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In-between strike days and intermediate days - why no service?

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12LDA28C

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Please confirm at what point the trains pass through High Wycombe along the journey

Quite clearly, you won't be passing through High Wycombe. Your option would be to rebook via a different route or take your chances that your ticket is accepted on XC and GWR. Or travel direct to Euston.

There are often reciprocal agreements in place between Avanti / LNWR / GWR and Chiltern in times of disruption. Maybe the 18th would be classed as one of those days.
 
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TT-ONR-NRN

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Please confirm at what point the trains pass through High Wycombe along the journey
They don't (and if you already know that, I'll just add sarcasm will likely reduce people's eagerness to help you ;)) but in these times of complete abdication from a route, there's almost certainly going to be a removal of such route restrictions.
 

Adam Williams

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In these times of complete abdication from a route, there's almost certainly going to be a removal of such route restrictions.

Right, and why has this not published in writing anywhere or actually been formally organised by the TOC that's unable to run any services? This is the crux of the point I'm trying to make (no, I'm not travelling myself).

Frankly it's not good enough to tell customers "You might be able to travel via this route, if the train manager is pragmatic and understands the situation you're in, you should ask the guard before boarding" nor "Try your luck contacting the TOC via Twitter, we don't know the answer" nor "Oh, by the way, if it's your unlucky day you might actually be charged a change of route excess, sorry" if you're a retailer. There's generally an expectation from customers that the industry has put contingency plans in place and that, as a retailer, you understand the current state of affairs and can give them a concrete answer as to their ticket validity. Currently there's nothing concrete, so everyone just gets a refund even if they still want to try and travel.

You and I know that the forums are a good place to ask for advice on what to do here for customers "in the know" - and the advice given is good. But most customers aren't in the know, and will be wary of travelling off-route without actual confirmation that they can from an actual authority.

There are often reciprocal agreements in place between Avanti / LNWR / GWR and Chiltern in times of disruption. Maybe the 18th would be classed as one of those days.

Yes - I think there is a clear case for such an agreement to be put in place. That does not appear to have happened yet from the conversation I had earlier with Chiltern's customer services staff.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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Right, and why has this not published in writing anywhere or actually been formally organised by the TOC that's unable to run any services? This is the crux of the point I'm trying to make (no, I'm not travelling myself).

Frankly it's not good enough to tell customers "You might be able to travel via this route, if the train manager is pragmatic and understands the situation you're in, you should ask the guard before boarding" nor "Try your luck contacting the TOC via Twitter, we don't know the answer" nor "Oh, by the way, if it's your unlucky day you might actually be charged a change of route excess sorry" if you're a retailer. There's generally an expectation from customers that the industry has put contingency plans in place and that, as a retailer, you understand the current state of affairs and can give them a concrete answer as to their ticket validity.

You and I know that the forums are a good place to ask for advice on what to do here for customers "in the know" - and the advice given is good. But most customers aren't in the know, and will be wary of travelling off-route without actual confirmation that they can from an actual authority.
I completely agree with you. :)
People have criticised me for branding the operation "lazy," but the fact there's absolutely no communication with customers at all beyond "you can use two tube lines" is beyond unacceptable and supports my point entirely.
 

Starmill

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Right, and why has this not published in writing anywhere or actually been formally organised by the TOC that's unable to run any services? This is the crux of the point I'm trying to make (no, I'm not travelling myself).

Frankly it's not good enough to tell customers "You might be able to travel via this route, if the train manager is pragmatic and understands the situation you're in, you should ask the guard before boarding" nor "Try your luck contacting the TOC via Twitter, we don't know the answer" nor "Oh, by the way, if it's your unlucky day you might actually be charged a change of route excess, sorry" if you're a retailer. There's generally an expectation from customers that the industry has put contingency plans in place and that, as a retailer, you understand the current state of affairs and can give them a concrete answer as to their ticket validity. Currently there's nothing concrete, so everyone just gets a refund even if they still want to try and travel.

You and I know that the forums are a good place to ask for advice on what to do here for customers "in the know" - and the advice given is good. But most customers aren't in the know, and will be wary of travelling off-route without actual confirmation that they can from an actual authority.



Yes - I think there is a clear case for such an agreement to be put in place. That does not appear to have happened yet from the conversation I had earlier with Chiltern's customer services staff.
I think that the sad reality is that Chiltern do not see doing anything to help with your problem here as a priority.

Other people have sensibly pointed out examples of when they've delivered good customer care and I don't disagree with them. But that's cold comfort to pretty much their entire customer base on 18 December.
 

43066

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Even for the rich earning £75k+ per annum household income pre-tax, the level of car ownership is just about half.

If you think earning £75k+ makes someone “rich” in London then you’re delusional.
 

Starmill

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They don't (and if you already know that, I'll just add sarcasm will likely reduce people's eagerness to help you ;)) but in these times of complete abdication from a route, there's almost certainly going to be a removal of such route restrictions.
In general such restrictions remain in place. I don't think that the railway industry wants them to be relaxed. It could be because they think that people who have already booked tickets for, say, Leeds to Manchester will turn up at the station and demand to be accommodated on services via London, which they don't want to allow. It could also be because they want to charge higher prices for the services which do run during the industrial action than those prices which have previously been paid for tickets before the action was notified. But who knows, they won't go on the record about the matter. They won't even go on the record with honest explanations of why the industrial action is causing so much disruption on 18 December.
 

philosopher

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Yes - I think there is a clear case for such an agreement to be put in place. That does not appear to have happened yet from the conversation I had earlier with Chiltern's customer services staff.
If there is no ticket acceptance in place and the passenger can’t refund the ticket, then surely the train operator would be breaking the law as the passenger would have purchased something that has no value (in this case providing transport from A to B). For this reason I assume either ticket acceptance would be put in place or passengers would be able to get a refund, regardless of the ticket type.
 

Starmill

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Based on what you believe is true, not what is actually true.
They haven't given a reason for running no service on some days but not others during the industrial action. If they have please point me to it?

Without having officially given a reason there's no way they can have been honest about the matter is there? Unless of course it's for no reason at all. Is that your claim?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

However, why should an affected TOC have to go into intricate detail about exactly why they are unable to run specific level of service when 'Industrial action by the RMT' (or whichever union) is indeed the basic reason for it?
Because that's how public services work? Publicly funded organisations are generally expected to be transparent about the services they're providing to the point that when they're inadequate they can at minimum accept that and explain why!

You can hardly accept such vast amounts of public money and then expect to be able to behave like an unlisted private company which is all owned by one person.
 

Killingworth

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The top and bottom of all this is that the strikes were deliberately called as they were in the full knowledge that it would be impossible to plan and implement a satisfactory service for one day in the middle.

Further, they were planned knowing full well that attempts to try and provide a useful service for the majority of travellers would be costly and very time consuming. Not only that those trains that will run will result in minimal ticket sale revenue because few will have confidence to try and use them.

In this war passengers are the innocent victims. Thursday is just another skirmish in a dispute that urgently needs resolution.
 

Starmill

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If there is no ticket acceptance in place and the passenger can’t refund the ticket, then surely the train operator would be breaking the law as the passenger would have purchased something that has no value (in this case providing transport from A to B). For this reason I assume either ticket acceptance would be put in place or passengers would be able to get a refund, regardless of the ticket type.
They would indeed be breaking the customer's contract yes. That does appear to be their publicly stated position on the matter.
 

johncrossley

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HW to Brighton was just an example. Point is if we're telling people who currently rely on the railway to buy cars because the railway is making itself useless that is not good for the future of the railway.
Maybe we need to look for alternatives to railways for those without a car? As a lifelong public transport advocate that is sad to say. Self driving taxis I guess will be the end of most public transport but that will probably be too late for most people reading this. @Bletchleyite already pointed out that public transport is largely irrelevant for most trips outside the TfL area.
 

ComUtoR

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Is that your claim?


I make no claims at all. I am not the one calling them out for their dishonesty. If you have proof they are lying then please post it.

What I am hearing is that these TOCs don't have adequate planning teams, don't have staff in position, rostering problems, unit diagram problems, can't change the timetable late notice, they are being told by senior management not to make changes, etc. etc.

What I am not hearing is what those in the planning teams have to say. Even when they do send out newsbites, they are called out for being dishonest.

I know people in planning, and I will be speaking to a member of our planning team tomorrow. Every strike day she is stressed and overworked trying to do everything she can to get the best service for our passengers. It really is disingenuous to state that these teams aren't doing their best or are putting out dishonest information.

I have my own issues with planning and I will call them out on a lot of things but I can state, at least for my TOC, that those teams are working flat out. Hopefully this applies across all TOC teams. I don't often get to stand up for our back office colleagues but it isn't helpful to passengers and serves no purpose other than to disparage the railway because the perception doesn't match the reality.
 

johncrossley

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People on here seem to think that strikes happen all the time. Whilst clearly there is ongoing industrial action currently, this has certainly not been the case for the last few decades indeed there hasn't been a national train drivers' strike for example since 1982. People have short memories and I'm sure once these disputes are resolved one way or the other, things will return to normal with most if not all operators providing a good service.
But there have been many strikes called off after people have made alternative arrangements.
 

Starmill

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I make no claims at all. I am not the one calling them out for their dishonesty. If you have proof they are lying then please post it.
I didn't say they were lying. I said that they were plainly making an error of omission.

If you've got nothing useful to add then why bother quoting in the first place, other than to try and make yourself sound good?
 

12LDA28C

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They haven't given a reason for running no service on some days but not others during the industrial action. If they have please point me to it?

Without having officially given a reason there's no way they can have been honest about the matter is there? Unless of course it's for no reason at all. Is that your claim?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==


Because that's how public services work? Publicly funded organisations are generally expected to be transparent about the services they're providing to the point that when they're inadequate they can at minimum accept that and explain why!

You can hardly accept such vast amounts of public money and then expect to be able to behave like an unlisted private company which is all owned by one person.

The reduction in service (and in the case of December 18th, no service at all) is being caused by industrial action by the RMT. Do you expect a TOC to publish the name and address of people who are on strike or refusing to work overtime so that the public can go round and throw rotten tomatoes at them?
 

ar10642

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Maybe we need to look for alternatives to railways for those without a car? As a lifelong public transport advocate that is sad to say. Self driving taxis I guess will be the end of most public transport but that will probably be too late for most people reading this. @Bletchleyite already pointed out that public transport is largely irrelevant for most trips outside the TfL area.

I personally doubt if fully self driving taxis will ever exist but if they did that would be replacing PT for a good reason. Endless ineffective industrial action with a government that couldn't care less if the trains run or not doesn't feel like a good reason.
 

johncrossley

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I personally doubt if fully self driving taxis will ever exist but if they did that would be replacing PT for a good reason. Endless ineffective industrial action with a government that couldn't care less if the trains run or not doesn't feel like a good reason.

Other countries seem to suffer from industrial action as well. Switzerland seems immune but they seem to be an exception. Countries that have very low rail usage presumably get by somehow and don't have to worry about rail disruption.
 

redengine

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Other countries seem to suffer from industrial action as well. Switzerland seems immune but they seem to be an exception. Countries that have very low rail usage presumably get by somehow and don't have to worry about rail disruption.
I'm surprised that more jurisdictions don't go for New York state's approach of genuinely binding arbitration as an alternative to strikes.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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The reduction in service (and in the case of December 18th, no service at all) is being caused by industrial action by the RMT. Do you expect a TOC to publish the name and address of people who are on strike or refusing to work overtime so that the public can go round and throw rotten tomatoes at them?
As has been stated before, the industrial action is on a handful of days in the next month. The TOC is pulling services for an entire month, and therefore it is fair to require a reasonably comprehensive explanation as to why there is no train service on the many days in that month where staff aren't striking.
 

TUC

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According to TfL, only 39% of households in inner London have access to a car, and 64% in outer London does so. Therefore I won't use the word "most" to describe the proportion of rail users owning a car. Even for the rich earning £75k+ per annum household income pre-tax, the level of car ownership is just about half.
But London is so unrepresentative of the UK. The first rule of any research of what people in the UK or how they live has to be 'ignore London'.
 

12LDA28C

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As has been stated before, the industrial action is on a handful of days in the next month. The TOC is pulling services for an entire month, and therefore it is fair to require a reasonably comprehensive explanation as to why there is no train service on the many days in that month where staff aren't striking.

I'm really not sure exactly what is so difficult to understand. RMT have implemented an overtime and RDW ban on 14 TOCs from 18th December until 2nd January, in addition to the 'strike days' which you mention.

Just imagine that those various TOCs are short staffed for any number of reasons and rely on people working their Rest Days and overtime to get the job done. Now see if you can imagine what the result would be if those people were then NOT working overtime or Rest Days.
 

Goldfish62

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But London is so unrepresentative of the UK. The first rule of any research of what people in the UK or how they live has to be 'ignore London'.
Except for the small detail that London has a higher population than that of Scotland and Wales combined.
 

TUC

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Can someone please explain how computerised train planning is now? I would have assumed it is highly so, but some of the comments above make it sound like it is still a labour intensive manual process.
 

HamworthyGoods

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As has been stated before, the industrial action is on a handful of days in the next month. The TOC is pulling services for an entire month, and therefore it is fair to require a reasonably comprehensive explanation as to why there is no train service on the many days in that month where staff aren't striking.

No the industrial action runs from 13th December 2022 to 8th January 2023.

The action is taken in two forms - strike action on a number of days and action short of a strike (work to rule with no rest day working) on the other days, as I’m sure you are aware the railway currently relies heavily on rest day working.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Can someone please explain how computerised train planning is now? I would have assumed it is highly so, but some of the comments above make it sound like it is still a labour intensive manual process.

It is still a very manual process but aided by computer. Systems are constantly improving and will now point you towards conflicts in a plan but there is no system that does it all by pressing a button, it’s been tried but doesn’t work!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Just imagine that those various TOCs are short staffed for any number of reasons and rely on people working their Rest Days and overtime to get the job done. Now see if you can imagine what the result would be if those people were then NOT working overtime or Rest Days.

And where the train planners are RMT the overtime ban also applies to them and train planning is currently very reliant on rest day working to get the job complete.
 

Goldfish62

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Which is why it's unrepresentative. Studying anything in the UK starts with 'within London' and 'everywhere Else'.
I don't follow. How can it be unrepresentative if it has a higher population than two of the UK's nations combined? Just how much of the UK has to discounted before we are left with the supposed "representative" bit?
 

zwk500

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I don't follow. How can it be unrepresentative if it has a higher population than two of the UK's nations combined? Just how much of the UK has to discounted before we are left with the supposed "representative" bit?
Because population density means that things are economical in London that simply aren't elsewhere, other than in places like central Manchester or Birmingham.
 
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