Haywain
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I'll let people who actually work in control answer that regarding laptops. Phones they probably have but they'll be set to the individual's number not the control desk number
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All cross country services suspended 23/08/26
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There will be a generic laptop (possibly), but it will need access to the server to be useful.
Hairyspotter
Member
The railway you worked in hadn't spent the best part of three years demonising traincrews in their pet media or encouraging it in social media, and trying to destroy what little conditions they have left. The damage has been done and I'm not sure it can ever be repaired. Goodwill is easily destroyed and very difficult to get back again.
Would those 'little conditions they have left' be the good pay, good pension and rostering conditions those working in the Road Transport industry can only dream of?
More than likely. Due to unions that tend to look after the interests of their members. An Act of Parliament that protected pension conditions during privatisation.
I wouldn’t say that rostering conditions are better than they were in BR days though - the extra pay provides some compensation for that.
Haywain
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That will be the same rail industry that created a shortage of drivers by recruiting from other TOCs rather than from outside. Let's not pretend that the grade hasn't benefitted hugely from privatisation.
Elecman
Established Member
Sadly the provisions of that act have proven illusory to the many members supposedly protected at companies formed out of BR at privatisation (Jarvis, Carillion and other companies as their pensions were found to be NOT protected at all.
The Planner
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Clearly I am misunderstanding what happened then, surely all the diagrams and rosters for that Sunday were already known? Why would they suddenly need to be rewritten?
I take it (from the company's decision to lock up and walk away) that their operation is so widespread and complex that they couldn't possibly try to run it without their whole Control and Management suite being operational. Hence my suggestion of trying to run a skeleton service on the trunk route where they are the only operator so that passengers aren't just abandoned. Juggling half a dozen traincrews working to pencil-drawn robust diagrams and communicating by phone shouldn't be beyond the wit of man.
Having said that, the industrial relations seem to be so poisoned that there is no chance of such a thing happening.
My former, very crappy and low tier at the time (before we turned it around!) London Borough had a set of diesel generators outside the main office which would occasionally spark up for tests or when an inevitable power cut occurred due to over excited development crews digging up roads nearby.
Took a couple of minutes for us to be operational. All city firms of repute have substantial contingency plans, some including out of London offices sitting in wait.
They could even pay a relatively small sum for a London Borough to keep a floor ready for all TOC's in case something hits the fan
Where I work is 24hr security, high speed internet, and fully resilient. There is even a whole large floor empty which could very easily be placed on readiness for something like this.
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Just a gentle reminder that this thread is no the place to rake over the coals of various industrial relations grievances justified or not. Particularly grievances that might date back privatisation itself!
Resilience is I suspect becoming more difficult as we rely more and more on the cloud. Even to the point where the old copper based phone lines are being replaced with VOIP phones over fibre.....
It was interesting to see how popular Starlink became in deepest west Wales in the wake of Storm Darragh. Because something like a Jackery or Ecoflow powerstation, a solar panel and a Starlink dish provides that basic link to the outside world when the fibre goes down and the already-poor mobile signal fails as the one cell tower has only a couple of hours battery backup when power fails.
All mainline train operators are classed as Level 2 responders under the Civil Contingencies Act. As a result, the terms of being granted a Safety Certificate require adequate emergency plans to cover forseeable situations that could impact service delivery. They also have to follow instructions issued under the Railways Act 1993 Sections 119 to 121. So all train companies SHOULD have had an adequate contingency for a power outage, phones down or building evacuation- it happens, and typically the contingency works.
However, the devil is always in the detail. Senior management types in most sectors (not just rail) are very keen to be told what they want to hear ("yeah its all good we pay a few peanuts to shiney provider X and they do it all"), whilst appraising contingency plan effectiveness properly needs assurance/compliance staff who tell the senior bods what they NEED to hear (errrrr.... we think there's some plausible scenarios you've not fully considered). Unfortunately, the latter scenarion can be career inhibiting especially for employed staff (those of us who do contract compliance work have it a bit easier, but you cannot assume that audit findings are always fully acted upon......
).One of my standard audit questions for a few years was "so what happens to your cloud systems if for some reason there's a bank glitch and the monthly payment doesn't go through?" Given how often supplier payment glitches happen with most organisations, its a fair question- and typically produced a look of horror as it had not been considered...... (it is typically not a disaster, but not considering it is a good indication of inadequate consideration of failure points in the underpinning systems architecture, it's a handy auditors starter question to flush this out).
TPO
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
So Cross Country shouldn't have a safety certificate given they clearly dont comply with the regulations. Who is the enforcement agency?All mainline train operators are classed as Level 2 responders under the Civil Contingencies Act. As a result, the terms of being granted a Safety Certificate require adequate emergency plans to cover forseeable situations that could impact service delivery. They also have to follow instructions issued under the Railways Act 1993 Sections 119 to 121. So all train companies SHOULD have had an adequate contingency for a power outage, phones down or building evacuation- it happens, and typically the contingency works.
However, the devil is always in the detail. Senior management types in most sectors (not just rail) are very keen to be told what they want to hear ("yeah its all good we pay a few peanuts to shiney provider X and they do it all"), whilst appraising contingency plan effectiveness properly needs assurance/compliance staff who tell the senior bods what they NEED to hear (errrrr.... we think there's some plausible scenarios you've not fully considered). Unfortunately, the latter scenarion can be career inhibiting especially for employed staff (those of us who do contract compliance work have it a bit easier, but you cannot assume that audit findings are always fully acted upon......
One of my standard audit questions for a few years was "so what happens to your cloud systems if for some reason there's a bank glitch and the monthly payment doesn't go through?" Given how often supplier payment glitches happen with most organisations, its a fair question- and typically produced a look of horror as it had not been considered...... (it is typically not a disaster, but not considering it is a good indication of inadequate consideration of failure points in the underpinning systems architecture, it's a handy auditors starter question to flush this out).
TPO
Though as noted with the Network Rail outage, you can have redundant systems but that doesn’t stop all failures occurring. Just because XC had an outage doesn’t mean they didn’t have contingency plans.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Presumably they did comply but extremely rare circumstances conspired against them.
Indeed. Should (does?) every Train Operator have a fully-equipped contingency Control Office in the event their normal Office goes down (and presumably Network Rail should have the same, for signalling as well as Control)? In my 38 years on the railway I cannot recall another such total failure occurring.
Snow1964
Established Member
So one week on from Sunday 23 August 2026
The big question is have XC managed to run full service following week
...... the answer taken from their website
3 early cancellations
22 cancellations
3 accessibility updates
3 station updates
13 formation updates
11 catering updates
Ignoring the station and accessibility which aren't in their control, it's not really very good is it
www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk
although does appear they are being creative, eg sit in rear 5
The big question is have XC managed to run full service following week
...... the answer taken from their website
3 early cancellations
22 cancellations
3 accessibility updates
3 station updates
13 formation updates
11 catering updates
Ignoring the station and accessibility which aren't in their control, it's not really very good is it
Service Updates | CrossCountry Trains
Book quickly and easily. Buy cheap train tickets, find live train times, explore Railcards, and more today with CrossCountry.
although does appear they are being creative, eg sit in rear 5
Nym
Established Member
The "Redundant Systems" still failed. As they were evident to not be sufficiently or properly tested and checked to be functioning.
You can have a spare car on the drive, but if it's not regularly serviced, used and tested to function, it exists in a continual state of Schrodinger's Backup.
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XC did have back up plans, which also failed. They also likely had a back up to the back up. and a back up to that.
But, at some point XC's back up plan becomes "Dont run services because we cannot do so safely. Passengers will have to use other operators"
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
Did they? they've actually been rather coy about what their arrangements were and like the Ardwick ROC debacle so were Network rail.
Wheres the safety issue? My understanding it was more to do with everything but everything for the XC operations runs through the control centre so they didnt know what train crew had even booked on so a train could head off from A get to B and there is no train crew. Thus they have no idea what they can actually run hence the above outcome which is fair enough given the circumstances.
If I was Heidi Alexander I would be tasking GBR to take a wider review of how todays railway is run and learn lessons from it to inform policy for the future.
thelongestroad
Member
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- 594
So one week on from Sunday 23 August 2026
The big question is have XC managed to run full service following week
...... the answer taken from their website
3 early cancellations
22 cancellations
3 accessibility updates
3 station updates
13 formation updates
11 catering updates
Ignoring the station and accessibility which aren't in their control, it's not really very good is it
Service Updates | CrossCountry Trains
Book quickly and easily. Buy cheap train tickets, find live train times, explore Railcards, and more today with CrossCountry.
although does appear they are being creative, eg sit in rear 5
A large proportion of those will be due to there being no railway through Bristol for the whole morning and chunk of the afternoon.
Phones maybe. But most controllers will be using a centralised "desk" for that particular which is staffed 24/7 (or another pattern) on a shift-basis. As said above it doesn't matter though if the laptop can't access the core server.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
So one week on from Sunday 23 August 2026
The big question is have XC managed to run full service following week
...... the answer taken from their website
3 early cancellations
22 cancellations
3 accessibility updates
3 station updates
13 formation updates
11 catering updates
Ignoring the station and accessibility which aren't in their control, it's not really very good is it
Service Updates | CrossCountry Trains
Book quickly and easily. Buy cheap train tickets, find live train times, explore Railcards, and more today with CrossCountry.
although does appear they are being creative, eg sit in rear 5
Let's not pretend that, outside of this extraordinary incident, XC is actually a good operator regardless of course! There's a reason they rank dead last on many metrics.
You can defend or at least provide a challenge to the circumstances that led to the suspension of their service on 23rd and detatch that from the regular day-to-day operaration whilst still being of the viewpoint that they are a poor operator. Nuance is allowed.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
We still seem to be waiting for a clear and authoritative answer to this question.
Can we assume that when GBR finally fledges it will need a single, global, certificate for its entire operation? Issued by whom?
(I realise that Scotland, TfW, Merseyrail, Transport for London and so on will still need their own certificates, along with open access, charters, etc..)
ORR presumably. I believe that's still going to be separate to GBR as the regulator effectively.
As much as you don't want to hear it, they are not accountable to you, or I.
Those that need to know, will have been appraised of what took place and the mitigation nessesary, if any, to prevent further reoccurance.
Sadly, that it is.
I don't believe everything is first run through the public domain so we all know whats being said and by whom. We don't know whats been done or said as a result of these unfortunate incidents.
Always many more questions than answers lately when it comes to inner-workings of the railway!
Do they really not have a railwayperson or two on board who (without their computer or "accessing the core server") could draft a skeleton hourly timetable by hand, then diagram staff for it and another couple of people who could phone or fax or email pdfs out?
This reminds me of young people I meet who tell me they are computer-literate - then it turns out that they can play games online! Unlike my contemporaries who can program their solar, batteries and PV via Home Assistant, and that's just for a start.
It doesn't matter if you've got no way to ensure the safety systems within the operation are functional and able to deal adequately with a situation should it occur.
Take the major incidents of late....
If that were to occur, how would a control function, which isnt able to function, be able to deal with the incident?
Dearie me!!
What "safety systems within the operation" are compromised? Maybe a driver or two ending up working later than planned with a knock-on effect on availability the next morning?
Safety is mostly ensured by trained and experienced drivers obeying NR's signals (as pointed out by someone else up-thread.) If you have 3 or 4 trains shuttling between (say) Bristol and Sheffield How many traincrews have they got to juggle in the event of "a situation" at one point on the line?
Are you really telling me that you can't imagine experienced railway people being able to liaise with NR's signalling control and use phones to keep these few balls in the air?
(I acknowledge that my imagined "competent" response does depend on there being a level of trust and some goodwill, e.g. the traincrews not insisting on diagrams and rosters being posted a month in advance and having been scrutinised by the modern equivalent of the LDC.)
As I mentioned in this thread already…
Don’t forget for a control and therefore a train service to function, there are roles which are vital if there was a unit fault on a Voyager that would be dealt with by the maintenance controller, if there is no way of working through fault finding then that service is effectively stranded.
The Duty Control Manager is a safety case holder and ultimately has the final decision making authority with anything to do with the Cross Country train service or any incident and traincrew management.
For example if a driver has an incident, the Duty Control Manager holds the authority to authorise a driver to continue forward or be unfit to continue forward based on information in the Traincrew Development Plan.
There are some roles that could be delegated elsewhere through Network Rail for example. But it is much more than just not being able to see what traincrew are where.
Don’t forget for a control and therefore a train service to function, there are roles which are vital if there was a unit fault on a Voyager that would be dealt with by the maintenance controller, if there is no way of working through fault finding then that service is effectively stranded.
The Duty Control Manager is a safety case holder and ultimately has the final decision making authority with anything to do with the Cross Country train service or any incident and traincrew management.
For example if a driver has an incident, the Duty Control Manager holds the authority to authorise a driver to continue forward or be unfit to continue forward based on information in the Traincrew Development Plan.
There are some roles that could be delegated elsewhere through Network Rail for example. But it is much more than just not being able to see what traincrew are where.
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Snow1964
Established Member
Ah yes, which is worse stranding thousands of passengers, some of whom are on return journeys home.
Or assuming a voyager has been so poorly maintained that it will have a fault that is so cryptic, train crew won't be able to limp to a platform loop, and might (that is only might, not definitely) get stranded.
Sometimes I wonder if railway staff remember who provides the income for their wages (and remember most recent XC accounts show a profit, so please no one waffle on about taxpayer is one paying), considering how badly the organisation treats customers for operational reasons.
Could you imagine booking a hotel and paying for it in advance, getting there, being told it's been cancelled, and it's your problem now because our liability stops when we have a problem. Do people seriously think that is right attitude.
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