CrossCountry's Driver Shortage

[Bald Rick]

Today I intended to go from Sheffield to Oxford on the 06.24 Newcastle to Reading service. Cross Country Journey check shows the train cancelled between Newcastle and Birmingham due to "a shortage of train drivers".
However on consulting Tracksy and RTT it appears this train is running EMPTY from Newcastle to Birmingham!
So either XC gave got the first mainline driverless trains or it is more likely a shortage of train managers.
Therefore how many XC cancellations are publicly blamed on shortage of drivers when it is actually train managers?

Think that was incorrectly announced (or initially attributed), it is showing now as down to no train manager

 

[Peterthegreat]

It's still showing driver shortage on journey check

 

[TravelDream]

Another awful day on CrossCountry. Over 40 full cancellations.

The Nottingham to Cardiff service is barely operational, which is standard, but Stansted is also badly affected.

 

[duffield]

Another awful day on CrossCountry. Over 40 full cancellations.

The Nottingham to Cardiff service is barely operational, which is standard, but Stansted is also badly affected.

Yes, I've noticed the cancellations which were previous mostly Nottingham to Cardiff seem to have spread recently, and today it's not just Cardiff and Stansted, there are five Birmingham to Bristol cancellations this afternoon (the trains that usually start at Manchester, but had already been cut back to start at Birmingham due to engineering works). I really don't envy anyone travelling from Birmingham to Bristol today.

Although it was by far the most convenient day for her to travel home from visiting people or going away (in relation to work), my sister has stopped using XC on Sundays completely.

 

[Harpo]

New tax year hasn’t made any difference then.

 

[Zerothebrake!]

No because XC Drivers can still come in spare for guaranteed RDW until 17/05 - so they use Sundays ( still paid at flat rate) as their 14th booking off. They can earn twice the pay by working their Rest Days in the week.

 

[station_road]

Another awful day on CrossCountry. Over 40 full cancellations.

The Nottingham to Cardiff service is barely operational, which is standard, but Stansted is also badly affected.

And with the Midland Main Line closed this weekend, overcrowding between Sheffield/Derby and Tamworth/Birmingham had been awful. The 1231 from Derby was only 4 coaches and left people behind at Derby, Burton and Tamworth

 

[Russel]

And with the Midland Main Line closed this weekend, overcrowding between Sheffield/Derby and Tamworth/Birmingham had been awful. The 1231 from Derby was only 4 coaches and left people behind at Derby, Burton and Tamworth

How on earth are XC getting away with this?

 

[JamesT]

How on earth are XC getting away with this?

They’re doing exactly what the DfT want and are minimising expenditure?

 

[43055]

And with the Midland Main Line closed this weekend, overcrowding between Sheffield/Derby and Tamworth/Birmingham had been awful. The 1231 from Derby was only 4 coaches and left people behind at Derby, Burton and Tamworth

And the following service was a 170 at 1340!

 

[TheGuy77]

Another Sunday full of cancellations - 33 according to their website.

 

[duffield]

Another Sunday full of cancellations - 33 according to their website.

They should just come clean and put out an indefinite "do not travel on Sunday unless it's an emergency" announcement. It's ridiculous that people who are not aware of the situation are booking tickets in advance, before the cancellations, and expecting a reserved seat when the odds are they won't even get a train and may end up waiting two or three hours to get crammed on a hellish overcrowded service if they're "lucky" and unable to board if not. At the very least, when booking tickets for XC on Sunday there should be a warning that "these services are liable to late cancellation".

Or be honest and introduce another "emergency timetable" for Sundays only, one that they can actually mostly fulfil. If they did that, they could also, if as it appears the problem is still an ongoing driver shortage, potentially plan properly to double up as many services as they could provide other staffing requirements for. For example, on the Nottingham to Cardiff route a service that actually runs reliably every two hours with (say) 3+2 coaches would be much better than a half cancelled hourly service of 2 or 3 coaches.

 

[43066]

No because XC Drivers can still come in spare for guaranteed RDW until 17/05 - so they use Sundays ( still paid at flat rate) as their 14th booking off. They can earn twice the pay by working their Rest Days in the week.

The obvious thing to you, or so you would think, would be to adjust the Sunday incentive as necessary to ensure sufficient volunteers. This would likely entail making it as least attractive as a week day rest day, or perhaps more so. Presumably this has been considered, but the DfT won’t sign off on it .

 

[Moonshot]

They should just come clean and put out an indefinite "do not travel on Sunday unless it's an emergency" announcement. It's ridiculous that people who are not aware of the situation are booking tickets in advance, before the cancellations, and expecting a reserved seat when the odds are they won't even get a train and may end up waiting two or three hours to get crammed on a hellish overcrowded service if they're "lucky" and unable to board if not. At the very least, when booking tickets for XC on Sunday there should be a warning that "these services are liable to late cancellation".

Or be honest and introduce another "emergency timetable" for Sundays only, one that they can actually mostly fulfil. If they did that, they could also, if as it appears the problem is still an ongoing driver shortage, potentially plan properly to double up as many services as they could provide other staffing requirements for. For example, on the Nottingham to Cardiff route a service that actually runs reliably every two hours with (say) 3+2 coaches would be much better than a half cancelled hourly service of 2 or 3 coaches.

The easiest solution would be to withdraw Sunday timetable in it's entirety.

 

[Llandudno]

The easiest solution would be to withdraw Sunday timetable in it's entirety.

Indeed it may take this sledgehammer approach for DfT and XC management to get their act together and sort the issue out…!

 

[1D54]

Not just Sunday though with the Cardiff services. I was at Birmingham yesterday and at least two were cancelled and the one i saw was full and standing.

 

[duffield]

Not just Sunday though with the Cardiff services. I was at Birmingham yesterday and at least two were cancelled and the one i saw was full and standing.

Yes, there are sporadic cancellations on other random days, but Sunday is the black hole day.

The easiest solution would be to withdraw Sunday timetable in it's entirety.

It might be "easiest" in some senses, but I don't agree with doing this. XC seem to mostly be able to run an hourly service on the Edinburgh->Plymouth route on Sundays - all of them seem to be running today. I think they could operate this service hourly, plus a once every two hours (hopefully doubled up) service on Nottingham to Cardiff and a once every two hours service from Birmingham to Cambridge (again hopefully doubled up). Not sure about Manchester and Reading services, Manchester is currently affected by weekend engineering anyhow.

I think them having to get DfT permission for yet another emergency timetable should be enough to bring it up the agenda again without the (IMHO) maximum passenger hostility of total withdrawal, which would leave some important stations totally unserved and put massive strains on alternative operators in certain locations. Do we really want to make some passengers on TfW, GWR etc. have hellish overcrowded journeys as a consequence of total XC cancellation? Seems like a lot of collateral damage, and given how deep seated XCs problems seem to be I'm not actually convinced that this "nuclear option" would even lead to a quicker resolution!

 

[absolutelymilk]

Does the May timetable make any changes to the Sunday services?

 

[Bald Rick]

The easiest solution would be to withdraw Sunday timetable in it's entirety.

Not helpful for the passengers on the 80%+ of services that are running today

 

[TheGuy77]

I think it would be better if the local Notts-Birmingham and Birmingham-Leicester services were passed over to EMR, along with some of the 170s that are used to operate them.

 

[1D54]

But they are doing okay on the Birmingham - Leicester service.

 

[GordonT]

I think it would be better if the local Notts-Birmingham and Birmingham-Leicester services were passed over to EMR, along with some of the 170s that are used to operate them.

Would probably just move the problem rather than remove it?

 

[irish_rail]

The easiest solution would be to withdraw Sunday timetable in it's entirety.

Where does that leave travellers from Birmnigham to the southwest? It's all very well withdrawing say York to Edinburgh for example, but on certain routes, XC are the sole provider. Withdrawl of all services would be unthinkable.

 

[TravelDream]

Not just Sunday though with the Cardiff services. I was at Birmingham yesterday and at least two were cancelled and the one i saw was full and standing.

Cardiff is the ugly sister of XC's operation. But they do manage to run most services Mon-Sat.

Sunday is a horror show though and it's shameful that XC/DFT continues with the charade of the current timetable selling tickets to train that they know aren't going to operate.

Passengers using the route would be much better off if it was cut at Birmingham and TFW took over. Wouldn't be too difficult to operate with Cardiff and Shrewsbury crews.

 

[dk1]

Cardiff is the ugly sister of XC's operation. But they do manage to run most services Mon-Sat.

Sunday is a horror show though and it's shameful that XC/DFT continues with the charade of the current timetable selling tickets to train that they know aren't going to operate.

Passengers using the route would be much better off if it was cut at Birmingham and TFW took over. Wouldn't be too difficult to operate with Cardiff and Shrewsbury crews.

The initial traincrew training costs would be very high so not an easy decision financially.

 

[Class 170101]

Some heads need banging together on this and I don't really care how painful the heads are afterwards, get it sorted!

 

[Harpo]

Passengers using the route would be much better off if it was cut at Birmingham and TFW took over.

Allowing West Wales services to operate to Manchester and Birmingham on alternate hours.

 

[WAB]

The initial traincrew training costs would be very high so not an easy decision financially.

But politically, I imagine Cardiff having a very poor link to Birmingham might encourage the expenditure where it may not otherwise be warranted.

 

[dk1]

Allowing West Wales services to operate to Manchester and Birmingham on alternate hours.

How would that work? Manchester to Wales services don’t operate via Birmingham.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Apr 2025 ==

But politically, I imagine Cardiff having a very poor link to Birmingham might encourage the expenditure where it may not otherwise be warranted.

Possibly yes, but it certainly won’t come cheap.

 

[WAB]

How would that work? Manchester to Wales services don’t operate via Birmingham.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Apr 2025 ==


Possibly yes, but it certainly won’t come cheap.

Extending route knowledge from Cheltenham Spa to Birmingham New Street isn't the biggest leap. And depending on what stock is proposed (on a Sunday, I imagine the 5 units required could be sourced from TfW) there wouldn't necessarily be much of a cost for that, either.