GTR Shortage of Train Crew

[Surreytraveller]

Surely it’s the other way around. Route specific depot and traction knowledge leads to less flexibility, and means you have drivers unable to cross cover other depots’ work.

The other side of that coin, and the reason big route and traction cards aren’t favoured, is simply because of the cost of maintaining them.

The reason disruption spreads around is much more because GTR intersects with other major routes, so problems on the ECML/MML will quickly filter through to the BML, and vice versa.

If drivers are on different routes on different days, yes. But the way GTR's diagrams are created, it's like some five year old has played join the dots. Yes, you get disruption spreading from one region to another, but you also get it spreading from one service group to another because of diagramming

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Oct 2024 ==

Surely it’s the other way around. Route specific depot and traction knowledge leads to less flexibility, and means you have drivers unable to cross cover other depots’ work.

The other side of that coin, and the reason big route and traction cards aren’t favoured, is simply because of the cost of maintaining them.

The reason disruption spreads around is much more because GTR intersects with other major routes, so problems on the ECML/MML will quickly filter through to the BML, and vice versa.

If drivers are on different routes on different days, yes. But the way GTR's diagrams are created, it's like some five year old has played join the dots. Yes, you get disruption spreading from one region to another, but you also get it spreading from one service group to another because of diagramming

 

[43066]

If drivers are on different routes on different days, yes. But the way GTR's diagrams are created, it's like some five year old has played join the dots. Yes, you get disruption spreading from one region to another, but you also get it spreading from one service group to another because of diagramming

It’s certainly clear that GTRs diagramming leaves something to be desired, and that the service isn’t resilient enough. Thameslink has never achieved the reliability that was hoped for.

Until recently TPE was another example of route specific depots contributing to a lack of resilience, although things seem to have improved there now.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

TL used to be fairly good under FCC for the staff, as soon as GTR took over morale went to rock bottom.
Opening all these extra depots with depot specific routes just hasn't worked yet they won't change it.
Bringing in these LOMs to do all the admin and mfa work didn't go down to well as most of them felt like they had a point to prove, if you activated mfa you were on it no questions, didn't matter the reason so again morale has just dropped.
Has definitely gone downhill in the last few years, high intensity work means a lot of drivers don't want to work overtime as they're too tired.
With the way the roster works you will always work 7 days on if you do the Sunday so can be quite tiring especially if you are on nights and finish Wednesday morning to be back in at 5-6am Friday for another 7 earlies.
Basically you're wiped out for them 2 weeks before your long weekend.

Sounds a lot like what has happened at other TOCs such as TPE and GWR. Route knowledge gets chipped away at, multiple new small depots open and each depot has drivers only signing a small bit of track.

Why pay one driver to drive a train from A-E when you can pay four (A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E)? It’s much more productive that way. You’ve saved £2000 worth of route learning! (At the expense of just £300k worth of new drivers).

 

[Robcuk]

Sounds a lot like what has happened at other TOCs such as TPE and GWR. Route knowledge gets chipped away at, multiple new small depots open and each depot has drivers only signing a small bit of track.

Why pay one driver to drive a train from A-E when you can pay four (A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E)? It’s much more productive that way. You’ve saved £2000 worth of route learning! (At the expense of just £300k worth of new drivers).

Many drivers at SAC signed the GTR north routes but were told they could not keep them. All the Bdm and Ltn drivers would have signed the loop when the new depots were introduced so all they had to do was retain the knowledge rather than learn it

 

[DJ_K666]

...which management won't address as it would involve admitting they were wrong

Thats a Go-Ahead thing generally. Not just GTR but they should be forced to admit they're wrong.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

Many drivers at SAC signed the GTR north routes but were told they could not keep them. All the Bdm and Ltn drivers would have signed the loop when the new depots were introduced so all they had to do was retain the knowledge rather than learn it

It’s just the modern way isn’t it. I don’t work for GTR but at my depot we’ve lost a good chunk of routes over the last few years and are losing another one in December, a route I’ve been driving for more than a decade. It just means that if I’m spare on 16th December I won’t be allowed to cover work that I was booked to drive over on the 14th, and the train will be cancelled instead.

‘Productivity’.

 

[MotCO]

It’s just the modern way isn’t it. I don’t work for GTR but at my depot we’ve lost a good chunk of routes over the last few years and are losing another one in December, a route I’ve been driving for more than a decade. It just means that if I’m spare on 16th December I won’t be allowed to cover work that I was booked to drive over on the 14th, and the train will be cancelled instead.

‘Productivity’.

Is staff retention an issue, insofar as if there is high staff turnover, it isn't worthwhile training all drivers on all routes because the drivers will leave before the cost of training is recouped by the company? However, doing the same few routes day in, day out, probably leads to high staff turnover, so the policy may be short-sighted.

 

[gm671]

Is staff retention an issue

Very little movement out of GTR to other TOCs - can be counted on one hand. T&C's for TLGN are still some of the best in the industry. There has been very limited qualified driver recruitment at others and like GTR, have not taken on qualified drivers for many years. I was told trainees were preferential due to the funding and tax benefits of taking on trainees as "apprentices". We do however, have 10 qualified drivers starting at Cambridge imminently.

 

[whoosh]

Since the grand plan of 2018, there have been a number of changes - see what you think as to whether limited route or traction knowledge has been realised to be (a mistake?) not very favourable:


A couple of years ago, the (much reduced in numbers) drivers at King's Cross were all trained on class 700s, so can now drive all of the services to Peterborough and Cambridge - not just the class 387 operated ones, should they need to.

Last year, a small number of drivers at Hornsey were placed in a new link and trained on 700s, 717s and the route to Three Bridges. So they can cover all the GN except Cambridge to King's Lynn - but including Moorgate, and through the Core to Three Bridges.

Very shortly - imminently - Hitchin drivers are to be trained on class 700s. It's only a two day conversion course from the 717s they currently sign. This again means that all the services between London and Cambridge and Peterborough, will now be able to be driven by Hitchin drivers - not just 387 ones.


If they have been spending money on training, then it must be deemed worth it!

 

[Class2ldn]

Its like when they suddenly put a notice up one day saying we no longer signed via crystal palace, no reason given but it was taken off our route cards with immediate effect, what happened the first day after? The line via forest hill went down and they were sending us via tulse hill, great until a junction indicator popped up to take you via palace.
Unfortunately nobody had notified the signallers that we couldn't take the route and that caused chaos sending everything via selhurst instead.
That's the way they wanted it though.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Its like when they suddenly put a notice up one day saying we no longer signed via crystal palace, no reason given but it was taken off our route cards with immediate effect, what happened the first day after? The line via forest hill went down and they were sending us via tulse hill, great until a junction indicator popped up to take you via palace.
Unfortunately nobody had notified the signallers that we couldn't take the route and that caused chaos sending everything via selhurst instead.
That's the way they wanted it though.

That's typical GTR. Move the goalposts but don't tell the people that need to know.
People making decisions who don't understand the implications of those decisions, to solve one problem but cause umpteen others in the process

 

[bahnause]

Its like when they suddenly put a notice up one day saying we no longer signed via crystal palace, no reason given but it was taken off our route cards with immediate effect, what happened the first day after?

How is this even possible? In Switzerland, route and traction knowledge is regulated in the rulebook. No TOC can simply ‘remove’ route or traction knowledge.

 

[Robcuk]

How is this even possible? In Switzerland, route and traction knowledge is regulated in the rulebook. No TOC can simply ‘remove’ route or traction knowledge.

I remember when the tories were calling for modernization and flexibility from the drivers yet it was GTR that took all these routes off the drivers that had spent months learning/years driving them which would have given the DRMs so much flexibility in covering jobs.

They also requested all drivers return their ipads which had notices, wons, pons, route maps, emails on etc... as they were required elsewhere in the business - so much for modernization

 

[43066]

Very little movement out of GTR to other TOCs - can be counted on one hand. T&C's for TLGN are still some of the best in the industry. There has been very limited qualified driver recruitment at others and like GTR, have not taken on qualified drivers for many years. I was told trainees were preferential due to the funding and tax benefits of taking on trainees as "apprentices". We do however, have 10 qualified drivers starting at Cambridge imminently.

At the outer depots, for sure. We have had a few join from inner depots recently, however. The Ts and Cs are okay, I wouldn’t say they’re anything groundbreaking these days from what I’ve been told. The work is also relentless at those depots. Pay was market leading in 2016 but is fairly middling now.

How is this even possible? In Switzerland, route and traction knowledge is regulated in the rulebook. No TOC can simply ‘remove’ route or traction knowledge.

Drivers sign routes and traction and then need to retain them. If they don’t drive over the routes or drive the traction enough (usually at least every six months) they lose competency and they’ll be removed from their route and traction cards.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

How is this even possible? In Switzerland, route and traction knowledge is regulated in the rulebook. No TOC can simply ‘remove’ route or traction knowledge.

Once it is decided that your depot no longer needs to work over a route the knowledge is immediately removed from your licence and you can no longer drive it. It’s going to happen to me in December.

 

[bahnause]

Drivers sign routes and traction and then need to retain them. If they don’t drive over the routes or drive the traction enough (usually at least every six months) they lose competency and they’ll be removed from their route and traction cards.

Once it is decided that your depot no longer needs to work over a route the knowledge is immediately removed from your licence and you can no longer drive it. It’s going to happen to me in December.

Based on what rule can they remove a route knowledge, when it is less than six months? Our route and traction knowledge stays with the driver, even when changing TOC (two and five years). It belongs to the driver.

 

[43066]

Based on what rule can they remove a route knowledge, when it is less than six months? Our route and traction knowledge stays with the driver, even when changing TOC (two and five years). It belongs to the driver.

It belongs to the driver in the UK too. In fact usually the driver is the one who asks to sign it off! We are given route refresh days to go over routes we sign but don’t work over regularly - however this doesn’t always work if there are no regular services over the route in question.

Obviously if a depot loses a particular route the drivers’ competency will lapse naturally.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

Based on what rule can they remove a route knowledge, when it is less than six months? Our route and traction knowledge stays with the driver, even when changing TOC (two and five years). It belongs to the driver.

The rule that states that if your depot doesn’t have any work over a particular route then it comes off your licence immediately. So when the timetable changes and a route is lost it will be deleted on the Monday morning and you’ll never work there again.

It’s an agreement between aslef and the TOC and it’s absolutely insane. Aslef wanted it because they don’t like drivers doing overtime on routes that their depots no longer sign and the company agreed it should therefore be removed immediately. The end result is, predictably, trains being cancelled due to no train crew with drivers sat spare who drove the route last week who can no longer do it.

 

[OliverReed]

The rail industry is insane. Look how other industries work. It would make more sense to have more frontline staff and then use technology to manage them. The Rail industry is totally backwards. Like 20 years plus behind.

Walk into any fulfilment or call centre. Most are 24/7/365 these days. They’ll have a rostering staff of half a dozen or so with a dozen or so line managers managing like 800 employees. That’s what the rail industry should be. It’s a top heavy joke. But then where would the pretty girls at the Rail Awards come from? There’s so much fat that could be trimmed.

 

[43066]

The rail industry is insane. Look how other industries work. It would make more sense to have more frontline staff and then use technology to manage them. The Rail industry is totally backwards. Like 20 years plus behind.

Walk into any fulfilment or call centre. Most are 24/7/365 these days. They’ll have a rostering staff of half a dozen or so with a dozen or so line managers managing like 800 employees. That’s what the rail industry should be. It’s a top heavy joke. But then where would the pretty girls at the Rail Awards come from? There’s so much fat that could be trimmed.

The railway isn’t a call centre or a warehouse, and the roles being discussed aren’t remotely equivalent to low skilled/casual roles you’d find in such, so I’m not sure how that analogy is relevant?

Many other sectors and industries also rely heavily on overtime: the NHS for nurses and doctors, and the airline industry for pilots and cabin crew, to name two.

I’d also be keen to know how many rostering staff you think work on the railway. My TOC has over 1,000 traincrew, yet I know the (half a dozen) resource coordinators by name, and the same for the rostering team. Hardly “top heavy”.

 

[OliverReed]

Well I’ve done 20+ years and the volume of managers and back office functions has only increased during that time. Look at Scotrail. Maybe you’re lucky to work for an efficient one. But that’s far from the reality I’ve seen. Also not all call centres are low skilled. Some pretty complex things have helplines.

ScotRail operator gets rid of 300 station staff but hires 200 managers

Abellio axed frontline ticket office workers while increasing office jobs.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk

Also the convoluted job titles have only become more convoluted. Meanwhile there are far less frontline staff than when I started. More outsourcing and more casualisation.

I think all TOC’s should be forced to publish a ratio of manager/back office to frontline worker. Plus size of executive boards & function because they are regional administration staff at this point and nothing more. There’s no commercial expertise now. They can’t take a poo without the DfT signing off on it. This pay deal has proven that.

 

[Goldfish62]

I think all TOC’s should be forced to publish a ratio of manager/back office to frontline worker. Plus size of executive boards & function because they are regional administration staff at this point and nothing more.

All the info is in their annual reports.

 

[OliverReed]

All the info is in their annual reports.

Do you have a link for any?

 

[Goldfish62]

Do you have a link for any?

All to be found here. Find the company and look at their latest accounts. Within the report you'll find information on staff numbers, breakdown by category and wage costs etc.

Find and update company information - GOV.UK

Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

 

[OliverReed]

It isn’t. This is a falsehood.

Companies House doesn’t give such specifics. Have you never heard of the phrase ‘commercial confidentiality’?

The ORR fact sheets would be a better place to start. But what I’ve described doesn’t exist. And I suspect you knew that already.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Based on what rule can they remove a route knowledge, when it is less than six months? Our route and traction knowledge stays with the driver, even when changing TOC (two and five years). It belongs to the driver.

Trouble is, if a depot doesn't drive a route, then notices won't be displayed at that depot, so drivers won't be kept up to date in on anything they need to know, such as speed restrictions

 

[Goldfish62]

It isn’t. This is a falsehood.

Companies House doesn’t give such specifics. Have you never heard of the phrase ‘commercial confidentiality’?

The ORR fact sheets would be a better place to start. But what I’ve described doesn’t exist. And I suspect you knew that already.

No need for the strange attitude. I provided the information in good faith. There's plenty of information there if you look closely enough.

 

[OliverReed]

No there isn’t. The specific information I suggested is not there. Bar amount of executives. So let’s assume all 14 TOC’s have 12-20
Board members each. Well that’s an incredibly amount of salaries the DfT is paying for non operational staff with no real decision making ability.

As someone who jumps on companies house quite often all this ‘look closely’ stuff is utter condescending tripe.

If you can’t back up your argument. Stop replying. It just makes you look silly.

 

[Goldfish62]

No there isn’t. The specific information I suggested is not there. Bar amount of executives. So let’s assume all 14 TOC’s have 12-20
Board members each. Well that’s an incredibly amount of salaries the DfT is paying for non operational staff with no real decision making ability.

As someone who jumps on companies house quite often all this ‘look closely’ stuff is utter condescending tripe.

If you can’t back up your argument. Stop replying. It just makes you look silly.

Wow, it's actually quite funny how worked up you're getting.

Have a look at the latest annual report for First Great Western Trains Ltd, for example. In it you'll see staff numbers by category for each of the past few years. A quick calculation gives you "the ratio of manager/back office staff to frontline worker" (direct quote from your post #111). It appears to confirm your suspicions.

No need to thank me.

 

[Mag_seven]

The issue of train crew shortages is well known on this and other TOCs and has been discussed many times. There is no point in discussing the issue any further until the situation changes.