LNER unreliability caused by staff shortages

[800001]

LNER themselves have said ongoing staffing issues and fleet issues. Unless they’ve now deleted it, you can see that for yourself on LNER’s Twitter.

Of what you posted earlier only 1818 was cancelled due to staffing, all other delays or cancellations were due to the like blocked between york and Doncaster.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Oct 2022 ==

LNER themselves have said ongoing staffing issues and fleet issues. Unless they’ve now deleted it, it’s on LNER’s Twitter. I do believe I linked to that post previously, but in case I didn’t here it is: https://twitter.com/lner/status/1584610833891721218?s=46&t=2ft78WZ-TEBqy-tkDeWJoA

The tweet you are referring to was at 1920 last night!!

 

[DanNCL]

Of what you posted earlier only 1818 was cancelled due to staffing, all other delays or cancellations were due to the like blocked between york and Doncaster.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Oct 2022 ==


The tweet you are referring to was at 1920 last night!!

Regarding today - Tuesday 25th October. It is relevant.

 

[800001]

Regarding today - Tuesday 25th October. It is relevant.

And you have generalised that tweet to refer your post earlier about the delays and cancellations out of Kings Cross, of which I explained all bar one cancellations was due to the failure of the Mk4 due to over head like issues between York and Doncaster

 

[DanNCL]

And you have generalised that tweet to refer your post earlier about the delays and cancellations out of Kings Cross, of which I explained all bar one cancellations was due to the failure of the Mk4 due to over head like issues between York and Doncaster

What you said looked like you’re referring to all of today’s issues rather than just the evening peak.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Tomorrow LNER have already cancelled
05.40 Edinburgh to Kings Cross
10.30 Kings Cross to Edinburgh
in addition
the 05.39 from Sunderland will start Newcastle
the 09.06 from Kings Cross will terminate at Doncaster (vice York).
All due to shortage of train crew.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Tomorrow LNER have already cancelled
05.40 Edinburgh to Kings Cross
10.30 Kings Cross to Edinburgh
in addition
the 05.39 from Sunderland will start Newcastle
the 09.06 from Kings Cross will terminate at Doncaster (vice York).
All due to shortage of train crew.

LNER continue to deteriorate.

As for Twitter, some of them are appallingly rude. Fast responses, I’ll give them that, but who cares that the jelly’s nice and wobbly when the ice cream’s melted?

Mind you, CrossCountry and Greater Anglia rarely bother to even reply.

 

[Peterthegreat]

LNER continue to deteriorate.

As for Twitter, some of them are appallingly rude. Fast responses, I’ll give them that, but who cares that the jelly’s nice and wobbly when the ice cream’s melted?

Mind you, CrossCountry and Greater Anglia rarely bother to even reply.

Tomorrow LNER have already cancelled
05.40 Edinburgh to Kings Cross
10.30 Kings Cross to Edinburgh
in addition
the 05.39 from Sunderland will start Newcastle
the 09.06 from Kings Cross will terminate at Doncaster (vice York).
All due to shortage of train crew.

We can now add even more cancellations
12.02 York to Kings Cross
14.00 Edinburgh to Kings Cross
15.15 Leeds to Kings Cross
15.45 Leeds to Kings Cross
18.33 Kings Cross to Bradford
19.00 Kings Cross to Edinburgh
19.03 Kings Cross to Leeds

No doubt more will be added through the day.

 

[800001]

LNER continue to deteriorate.

As for Twitter, some of them are appallingly rude. Fast responses, I’ll give them that, but who cares that the jelly’s nice and wobbly when the ice cream’s melted?

Mind you, CrossCountry and Greater Anglia rarely bother to even reply.

It hasn’t deteriorated. It is the same as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that with the level of cancellations.

Get the DFT to allow the Tocs to negotiate with the unions, and it will then improve, until they do, you will get cancellations like this every day.

Or get the DFT to allow the tocs to employ the correct level of drivers to run a service without having to rely on rest day works to cover the shifts.

 

[Dave91131]

It hasn’t deteriorated. It is the same as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that with the level of cancellations.

Get the DFT to allow the Tocs to negotiate with the unions, and it will then improve, until they do, you will get cancellations like this every day.

Or get the DFT to allow the tocs to employ the correct level of drivers to run a service without having to rely on rest day works to cover the shifts.

The problem for the TOC, LNER in this case, is that Joe Public couldn't give 2 hoots about unions, DfT, rest days etc.

What Joe Public does give 2 hoots about is the train service they want to travel on, and in a great many cases have paid to specifically travel on, turning up when it's meant to and going where it's meant to go.

Later today we have 2 consecutive Leeds to London trains cancelled, the final London - Edinburgh of the day (except a Lumo about 90 mins later but nothing on the LNER website about ticket acceptance being in place) cancelled, and some very well used off peak trains (1030 London - Edinburgh, 1400 Edinburgh - London and 1202 York - London) cancelled.

What are the passengers for the final LNER London - Edinburgh meant to do if they can't get to London in time for the 1830 as LNER seem to suggest they should? What are the passengers for the well used off peak services meant to do? Stand for 2-5 hours depending on their journey?

Tens of thousands of Joe Public's every day will view LNER as a disgrace, incompetent, shambolic, useless, not worth the money, clueless, etc.

Try telling those passengers LNER aren't deteriorating at a vast rate of knots. It's the views of those Joe Public's that matter unfortunately, not the views of anyone on the inside or on this forum.

 

[DanNCL]

I had an at length chat with a friendly LNER TM this evening. He’s one of the few that are still working overtime - not out of any goodwill for either LNER or the DFT, but as he says out of goodwill for the passengers who’d suffer otherwise. He’s completely had enough of it, he’s ready to quit and seek work outside of the rail industry, and he’s not alone.

When staff morale is low, customer service deteriorates. Which in turn makes the customers more irate, which makes the staff more irate, and it just goes on and on in a vicious cycle nobody wants to be in.

The DFT need a good kicking, but I don’t think it’s fair to put 100% of the blame on them. The DFT is mostly civil servants who simply do as they’re told - the blame for this really lies with those in Ministerial roles, and in particular former transport secretary Grant Shapps - to put his level of cluelessness into context when it comes to the ECML, he completely failed to recognise Digswell, in his own constituency, as one of the most significant ECML bottlenecks.

Later today we have 2 consecutive Leeds to London trains cancelled, the final London - Edinburgh of the day (except a Lumo about 90 mins later but nothing on the LNER website about ticket acceptance being in place) cancelled, and some very well used off peak trains (1030 London - Edinburgh, 1400 Edinburgh - London and 1202 York - London) cancelled.

What are the passengers for the final LNER London - Edinburgh meant to do if they can't get to London in time for the 1830 as LNER seem to suggest they should? What are the passengers for the well used off peak services meant to do? Stand for 2-5 hours depending on their journey?

The 1900 Edinburgh operated as far as Newcastle and was terminated with very short notice because of a fatality - something completely out of LNER’s control.

I’m quick to moan about companies doing things badly but there really isn’t anything LNER could have done better with the 1900 Kings Cross - Edinburgh this evening. As far as I understand road transport was provided from Newcastle, which whilst not perfect really was LNER’s only option.

 

[800001]

I had an at length chat with a friendly LNER TM this evening. He’s one of the few that are still working overtime - not out of any goodwill for either LNER or the DFT, but as he says out of goodwill for the passengers who’d suffer otherwise. He’s completely had enough of it, he’s ready to quit and seek work outside of the rail industry, and he’s not alone.

When staff morale is low, customer service deteriorates. Which in turn makes the customers more irate, which makes the staff more irate, and it just goes on and on in a vicious cycle nobody wants to be in.

The DFT need a good kicking, but I don’t think it’s fair to put 100% of the blame on them. The DFT is mostly civil servants who simply do as they’re told - the blame for this really lies with those in Ministerial roles, and in particular former transport secretary Grant Shapps - to put his level of cluelessness into context when it comes to the ECML, he completely failed to recognise Digswell, in his own constituency, as one of the most significant ECML bottlenecks.


The 1900 Edinburgh operated as far as Newcastle and was terminated with very short notice because of a fatality - something completely out of LNER’s control.

I’m quick to moan about companies doing things badly but there really isn’t anything LNER could have done better with the 1900 Kings Cross - Edinburgh this evening. As far as I understand road transport was provided from Newcastle, which whilst not perfect really was LNER’s only option.

Customers of the 1900 Kings cross , went forward on the 1830 Kings Cross - Edinburgh which had been held at Newcastle.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Oct 2022 ==

The problem for the TOC, LNER in this case, is that Joe Public couldn't give 2 hoots about unions, DfT, rest days etc.

What Joe Public does give 2 hoots about is the train service they want to travel on, and in a great many cases have paid to specifically travel on, turning up when it's meant to and going where it's meant to go.

Later today we have 2 consecutive Leeds to London trains cancelled, the final London - Edinburgh of the day (except a Lumo about 90 mins later but nothing on the LNER website about ticket acceptance being in place) cancelled, and some very well used off peak trains (1030 London - Edinburgh, 1400 Edinburgh - London and 1202 York - London) cancelled.

What are the passengers for the final LNER London - Edinburgh meant to do if they can't get to London in time for the 1830 as LNER seem to suggest they should? What are the passengers for the well used off peak services meant to do? Stand for 2-5 hours depending on their journey?

Tens of thousands of Joe Public's every day will view LNER as a disgrace, incompetent, shambolic, useless, not worth the money, clueless, etc.

Try telling those passengers LNER aren't deteriorating at a vast rate of knots. It's the views of those Joe Public's that matter unfortunately, not the views of anyone on the inside or on this forum.

Customers travelling to Edinburgh are strongly advised to travel on the 18:30 London Kings Cross to Edinburgh. Alternatively, you can travel on the 19:30 London Kings Cross to Newcastle service, alighting at Newcastle for the 23:08 Newcastle to Edinburgh Lumo service.

 

[Trackless]

I’m just a traveller, not staff, but since I live near Perth I’m bearing the brunt of this.

Two weeks ago my LNER from Perth to Edinburgh was cancelled, meaning an early start for my wife to drive me to Edinburgh. Then yesterday I was on the 0830 Edinburgh to KingsX until they decided to start it at Newcastle.

LNER has become as unreliable as the service it replaced, and it’s incredibly frustrating. Despite my better judgement, I am considering returning to air travel, it’s very rare for BA to have crew shortages that they cannot work around.

Just my 2p….

 

[TreacleMiller]

The problem for the TOC, LNER in this case, is that Joe Public couldn't give 2 hoots about unions, DfT, rest days etc.

What Joe Public does give 2 hoots about is the train service they want to travel on, and in a great many cases have paid to specifically travel on, turning up when it's meant to and going where it's meant to go.

Later today we have 2 consecutive Leeds to London trains cancelled, the final London - Edinburgh of the day (except a Lumo about 90 mins later but nothing on the LNER website about ticket acceptance being in place) cancelled, and some very well used off peak trains (1030 London - Edinburgh, 1400 Edinburgh - London and 1202 York - London) cancelled.

What are the passengers for the final LNER London - Edinburgh meant to do if they can't get to London in time for the 1830 as LNER seem to suggest they should? What are the passengers for the well used off peak services meant to do? Stand for 2-5 hours depending on their journey?

Tens of thousands of Joe Public's every day will view LNER as a disgrace, incompetent, shambolic, useless, not worth the money, clueless, etc.

Try telling those passengers LNER aren't deteriorating at a vast rate of knots. It's the views of those Joe Public's that matter unfortunately, not the views of anyone on the inside or on this forum.

What should Joe public do?

Pressure their MPs to resolve the issue - Lab or Con shouldn't matter.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

It hasn’t deteriorated. It is the same as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that with the level of cancellations.

Get the DFT to allow the Tocs to negotiate with the unions, and it will then improve, until they do, you will get cancellations like this every day.

Or get the DFT to allow the tocs to employ the correct level of drivers to run a service without having to rely on rest day works to cover the shifts.

It would be lovely for members of this forum to give feedback regarding LNER without you jumping down our throats in the way that you do. It can be rather tiresome; loyalty is a wonderful thing, but refusing to acknowledge due criticism is not.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Oct 2022 ==

I’m just a traveller, not staff, but since I live near Perth I’m bearing the brunt of this.

Two weeks ago my LNER from Perth to Edinburgh was cancelled, meaning an early start for my wife to drive me to Edinburgh. Then yesterday I was on the 0830 Edinburgh to KingsX until they decided to start it at Newcastle.

LNER has become as unreliable as the service it replaced, and it’s incredibly frustrating. Despite my better judgement, I am considering returning to air travel, it’s very rare for BA to have crew shortages that they cannot work around.

Just my 2p….

Well, exactly - and we all know that Avanti is no better at the moment, so the short haul airlines are looking rather attractive. I've always taken LNER & ScotRail to Glasgow and returned to London with Virgin or Avanti, but the most recent journey I made was courtesy of easyJet and the experience was considerably easier.

 

[43094]

At the risk of becoming too embroiled in this, all I’ll say is:

The current level of service is poor in terms of cancellations pretty much every day - and the effect on customers, in terms of travelling experience, uncertainty of journey, potential effect on the future etc etc shouldn’t be underestimated.

Likewise, the effects on the staff shouldn’t be underestimated either, the amount of ad-hoc change alone trying to knit together the best possible service with the resources available each day and provide what customers rightly expect, and the frustration where this isn’t possible for them, is cumulative - for customers and staff alike.

In defence of ‘80001’, I know them personally, and can vouch for their professionalism and that what they do is for the greater good - as do the vast majority of people in similar positions.

I’ll not say any more about it tonight, as frankly some downtime away from thinking about this is helpful!

 

[cuccir]

More cancellations again today.

My guess is that LNER are in a position where they are operating without slack. Most weeks they're just about keeping it together (for their south of Edinburgh services at least) but if there's a cluster of sicknesses or (presumably for this week) annual leave due to school holidays, they quickly start having to cancel or run short a large number of services.

 

[Christmas]

The evening arrival into Stirling runs empty coaching stock back to Craigentinny I believe. If it passes through Haymarket and Waverley and has a guard on board why doesn't it run in service?

 

[800001]

The evening arrival into Stirling runs empty coaching stock back to Craigentinny I believe. If it passes through Haymarket and Waverley and has a guard on board why doesn't it run in service?

Quite a lot of there end of day services do that.
They have ecs which includes Train Managers from Sunderland, Harrogate, Bradford, Skipton etc.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I saw today that ASLEF are looking at balloting to remove the RDW agreement at LNER. Is this likely to lead to LNER turning into Avanti?

 

[Trainbike46]

I saw today that ASLEF are looking at balloting to remove the RDW agreement at LNER. Is this likely to lead to LNER turning into Avanti?

I believe LNER is in a much better place regarding staff availability, though it would probably mean reduced service or lower reliability.

Why is ASLEF balloting to remove the RDW agreement?

 

[43066]

I believe LNER is in a much better place regarding staff availability

Probably because the staff are still working rest days!

 

[skyhigh]

I saw today that ASLEF are looking at balloting to remove the RDW agreement at LNER. Is this likely to lead to LNER turning into Avanti?

Are you sure it's not the normal (re)ballot for strike action with 2 options - action short of a strike, or strike?

 

[Trainbike46]

Probably because the staff are still working rest days!

Didn't LNER recruit a lot of new drivers just before covid in advance of service expansions, while Avanti was not responding to the fact that an increasing number of their drivers was nearing retirement?

Clearly, losing the RDW would make the LNER service worse (less frequent and/or less reliable). But would it go Avanti levels of bad? I suspect not (and I really hope it doesn't!)

Hopefully whatever industrial relations issue is the cause for this ballot to be held gets resolved before the results are in, so we won't find out in practice

 

[43066]

Didn't LNER recruit a lot of new drivers just before covid in advance of service expansions, while Avanti was not responding to the fact that an increasing number of their drivers was nearing retirement?

They did but no doubt will have been dogged with the same training delays as other TOCs. My operator hired a lot of new drivers pre pandemic yet is surviving on RDW, and we are still starting to see cancellations due to crew shortages.

Clearly, losing the RDW would make the LNER service worse (less frequent and/or less reliable). But would it go Avanti levels of bad? I suspect not (and I really hope it doesn't!)

I don’t know the precise answer to how it would compare to Avanti but “a lot worse than now” would seem the most likely outcome. I hope it doesn’t come to that too!

 

[Bald Rick]

I saw today that ASLEF are looking at balloting to remove the RDW agreement at LNER. Is this likely to lead to LNER turning into Avanti?

It’s formalising what is already happening in practise, plus adding in an overtime ban.

Probably because the staff are still working rest days!

except they’re not!

Are you sure it's not the normal (re)ballot for strike action with 2 options - action short of a strike, or strike?

No, it’s a new ballot. They were balloted last time only on strike action.

 

[43066]

except they’re not!

It seems we are about to find out whether this is correct or not….

Albeit let’s hope things are resolved before 27/11, the signs are good given recent developments…

 

[Bald Rick]

It seems we are about to find out whether this is correct or not….

Albeit let’s hope things are resolved before 27/11, the signs are good given recent developments…

Not sure what you mean. When 4 separate people in LNER have told me that drivers are not working rest days, and two of those are in the driving grade, I tend to believe them!

As you know, the ballot just announced is about overtime, not rest days. It’s one of those all too frequent examples of most drivers saying individually they don’t know what the dispute is about, and don’t want to take action, but then voting for that action

 

[43066]

Not sure what you mean. When 4 separate people in LNER have told me that drivers are not working rest days, and two of those are in the driving grade, I tend to believe them!

As you know, the ballot just announced is about overtime, not rest days. It’s one of those all too frequent examples of most drivers saying individually they don’t know what the dispute is about, and don’t want to take action, but then voting for that action

The ballot (from the press release) is specifically about non contractual overtime which = rest days.

Contractual (ie normal) overtime is baked into rostering, eg you’re rostered more than 35 hours in a particular week or finish work an hour late due to delays. It cannot be refused. Rest day working is entirely voluntary and non contractual. It seems a little insulting to suggest people don’t know the difference!

(Some might already have decided to stop working rest days off their own back, of course, which is perhaps what your contacts meant, but this is now an official union policy).

 

[_ollie_]

ASLEF have announced today that it has withdrawn non-contractual overtime from 27th November

'Flying on favours': ASLEF withdraws overtime on LNER | ASLEF

ASLEF announced today [Tuesday] that it has withdrawn all non-contractual overtime at LNER on the East Coast main line from Sunday 27 November.

aslef.org.uk

 

[Bald Rick]

The ballot (from the press release) is specifically about non contractual overtime which = rest days.

Contractual (ie normal) overtime is baked into rostering, eg you’re rostered more than 35 hours in a particular week or finish work an hour late due to delays. It cannot be refused. Rest day working is entirely voluntary and non contractual. It seems a little insulting to suggest people don’t know the difference!

(Some might already have decided to stop working rest days off their own back, of course, which is perhaps what your contacts meant, but this is now an official union policy).

I suppose I asked for that, sorry.

There is also non-contractual overtime in terms of extending an existing shift to cover extra work, though.

But yes, it is official policy now, rather than just everyone choosing to do it themselves anyway.