unless you have some inside knowledge to contradict those who actually work for Avanti West Coast, you’re just parroting a narrative.

 

[C J Snarzell]

It's not just Avanti. TPE have consistently fallen a long way short of anything which could be described as well or adequate.

Thinking back to 2019/20 (pre-Covid), TPE and Northern were never that far away from the media with their appalling services - delays, cancellations and over crowding on the majority of peak time trains. Probably not much better than the current Avanti situation.

CJ

 

[AndrewE]

This may prove to be a turning point in this dispute, and probably all the others that are going on at the moment.

Every time you go on strike, or don't work overtime or on a rest day, you lose money that would otherwise have been in your pay packet.

When the higher energy bills start to bite on October/November each individual who is currently on strike and/or refusing to work rest days will have to consider whether they can afford to continue doing so.

The longer the industrial action goes on, the less chance there is that a potential improved pay offer will make up for the money lost due to the dispute.

Staff do lose money when they strike, and in the short term they don't get it back either. Hopefully the long-term benefits will be better pay (and commensurate pensions too.) There are lots of historical precedents for staff taking it on the chin to force an employer to negotiate in good faith and come up with a fair offer. Lots of strike funds swelled by public donations too.

I think he actually believes it is industrial action. His experience of the management of staff at the ground level and what happens when it all goes wrong appears to be very limited.

As one of my managers said of our post-privatisation owner "He's not fit to run a whelk-stall!"

Some of us who have had long industry careers have seen this kind of thing before. It usually doesn’t end well for any manager who “loses the messroom”.

Unfortunately when the "management" are just puppets with politicians pulling the strings (but denying it so that they can slime away and pretend it was nothing to do with them) then a general strike and a change of government are about the only things that will resolve it.

 

[74A]

I don't know if this link will work, but there's an interesting twitter thread by Graham Eccles on Roger Ford's twitter account.
Graham co-chaired VTWC in the early years, and later SWT.

https://twitter.com/gceccles/status/1557014629326458887

I would like to know how many drivers were trained on his watch. I believe some many years it was zero. Much cheaper to poach from other TOCs.

 

[nlogax]

I would like to know how many drivers were trained on his watch. I believe some many years it was zero. Much cheaper to poach from other TOCs.

So what's the difference in cost and duration between training completely new hires as Avanti drivers versus converting from A N Other TOC to Avanti drivers? For the latter is it just Pendo / Voyager conversion + signing WCML or N Wales routes?

 

[74A]

So what's the difference in cost and duration between training completely new hires as Avanti drivers versus converting from A N Other TOC to Avanti drivers? For the latter is it just Pendo / Voyager conversion + signing WCML or N Wales routes?

Yes. Quite a significant saving

 

[Moonshot]

So what's the difference in cost and duration between training completely new hires as Avanti drivers versus converting from A N Other TOC to Avanti drivers? For the latter is it just Pendo / Voyager conversion + signing WCML or N Wales routes?

That's pretty much it......some numbers from my depot alone have made that journey over the last few years.

 

[Efini92]

That's pretty much it......some numbers from my depot alone have made that journey over the last few years.

All 5 of them

 

[Moonshot]

All 5 of them

Bit more than that

 

[Efini92]

Bit more than that

In the last 10 years there’s been 5.
3 - picc
1 - Wolves
1 - Preston

 

[Goldfish62]

I would like to know how many drivers were trained on his watch. I believe some many years it was zero. Much cheaper to poach from other TOCs.

He was the Co-chairman, not CEO, so had little to do with day-to-day running of the company. However, SWT where he was CEO for a time brought Sundays into the normal working week.

 

[43066]

I would like to know how many drivers were trained on his watch. I believe some many years it was zero. Much cheaper to poach from other TOCs.

Also a lot quicker.

 

[Carlisle]

I would like to know how many drivers were trained on his watch. I believe some many years it was zero. Much cheaper to poach from other TOCs.

Indeed, not a patch on the likes of Chris Green who were proven all round railway managers .
It’s widely reported their driver shortage is in London, so previously would Virgin have simply poached the required number of qualified drivers from the multitude of London based TOCs ?

 

[AndrewE]

back to the topic...
apparently the first then the last 2 Brum -Edinburgh trains didn't run properly today, a couple starting N from Preston. These are the only trains from the W midlands and Crewe to Warrington and places N. How come they haven't got the nous to stop the Euston-Glasgow direct trains instead, as they did during the proper Covid timetable?

 

[Bletchleyite]

back to the topic...
apparently the first then the last 2 Brum -Edinburgh trains didn't run properly today, a couple starting N from Preston. These are the only trains from the W midlands and Crewe to Warrington and places N. How come they haven't got the nous to stop the Euston-Glasgow direct trains instead, as they did during the proper Covid timetable?

At Crewe? If I recall rightly it has to leave Euston in a different path and drop back at Crewe which can't be pathed in the normal timetable. I'd be unsurprised to see it gain a Crewe stop in the 4tph timetable.

 

[Mag_seven]

Just a reminder that discussion on this thread should be confined to the actual day to issues that Avanti are facing. If anyone wants to speculate as to how things could be made better then please use this thread:

Avanti and their current problems. What could be done to improve things?

At this point, they may as well introduce a further reduced emergency timetable since they simply cant run a half decent service. Given the Commonwealth games Birmingham probably needs 2tph, so I would have: 1tph Euston to Manchester (MK, Rugby, Coventry, Bham Intl, Bham New St, Sandwell &...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[childwallblues]

From a snapshot of yesterday's departures from London terminals, Avanti had 19 full or partial cancellations (that's on a reduced timetable), whereas GWR had just one, LNER and EMR none. The obvious question is why is Avanti so bad when the others can manage to perform well or adequately.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Aug 2022 ==

Does anybody know what percentage of crews are currently required at each depot, they actually have?

 

[185]

What, exactly, is stopping Avanti train crew working rest days as they have for many years with Virgin?
Is it related to the wider issues of pay and DfT-imposed contract terms, or is it a localised dispute?

I would say it's more to do with the new horrid owner, FirstGroup who already made things bad with the way they spoke to the drivers union.

- Then the nuclear button was pressed when both the MD & Transport Secretary made false, unproven claims of an unofficial strike...

to which drivers, especially the ones who often help out doing overtime... saying (and I quote, from many, many drivers)

"why the **** should we help them out? stupid ****** insulting us and lying"

- Cue cancelled trains, passengers stranded due to some unintelligent bigmouths in FirstGroup, Avanti and the DfT.

So in answer to your question, if you were a driver, would you help out a company that blames you to cover up it's own management failures?

 

[nuneatonmark]

I would say it's more to do with the new horrid owner, FirstGroup who already made things bad with the way they spoke to the drivers union.

- Then the nuclear button was pressed when both the MD & Transport Secretary made false, unproven claims of an unofficial strike...

to which drivers, especially the ones who often help out doing overtime... saying (and I quote, from many, many drivers)

"why the **** should we help them out? stupid ****** insulting us and lying"

- Cue cancelled trains, passengers stranded due to some unintelligent bigmouths in FirstGroup, Avanti and the DfT.

So in answer to your question, if you were a driver, would you help out a company that blames you to cover up it's own management failures?

Probably not. Would drivers be happy if any TOC did hire enough drivers so there was no need to do any overtime/work rest days or would they want compensation over the subsequent loss of additional earnings? Have any TOCs actually done that so overtime/rest day working wasn't needed? If they haven't is there anything else stopping them?

 

[Clarence Yard]

It’s got nothing to do with the OG, however horrid or not they may be. It’s localised and it is to do with how the TOC itself is managing it’s staffing shortfall and the amount of rest day working that management are expecting the staff to do, especially in the holiday season.

The MD is seeing conspiracies everywhere and he seems unable to distinguish between industrial action, individuals wanting some time off and normal messroom style conversations between staff. He might think he is being clever in giving the politicians the message they want to hear but he really isn’t. At some point he has to have a decent relationship with his staff.

The position at a near equally stricken TPE could not be more stark. The MD there doesn’t seek to antagonise his staff.

 

[43066]

So in answer to your question, if you were a driver, would you help out a company that blames you to cover up it's own management failures?

I am a driver who worked a fairly substantial amount of overtime over the last year. My answer would be a categorical “No, you can shove it” and it would be the same for many of my colleagues.

It’s better for mental and physical health to enjoy time off, especially when the job can be so mentally and physically exhausting. If the service collapses, that’s entirely down to the TOC not employing enough staff.

Would drivers be happy if any TOC did hire enough drivers so there was no need to do any overtime/work rest days or would they want compensation over the subsequent loss of additional earnings?

There would be no entitlement to compensation for loss of additional earnings. Everyone accepts that overtime isn’t guaranteed and nobody should be reliant on it. The ASLEF charter supports no (or at least minimal) overtime.

Not all drivers do overtime, in any case. Only a minority do significant amounts.

Have any TOCs actually done that so overtime/rest day working wasn't needed?

No.

If they haven't is there anything else stopping them?

Money.

 

[CAF397]

The position at a near equally stricken TPE could not be more stark. The MD there doesn’t seek to antagonise his staff.

Wait until the ASLEF ballot returns on the 25th August and potentially strike action is called, and I bet you'll see the same hard-line taken, presumably at the behest of the DfT.