GWR Sunday Cancellations - crew availability - why?

[Sleepy]

Exactly this. I never bought into this ‘people value more family time after the pandemic’ mumbo jumbo

Or booked off Monday helps too ?

 

[dk1]

Or booked off Monday helps too ?

Lovely old job. Plenty of that at our depot too

 

[Sly Old Fox]

Or booked off Monday helps too ?

That certainly won’t be happening amongst drivers.

 

[dk1]

That certainly won’t be happening amongst drivers.

Plenty of it here. Drivers and conductors.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

BBC has now run the story, headlining it GWR Sunday cancellations to continue indefinitely

What is behind GWR cancellations and delays on Sundays?

Great Western Railway has been struggling with its Sunday service during the winter.

www.bbc.co.uk

The new Secretary of State following in the footsteps of the old one and being completely silent on this issue. I know she cant fix it overnight but what she can do is make it govt policy that they want to run a decent service on a Sunday. Then say Ive tasked SGBR and the unions to work up a solution that means that this will be achieved by the end of this parliament or something along those lines.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

The new Secretary of State following in the footsteps of the old one and being completely silent on this issue. I know she cant fix it overnight but what she can do is make it govt policy that they want to run a decent service on a Sunday. Then say Ive tasked SGBR and the unions to work up a solution that means that this will be achieved by the end of this parliament or something along those lines.

That looks to be exactly what is happening in the new year, as per post 188. Today and next Sunday have been sorted by paying higher rates of overtime, and going forward it sounds like serious discussions about changing to a different system is going to happen.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Dec 2024 ==

Plenty of it here. Drivers and conductors.

ASLEF put a stop to it, too many drivers complained about picking up work from spare on a Monday morning. Hasn’t happened since before the pandemic at least.

 

[43055]

Certainly no crewing issues in south west today - GWR are running an additional service Plymouth - Penzance and return in paths of part cancelled Cross Country services (1300 ex Plymouth, 1537 from Penzance - castle class) Also covering a XC Exeter to Bristol.

and another couple:
1050 Penzance to Cardiff will split at Exeter with the front continuing as normal and the rear forming 1Z53 1400 Exeter to Bristol vice 1M53 (1300 Plymouth - Manchester). Then works:
1Z57 1613 Bristol - Paignton (1V57 ex Manchester terminating at Bristol)
1Z77 1820 Paignton - Exeter (vice 1M77 which is cancelled throughout)

 

[dk1]

That looks to be exactly what is happening in the new year, as per post 188. Today and next Sunday have been sorted by paying higher rates of overtime, and going forward it sounds like serious discussions about changing to a different system is going to happen.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Dec 2024 ==



ASLEF put a stop to it, too many drivers complained about picking up work from spare on a Monday morning. Hasn’t happened since before the pandemic at least.

Maybe with some operators. Happens every week with us.

 

[Krokodil]

ASLEF put a stop to it, too many drivers complained about picking up work from spare on a Monday morning. Hasn’t happened since before the pandemic at least.

Over here drivers get +5 on the equalisation counts if they're booked off. No penalty for guards, but it doesn't happen often.

 

[dk1]

Over here drivers get +5 on the equalisation counts if they're booked off. No penalty for guards, but it doesn't happen often.

No penalty for us. Drivers lap it up.

 

[irish_rail]

No penalty for us. Drivers lap it up.

It doesn't sit well with me, purely because you are stitching up colleagues with extra work. I can totally see why Aslef have "blacked" it at GWR.

Hopefully the rumoured talks in the new year will come up with something fruitful to put all this to bed once and for all on Sundays, but personally I'm not hopeful.

 

[Class 170101]

Amazing the difference an offer of double time makes to the urge to spend time with one's family on a Sunday!

Everyone has their price

 

[dk1]

It doesn't sit well with me, purely because you are stitching up colleagues with extra work. I can totally see why Aslef have "blacked" it at GWR.

Hopefully the rumoured talks in the new year will come up with something fruitful to put all this to bed once and for all on Sundays, but personally I'm not hopeful.

It’s swings and roundabouts I suppose. It’s only done after the rosters are posted and only by duty traincrew managers as the roster clerk has no power to do this. Those affected get rewarded too.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

All the Cotswold–Oxford–Paddington IETs are running, but the Oxford–Paddington IETs appear to be "planned cancellations": https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se.../0000-2359?stp=WVSC&show=all&order=wtt&toc=GW

 

[Rich McLean]

The only fix shorter term is to increase the working week for all train crew from 35 hour weeks to a 40 hour week (on average), adding an additional 2 days work every four weeks. That would involve a hefty pay rise and many train crew don't want their working week increased. It would take many years to go from a 6 to 7 day working week while keeping the hours at 35.

The only other options is a drastic cut in Sunday service provision or cut services in the week to facilitate a 35hr week over 7 days.

 

[12LDA28C]

It doesn't sit well with me, purely because you are stitching up colleagues with extra work. I can totally see why Aslef have "blacked" it at GWR.

Hopefully the rumoured talks in the new year will come up with something fruitful to put all this to bed once and for all on Sundays, but personally I'm not hopeful.

Presumably 'you' will be asked at short notice to work a late shift on Sunday and get paid off on Monday morning so the Monday AM Spare or Cover driver cops your job. Then that driver does exactly the same the following Sunday and you cop their job on the Monday morning. As long as it's done fairly and it's not the same drivers being paid off all the time then I don't see a problem.

 

[nanstallon]

The new Secretary of State following in the footsteps of the old one and being completely silent on this issue. I know she cant fix it overnight but what she can do is make it govt policy that they want to run a decent service on a Sunday. Then say Ive tasked SGBR and the unions to work up a solution that means that this will be achieved by the end of this parliament or something along those lines.

Must not pamper the customer, must we? I remember many years ago a letter in a railway magazine from a railwayman saying that passengers were lucky to get any Sunday service at all! Very British.

 

[Snow1964]

The only fix shorter term is to increase the working week for all train crew from 35 hour weeks to a 40 hour week (on average), adding an additional 2 days work every four weeks. That would involve a hefty pay rise and many train crew don't want their working week increased. It would take many years to go from a 6 to 7 day working week while keeping the hours at 35.

The only other options is a drastic cut in Sunday service provision or cut services in the week to facilitate a 35hr week over 7 days.

Or you have a big shift in style of training, instead of the theory bit being in small groups, move to big classrooms / lecture halls to get dozens done at once.

Then you work out who is likely to be happy to receive a training bonus for 12-18 months and offer to temporary promote them to do the practical training and out on the track experience.

Basically need to evolve a plan where can get dozens trained quickly (not spread over 2-10 years), and have not tied yourself into permanent hours cuts or extra pay once the training catch up is completed.

What I don't know is how the unions will agree to current members not worse off, temporary increases which have end dates, and potentially 10-15% bigger membership (due to more staff), but potentially less overtime on offer after couple of years.

 

[12LDA28C]

Or you have a big shift in style of training, instead of the theory bit being in small groups, move to big classrooms / lecture halls to get dozens done at once.

Then you work out who is likely to be happy to receive a training bonus for 12-18 months and offer to temporary promote them to do the practical training and out on the track experience.

Basically need to evolve a plan where can get dozens trained quickly (not spread over 2-10 years), and have not tied yourself into permanent hours cuts or extra pay once the training catch up is completed.

What I don't know is how the unions will agree to current members not worse off, temporary increases which have end dates, and potentially 10-15% bigger membership (due to more staff), but potentially less overtime on offer after couple of years.

You can speed up the classroom training as much as you like but after that you're limited by the number of Driver Instructors and Assessors you have. You can't force staff to become Instructors and if you don't have enough, training of new drivers will take longer, simple as that.

 

[Snow1964]

You can speed up the classroom training as much as you like but after that you're limited by the number of Driver Instructors and Assessors you have. You can't force staff to become Instructors and if you don't have enough, training of new drivers will take longer, simple as that.

I didn't say force, I said offer.

There must be some drivers who would be happy to willing to become instructor or assessor but have never been asked, or offered money to become one

 

[Stigy]

Surprisingly few cancellations today….amazing what happens when staff are offered a bit more money

 

[12LDA28C]

I didn't say force, I said offer.

There must be some drivers who would be happy to willing to become instructor or assessor but have never been asked, or offered money to become one

In my experience, during times of high recruitment all suitable drivers will have already been approached with some accepting and some not. There is very often a shortage of Instructors as we have seen over the years at TOCs like GTR who had a huge backlog of training for that exact reason.

 

[The Chimaera]

I didn't say force, I said offer.

There must be some drivers who would be happy to willing to become instructor or assessor but have never been asked, or offered money to become one

Instructor Drivers to command a (slightly) higher salary so the bean counters would first have to get their heads around that.
Being an Instructor isn’t an easy job and not everyone is cut out for it. Even amongst those that are a significant number wouldn’t entertain the idea because of the risks of training people fresh ‘of the street’ would pose to their own career. Don’t forget any mistakes made by the trainee and not corrected in time would end up on the Instructors record.
The state of industrial relations at some companies might also affect the number of volunteers.
That said it might be worth giving the idea a try as long as the quality of the training doesn’t suffer, preserving the current status quo is probably the worst of all worlds.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

The only fix shorter term is to increase the working week for all train crew from 35 hour weeks to a 40 hour week (on average), adding an additional 2 days work every four weeks. That would involve a hefty pay rise and many train crew don't want their working week increased. It would take many years to go from a 6 to 7 day working week while keeping the hours at 35.

The only other options is a drastic cut in Sunday service provision or cut services in the week to facilitate a 35hr week over 7 days.

There is no way that ASLEF will agree to an increase in the working week. Other TOCs have shown it is possible to bring Sundays inside the 35 hours working week, TFW, EMR and TPE most recently. It’s perfectly possible on GWR too. Just nobody has ever tried (publicly).

 

[800301]

All the Cotswold–Oxford–Paddington IETs are running, but the Oxford–Paddington IETs appear to be "planned cancellations": https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se.../0000-2359?stp=WVSC&show=all&order=wtt&toc=GW

Think that might have something to do with engineering works, either way left a nice big gap on my diagram where an Oxford should have been

 

[irish_rail]

There is no way that ASLEF will agree to an increase in the working week. Other TOCs have shown it is possible to bring Sundays inside the 35 hours working week, TFW, EMR and TPE most recently. It’s perfectly possible on GWR too. Just nobody has ever tried (publicly).

Seconded. It's completely doable on GWR. I'd start by eliminating all of the wasteful "passing" and crewing a train with 3 different drivers when one would do nonsense. Apparently management have admitted a driver driving A to B and back to A again is the way forward (as opposed to driving a to b to c to b to c to b to a....you get the picture), and this would help free up traincrew numbers to help toward getting Sundays inside.

 

[father_jack]

1V68 Cross Country is cancelling at Birmingham due to no driver but ironically there's a 158 with driver and guard available to run in it's path as 1Z68 from Bristol Temple Meads to Exeter..............

 

[ValentaFan1974]

It was due to run with 2 3-car Class 170’s from Birmingham to Bristol but appears to have been canned. That would have been a very odd journey for anyone going all the way down to the south west (5 car Voyager to BHM, 170’s to BRI and then a GWR 158 to EXD)

 

[Class 170101]

It was due to run with 2 3-car Class 170’s from Birmingham to Bristol but appears to have been canned. That would have been a very odd journey for anyone going all the way down to the south west (5 car Voyager to BHM, 170’s to BRI and then a GWR 158 to EXD)

But better that than no journey.

 

[Jim]

1V68 Cross Country is cancelling at Birmingham due to no driver but ironically there's a 158 with driver and guard available to run in it's path as 1Z68 from Bristol Temple Meads to Exeter..............

There's a booked ECS at 2218 from Bristol to Exeter and a guard trying to pass back on 1V68, good use of resources rather than running an empty train with stranded passengers.

Who cares whos passengers they are, they all pay their fares and deserve to get to their destinations.