London Midland disruption

[Mojo]

Hidden away on a hard to find page of the London Midland website is this relating to forthcoming disruption: http://www.londonmidland.com/your-journey/potential-disruption-to-services/.

National Rail has more information on services likely to be affected: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/today.html

 

[BrummyBoy]

thanks for the link, didnt know they were planning on striking

 

[Failed Unit]

They are not - they are choosing not to do overtime. Big difference

 

[BrummyBoy]

true but both affect the passengers

 

[Failed Unit]

true but both affect the passengers

I know - it is just like have Central trains back again

 

[westcoaster]

We have seen this all before, surely they should employ enough drivers and not rely on voluntary overtime.

 

[alexdodds]

Is this all to do with pay or is it something completely different.

 

[TDK]

Is this all to do with pay or is it something completely different.

Completely different - You will need to look at the ASLEF response to this statement, tbh if a driver does not wish to work overtime obviously LM are not employing enough drivers to cover the work taking into account sickness and annual leave so the company can only be to blame for this one in my opinion

 

[wintonian]

I don't think this is cricket, after all it is with in there control:

Delay Repay
Although we're not obliged to offer Delay Repay where we are running special timetables, we don’t think that would be fair on this occasion, so if your journey is delayed by 30 minutes or more, you’ll be compensated as normal.

 

[causton]

At least they're nice and will honour the Delay Repay!
... First Capital Connect would never do that.

 

[TomJ93]

Will I be able to buy a super off peak and use it on VT again? :P

 

[London_Midland]

Hello all,

Interesting debate, although to be clear, every public transport company relies on overtime to an extent, it's just that many don't have an 'agreement' with the Union - drivers have the right to choose whether to work or not. We are not short of drivers, but there are times when more people want holidays, when sickness is higher, and when additional training needs to be done. In these cases, you may need a duty (or part of a duty) covering; it simply wouldn't make sense to employ lots of full time staff for this (today we only have c.25 services affected out of 1300 across the network for example).

However, more importantly, drivers should have the choice whether to volunteer or not and ASLEF's refusal to renew the agreement means that drivers feel that they no longer have the choice. We didn't have any difficulty with drivers volunteering before today; indeed, many work overtime on a regular basis and will be several hundred pounds worse off every month as a result.

Incidentally, the information was only 'hidden' to allow us time to finish updating the full details. It's now much more visible on the home page, via londonmidland.com/cancellations, and has been emailed to all subscribers of our JourneyCheck Alerts system.

Hope that helps!

David

 

[flymo]

Interesting debate, although to be clear, every public transport company relies on overtime to an extent, it's just that many don't have an 'agreement' with the Union - drivers have the right to choose whether to work or not. We are not short of drivers, but there are times when more people want holidays, when sickness is higher, and when additional training needs to be done. In these cases, you may need a duty (or part of a duty) covering; it simply wouldn't make sense to employ lots of full time staff for this (today we only have c.25 services affected out of 1300 across the network for example).

However, more importantly, drivers should have the choice whether to volunteer or not and ASLEF's refusal to renew the agreement means that drivers feel that they no longer have the choice. We didn't have any difficulty with drivers volunteering before today; indeed, many work overtime on a regular basis and will be several hundred pounds worse off every month as a result.

[....]

David

Thanks first of all for coming back and putting the LM point across.

There seems to be two completely irreconcilable views here with the passenger in the middle. This situation has occurred before and no doubt will occur again, the main loser in all of this is the passenger who has no train service.

Things have to change - on both sides. There has to be a long term solution to this.

 

[Greenback]

Ah, the nasty old union is preventing drivers from earning as much money as they want? well that's an interesting way of looking at it!

Of course drivers have a choice about whether they volunteer or not, and they are exercising that choice by NOT volunteering. Those that do want to work overtime still can, either by not being a member of the union or by ignoring the policy of that union.

 

[Geezertronic]

Hello all...

....

Hope that helps!

David

Hi David, apologies if you have answered this previously but what position do you hold within London Midland?

 

[DavidSmith]

Hi David, apologies if you have answered this previously but what position do you hold within London Midland?

Profile says head of marketing.

 

[First class]

I do think it is quite commendable that somebody in this particular grade is reaching out to customers and enthusiasts in this manner. He's on to something though- he is able to find "feedback" from a variety of viewpoints and feed this through to any of his projects, whilst at the same time attempting to positively improve the image of London Midland by explaining things from "the inside".

 

[wintonian]

I do wish more TOC's would have representatives in a similar manner, a good variety might be; Virgin, FGW, Scotrail and SWT for example.

We get an opportunity to ask them questions and they get to put their point of view across, all quite amicable I think.

 

[TomJ93]

The people who run VTs twitter are very helpful and friendly. I wish Arriva Cross Country had some form of easy communication, they don't have their own stations, twitter orang representatives (apart from at new street)

 

[Old Hill Bank]

Hello all,

Interesting debate, although to be clear, every public transport company relies on overtime to an extent, it's just that many don't have an 'agreement' with the Union - drivers have the right to choose whether to work or not. We are not short of drivers, but there are times when more people want holidays, when sickness is higher, and when additional training needs to be done. In these cases, you may need a duty (or part of a duty) covering; it simply wouldn't make sense to employ lots of full time staff for this (today we only have c.25 services affected out of 1300 across the network for example).

However, more importantly, drivers should have the choice whether to volunteer or not and ASLEF's refusal to renew the agreement means that drivers feel that they no longer have the choice. We didn't have any difficulty with drivers volunteering before today; indeed, many work overtime on a regular basis and will be several hundred pounds worse off every month as a result.

Incidentally, the information was only 'hidden' to allow us time to finish updating the full details. It's now much more visible on the home page, via londonmidland.com/cancellations, and has been emailed to all subscribers of our JourneyCheck Alerts system.

Hope that helps!

David

London Midlands problems extend much further than the above, this evenings performance on the Snow Hill lines is a fine example:

1733 Snow Hill-Worcester fails at The Hawthorns, after a while the conductor announces there is a fault with the train.

Later the conductor comes through the train saying the train in front has failed and we will be delayed, after questioning no it's not the train in front it's the front unit of our train.

Then we are told to get off "it's cancelled", we stand on the cold platform for ages looking at a nice warm train then are told to go back to Snow Hill for a solution to our journey home, back to Snow Hill "get on a local bus" No help for passengers for Kidderminster or in one case Hartlebury!!!!

Conclusion:

LM can not or will not maintain class 150s

LM can not or will not sort out their industrial relations situation

LM are hopeless at solving an operating problem on the hoof

LM staff are not empowered to to solve any of the above to the satisfaction of the passenger as every decision on the ground has to be passed back up to the ivory tower

More details of this shambles later if required, now having my evening meal three hours late, that only thanks to a lift home.

but i'm not bitter!!!!

 

[DavidSmith]

1733 Snow Hill-Worcester fails at The Hawthorns, after a while the conductor announces there is a fault with the train.

Later the conductor comes through the train saying the train in front has failed and we will be delayed, after questioning no it's not the train in front it's the front unit of our train.

that sounds like a simple misunderstanding with the guard trying to simplify things. (Though, obviously you were there not me)

LM can not or will not maintain class 150s

I can say thats definitely not true. I would say its more that those 150s just wont stay fixed.

LM staff are not empowered to to solve any of the above to the satisfaction of the passenger as every decision on the ground has to be passed back up to the ivory tower

That is true. I will admit its frustrating to be serving customers from a straight jacket.

More details of this shambles later if required, now having my evening meal three hours late, that only thanks to a lift home.

Sounds like its been a really bad day. I'm sorry you have had this headache, I hope your dinner is not too cold

 

[Old Hill Bank]

that sounds like a simple misunderstanding with the guard trying to simplify things. (Though, obviously you were there not me)



I can say thats definitely not true. I would say its more that those 150s just wont stay fixed.



That is true. I will admit its frustrating to be serving customers from a straight jacket.



Sounds like its been a really bad day. I'm sorry you have had this headache, I hope your dinner is not too cold

"Wont stay fixed"!!!

Head of Marketing lol, head of bovine excrement more like

 

[DavidSmith]

"Wont stay fixed"!!!

Head of Marketing lol, head of bovine excrement more like

??? Look again. I think you are confusing me for someone else.

I do NOT represent LM with my views, only my personal opinion. And yes actually, In my personal opinion LM DO maintain the 150s, and they still break down ridiculously often. So there you go.

Edit. Actually It seems its not possible (at least for me) to tread the line between employee and forum member. So I think Ill quit whilst I still have a job, made up name or not.

 

[Old Hill Bank]

??? Look again. I think you are confusing me for someone else.

I do NOT represent LM with my views, only my personal opinion. And yes actually, In my personal opinion LM DO maintain the 150s, and they still break down ridiculously often. So there you go.

Edit. Actually It seems its not possible (at least for me) to tread the line between employee and forum member. So I think Ill quit whilst I still have a job, made up name or not.

Sorry David, bet your just as frustrated as us passengers!

 

[Mojo]

I think that comment is very unfair! What do you want the staff on the ground to do? Trains and infrastructure break down and the service can't get running straight away. Given that the local train services in the West Midlands area are fairly reliable (most seem to be 2-3 Mins late but very rarely worse than that) I think London Midland are doing a very good job.

Unfortunately from time to time things do happen and you have to find a way around it. Train services operated by Chiltern Railways were running from Birmingham New Street and there was a 22.00 train to Kidderminster.

You could try travelling by omnibuses operated by National Express West Midlands where late/early or non-existant buses are a very frequent occurrence, or in other places where when the train service fails there is not ticket acceptance on local omnibus services.

 

[Old Hill Bank]

I think that comment is very unfair! What do you want the staff on the ground to do? Trains and infrastructure break down and the service can't get running straight away. Given that the local train services in the West Midlands area are fairly reliable (most seem to be 2-3 Mins late but very rarely worse than that) I think London Midland are doing a very good job.

Unfortunately from time to time things do happen and you have to find a way around it. Train services operated by Chiltern Railways were running from Birmingham New Street and there was a 22.00 train to Kidderminster.

You could try travelling by omnibuses operated by National Express West Midlands where late/early or non-existant buses are a very frequent occurrence, or in other places where when the train service fails there is not ticket acceptance on local omnibus services.

LM gave up!

I went to new street for the 1949 to droitwich via bromsgrove, at 1946 a pair of 150s stopped briefly in the adjacent platform (empty, lights off but crewed).

Imagine my frustration having been told that it would not be possible to re-route Kidderminster services via New Street because of a shortfall in route knowledge when the signal cleared for that ECS with the "S" route description i.e. off down the stour valley to galton junction and turn left for the Kidderminster line.

Got on the 1949 to hear announced we were waiting for a driver to come over from Snow Hill!!!!

No issue with the staff on the ground, in fact most seem to be very good but they can only be as good as the system above allows them to be.

LM gave up Chiltern did something.

 

[the sniper]

You could try travelling by omnibuses operated by National Express West Midlands where late/early or non-existant buses are a very frequent occurrence, or in other places where when the train service fails there is not ticket acceptance on local omnibus services.

I've had 'the pleasure' of travelling by National Express West Mids a few times recently, having previously not been on a bus since the mid-90's. I've yet to catch one which hasn't arrived over 10+ minutes late (there is a timetable, apparently), and the '15 minute interval' on the route I use is more like one bus every 25 minutes... This morning was the first time that I've ever had the opportunity to try out a morning peak service. My god, railway commuters have it so easy! I wasn't going to the end of the line, so making my way to the door through the crowd, while enduring a rodeo style ride as Colin McRae up front seemingly gave the thing a handful of opposite lock around the corners, was rather fun!

To top it off, this inferior method of transport is more expensive then an equivalent train journey! Thus, I'll stick with my 20 minute walk to the station when I need to go into the city centre, instead of catching the bus two minutes from my house. The walk and train option is unbelievable both quicker and cheaper then the bus (I thought the train would loose out here, on both counts), alongside the benefits of the train being more comfortable, clean, friendly (staff wise), devoid of smells (do all buses smell of BO or weed?) and playing host to much less awful music being blasted out of some dope's phone...

Rant over. I blame Mojo for brining up the subject!

 

[London_Midland]

Thanks for all your comments.

Appreciate that people were very frustrated tonight. I tried my best to update the website and communicate all the information I could get from Control via Twitter. I'm not a great fan of Twitter for personal use, but it's a fantastic way to communicate during disruption (Snow, leaves, failures, points, etc)

The train had a seized axle, so had to wait for a wheel skate from Crewe; that was the main problem.

We had a number of trains trapped in Birmingham and tried our best to get them south to provide a half-decent Rowley to Worcester shuttle. We wanted to run from New Street, but unfortunately it was a lack of conductor route knowledge that scuppered that idea, which is why some of you will have seen the 150s go through New St ECS. Incredibly frustrating, although obviously down to us for not having enough conductor route knowledge.

The one key area of concern for me is the apparent lack of information at some stations, such as Stourbridge Junction. We'll look into that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, going back to the original subject of traincrew overtime, the issue we have is that there is an 'overtime agreement'. Nearly all train and bus companies rely on overtime, but it's up to the staff to decide whether they work or not, not the union. Before the removal of 'the agreement' we didn't have a problem covering our overtime requirements, so we have enough people willing to earn extra money. Unfortunately the union has suggested to their members that they are not allowed to work overtime without the agreement, which is why we are warning people of cancellations until the issue is resolved.

On a positive note, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are all expected to be cancellation-free without the need for overtime, which goes some way to proving that we have enough drivers normally, just not when we are releasing lots of them for training and holidays...

All the best,

David.

 

[embers25]

A VERY straightforward and honest response from London Midland and also from David Smith. Whilst not all may agree with either of their posts surely it's admirable that at least they brave the backlash and post their reasons for issues in an honest and open way on here unilke other operators. No operator is perfect but I for one appreciate their posts and hope that David Smith doesn't leave as posts from the "inside" are always intesting. I know I have had my disagreements with SWT Driver but his I still find his posts useful and informative.

 

[the sniper]

Thanks for the insightful post David.