Northern's Problems in the North West

[Jimmy Foster]

Andy Burnham seems to be as good as repeating what I said nearly three days ago.

Yes, and it's as much a load of tosh whoever it comes from!

 

[Bovverboy]

Bovverboy said: ↑
Andy Burnham seems to be as good as repeating what I said nearly three days ago.

Yes, and it's as much a load of tosh whoever it comes from!

So how does your version go?

 

[muz379]

Explained simply...
The company I work for has enough drivers to cover all services. We also have a rest day working agreement. If the agreement ran out then there would still be enough drivers to cover all services. More leave would probably be knocked back but the service wouldn't suffer because there are enough drivers to cover the basic timetable.

At Northern there aren't enough drivers to cover the basic timetable without relying on rest day working. If any company is willing to rely on rest day working instead of employing enough staff in the first place then that frankly is the companies own fault. And yes it's the passengers that suffer.

In the interests of fairness though , does the company you work for have massive amounts of training that are currently required ?

The RDW agreement ended towards the end of February , however the number of cancellations has only spiked with the onset of some essential traction training for the timetable change and the BPN route learning for a large number of drivers on the west .

To some extent all TOC's will at some point need RDW because even with a full compliment of drivers there needs to be additional resources available to cover for training ,the alternative is to have an inordinate number of drivers sat around spare most the time just to cover for peaks in demand when there is training . And during this franchise there is going to be a heck of a lot of training . Not to mention some depots still have a training deficit from the previous franchise .

Of course with that in mind allowing the RDW agreement to lapse on the face of it does not seem like a good move , and it should certainly be a priority to negotiate a new one .But I dont think its strictly accurate to lambast Northern here for over reliance on RDW when on the face of it they appeared to be able to run a fairly reliable service without the added pressures of training , there certainly has been a prolonged period of recruitment of drivers since the franchise started

 

[nedchester]

At the risk of incurring the wrath of many on here, I'd have to say that it's good to see a clear, well-written, communication. I still don't understand why RDW can't be reinstated.

I did hear that when ASLEF met with Northern they wanted £100 for drivers to just sign on on a rest day; that's before whatever the hourly rate they were demanding.....

That said it's high time that the railway stopped relying on volunteers to operate services both during the week (Rest days) and Sundays. This practice harks back to the days when drivers (for example) were poorly paid and needed to do the overtime.

Sundays are a case in point as many TOCs are expanding their Sunday services to cater for demand. All TOCs need to ensure that Sundays are brought into the working week. Yes, they will have to employ more staff but that is what is needed rather than this ad-hoc arrangement we have now. No doubt the unions will have something to say but if I was management then why not employ new staff on a new contract that has Sundays in the working week. That's what happens in other industries.

 

[northernchris]

For the umpteenth time. The RDW agreement wasn't withdrawn, it finished and wasn't renewed.
The fact that drivers RDW is decided by the union is idiosyncratic to the railway. ASLEF have tried to prevent the industry being run on overtime. It harks back to the days of drivers working 13 days 12hrs a day to make a decent wage. It is also shown that drivers working every rest day are more prone to operational incidents. Complacency sets in. That's why they try if they can to restrict rdw towards training and recruitment

And no one can blame ASLEF for protecting their members. Whilst I agree RDW shouldn't be used as the norm to cover services, as previously mentioned this is a period where it really would have been useful for it to have been sanctioned as it would have minimised disruption whilst training took place. However, if industrial relations are poor it may not have a big impact (I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to help my employer if I weren't happy with them) so it's clearly a bigger issue than having no RDW agreement in place

Andy Burnham has no interest in this other than strengthening the position of Andy Burnham. He's exploiting the legitimate frustrations of Northern passengers with wilfully misleading letters like this, knowing full well how this will be reported by the media. Northern are being thrown under the bus here - there are far bigger issues that are creating this crisis

With Northern keeping very quiet about this it needs someone high profile to take up the issue. Northern cannot be allowed to continue operating at this level, and they have to accept some responsibility for the current issues. I've no doubt if another company was at the helm some problems would still exist, but Arriva really need to improve their communication and ensure what they do communicate is consistent.

 

[B&I]

So how does your version go?

And where does it come from?

 

[Robertj21a]

I did hear that when ASLEF met with Northern they wanted £100 for drivers to just sign on on a rest day; that's before whatever the hourly rate they were demanding.....

That said it's high time that the railway stopped relying on volunteers to operate services both during the week (Rest days) and Sundays. This practice harks back to the days when drivers (for example) were poorly paid and needed to do the overtime.

Sundays are a case in point as many TOCs are expanding their Sunday services to cater for demand. All TOCs need to ensure that Sundays are brought into the working week. Yes, they will have to employ more staff but that is what is needed rather than this ad-hoc arrangement we have now. No doubt the unions will have something to say but if I was management then why not employ new staff on a new contract that has Sundays in the working week. That's what happens in other industries.

I'm sure others are about to jump on you from a great height...........No doubt the unions will stop management introducing different contracts.

 

[B&I]

But there haven't been frequent cancellations (to the extent we've seen in the last couple of weeks) in the last three months, have there? Why would there be any need for an emergency timetable with only a small number of related cancellations? What's tipped this over the edge is clearly the Blackpool-Preston training - yes, there's an element of not being prepared for that, of course, but the timescales being changed as a result of the work overrunning has clearly had an impact

As other posters have pointed out, you need to look at why the RDW agreement wasn't renewed. It didn't just happen because "Northern management" felt like it




Andy Burnham has no interest in this other than strengthening the position of Andy Burnham. He's exploiting the legitimate frustrations of Northern passengers with wilfully misleading letters like this, knowing full well how this will be reported by the media. Northern are being thrown under the bus here - there are far bigger issues that are creating this crisis, and absolutely nothing can be resolved by dragging this into the open

Seriously, what's going to be your panacea? Nationalisation? A nationalised Northern still would have to deal with ASLEF, RMT and DCO, it still would have to deal with Pacers and Sprinters, it would still have to deal with Network Rail's poor work, and it would still have to deal with new timetables and TPE getting priority with their enhancements. Most importantly, it would still be controlled by the DfT

There's no magic wand solution here. If Burnham wants this problem to go away, then he should get TfGM to increase their subsidies to give us some resources to work with. But he won't, because that doesn't win votes

Amazing as it may seem to you, Burnham might be acting in what he perceives to be the interests of his constituents. The ones who are fainting on overcrowded trains, and losing their jobs due to persistent cancellations.

What bit of his letter is wilfully misleading ? There's a difference between something that's misleading and something you don't like because it.embarrasses you.

If the reason for the driver shortage is Balckpool training, would the shortage not just have happened earlier if NR had completed work on time ? And why weren't Northern monitoring the progress of the works and adjusting their olans accordingly ?

What was Northern management's brilliant justification for failing to renew the RDW agreement ? Your persistent references to 'we' and 'our' in the context of Northern Rail suggests you may have some inside knowledge. Or have you such touching faith in the people who run things in this country that you think they could not possivly make a capricious, self-interested, irrational or self-defeating decision ?

As it happens, I would suggest nationalisation for Northern (and most if not all of the rest of the railway). It might not solve the oroblems overnight, but at least we'd no longer be paying public subsidy to bolster the profits of a company which provides a fourth rate service in return for it

 

[nedchester]

I'm sure others are about to jump on you from a great height...........No doubt the unions will stop management introducing different contracts.

I expected that!

However, it is common in other (even high unionised) industries to introduce new contracts. In fact, the unions can do nothing about it as the new contracts would not be offered to their members they would be new entrants (ergo not members of ASLEF, RMT etc). Of course, if a current member want to move to a 'new' contract they could.

Incidentally, I am not anti-union, having been a union rep (in a non-railway position) for many years. I do now, however, work within the railway industry.

 

[B&I]

At the risk of incurring the wrath of many on here, I'd have to say that it's good to see a clear, well-written, communication. I still don't understand why RDW can't be reinstated.

Ask Northern's management

 

[furnessvale]

Ask Northern's management

If previous posts are true, they could well say an unwillingness to pay out £100 just for signing on!

 

[Robertj21a]

Ask Northern's management

I just thought someone on here might know ! - you know, a rail forum, with rail staff on it..........

 

[Robertj21a]

I expected that!

However, it is common in other (even high unionised) industries to introduce new contracts. In fact, the unions can do nothing about it as the new contracts would not be offered to their members they would be new entrants (ergo not members of ASLEF, RMT etc). Of course, if a current member want to move to a 'new' contract they could.

Incidentally, I am not anti-union, having been a union rep (in a non-railway position) for many years. I do now, however, work within the railway industry.

I'm sure I raised much the same point some time ago (probably re guards/OBS on Southern) and was duly attacked from all quarters ......

 

[B&I]

Ask Northern's management

Or if other previous posts are true, they are holding out on it generally to try to undermine ASLEF's position. Or maybe they just forgot.

Anyway, no-one told Northern to put itself over a barrell by depending on RDW. They could always just employ enough drivers, and create a more stable situation in general

 

[PR1Berske]

Anecdotal evidence is, of course, not to be given too much weight I know. HOWEVER, there I was waiting on Wigan Wallgate yesterday afternoon for a 5-ish-pm train to Southport. The previous Kirkby train was cancelled, the Southport train delayed, the subsequent Southport train delayed. I walked the length of the platform to kick my heels. One little grouplet of people were vocally mumbling against Northern. So were another little grouplet. And another. A pair of women in office garb near the waiting room were more than just a little vocal ("I think they're doing this deliberately to lose their franchise." "It's gone worse and worse, I can't get to work or go back home on time.")

At Southport I got talking to a Merseyrail employee. He wasn't best pleased with Northern either ("They don't phone us to say they'll be late, or anything like that, they just get later and later and we don't know anything.").

This is just a snapshot, I know, and not representative. But when an entire platform is a vocal chorus against Northern, and another company's employee doesn't mind having a dig, it does sit with you, it does rest on the mind.

 

[driver_m]

That £100 thing reading there about working a rest day, maybe that could be because other companies are already doing that with their staff. As I've said many a time, create an internal market for a valuable commodity and this is what happens.

An interesting point on another forum has been made which I am not going to repeat on here as it may get this forum in legal trouble repeating it. I would suggest in particular that the people keen to blame the unions, Andy Burnham, or downplaying management screw ups read it. As I have heard this same allegation from several staff .

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

Amazing as it may seem to you, Burnham might be acting in what he perceives to be the interests of his constituents. The ones who are fainting on overcrowded trains, and losing their jobs due to persistent cancellations.

What bit of his letter is wilfully misleading ? There's a difference between something that's misleading and something you don't like because it.embarrasses you.

If the reason for the driver shortage is Balckpool training, would the shortage not just have happened earlier if NR had completed work on time ? And why weren't Northern monitoring the progress of the works and adjusting their olans accordingly ?

What was Northern management's brilliant justification for failing to renew the RDW agreement ? Your persistent references to 'we' and 'our' in the context of Northern Rail suggests you may have some inside knowledge. Or have you such touching faith in the people who run things in this country that you think they could not possivly make a capricious, self-interested, irrational or self-defeating decision ?

As it happens, I would suggest nationalisation for Northern (and most if not all of the rest of the railway). It might not solve the oroblems overnight, but at least we'd no longer be paying public subsidy to bolster the profits of a company which provides a fourth rate service in return for it

Based on everything he has said and done so far, Burnham's interests only incidentally align with his constituents. He's not acting in their interests out of the kindness of his heart. He's a cynical opportunist, as he has shown throughout his career

His letter is wilfully misleading because he is inferring there are planned cancellations when there clearly aren't. The email he quotes is likely to be an email showing which turns on the roster are currently uncovered. This doesn't mean they are going to be cancelled - indeed, he admits that a third of them weren't cancelled in the end anyway. His appraisal of the RDW situation was also incredibly one-sided. But the problem isn't just the letter itself. This letter is now going to be reported by the media, and they will base their reporting off this skewed version of events - take a look at the BBC's reporting of it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-44174565. As you can see from our statement in that article, we are communicating that we negotiated with ASLEF but weren't able to reach an agreement

I don't know much about the training but the impression I get is that it is having to be condensed into a much shorter time period, so therefore it wouldn't have had as much of an effect if the work hadn't overrun. There's also lots of other training going on on different parts of the network - Barrow drivers are learning 158s, Leeds drivers are learning 170s, and so on. There's just a lot of this all going on at the same time, which makes me wonder if that was a wise decision way back in the franchise agreement to do all of this at the same time

Yes, I work for Northern - I've been fairly open about that on this forum, but obviously these are my views and not the company's. The justification for not renewing the RDW agreement was a failure to reach agreement with ASLEF. Other posters here seem to have more knowledge about what that entailed, but it doesn't surprise me at all that ASLEF made large demands. ASLEF are clever enough to realise that Northern need them on side over DCO and so can't afford a dispute. All of these things are connected in their own way, which is why I keep saying you can't just view them in isolation

You'll note I've never once said whether or not I think "Northern management" are doing a good or bad job - the honest answer is I have absolutely no idea. All I've said is that 1) this situation's a lot more complex than some posters here are making out and no single organisation is solely to blame, 2) "Northern management" largely have their hands tied and there's very little they can realistically do to resolve this in the immediate term, and 3) politicians and the media are not helping by misrepresenting this to the public and essentially rounding on Northern, creating a hostile atmosphere where staff members are concerned with their safety

And I'm broadly in favour of some form of nationalisation or concession model in the long term as well, but until then Northern should be allowed to see out its franchise. It doesn't serve anyone's interests to go changing things again, unless Arriva decide off their own back to hand in the keys

 

[driver_m]

How can you criticise Andy Burnham for doing what he's elected to do? It's not his mess but he is responsible for making sure transport works so why wouldn't he try and do something about it?

 

[Bletchleyite]

How can you criticise Andy Burnham for doing what he's elected to do? It's not his mess but he is responsible for making sure transport works so why wouldn't he try and do something about it?

Quite.

The organisation deserving of criticism - very strong criticism - are Northern (and by extension Arriva), who by all accounts have made a rather incompetent mess of things, and don't even seem to be going as far as a proper apology, let alone outlining steps and timescales to fix the issue.

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

How can you criticise Andy Burnham for doing what he's elected to do? It's not his mess but he is responsible for making sure transport works so why wouldn't he try and do something about it?

Because he's wading into an area where he clearly has no idea what he's talking about and very limited power to do anything about, and he's helping stoke up this hostile atmosphere where staff members, who have absolutely nothing to do with this situation, are now concerned for their safety at work

 

[Bertie the bus]

Based on everything he has said and done so far, Burnham's interests only incidentally align with his constituents. He's not acting in their interests out of the kindness of his heart. He's a cynical opportunist, as he has shown throughout his career

His letter is wilfully misleading because he is inferring there are planned cancellations when there clearly aren't.

Of course there are planned cancellations. Do you think we are idiots?

To give a recent example, I was waiting at Lancaster on Thursday for the 19:03 – Preston. Until 18:57 it showed as on time, then there was an auto announcement for a platform alteration to a north facing bay! A couple of minutes later there was a manual announcement that the train was cancelled. When I asked why I was told it had to go to Millom. RTT shows it as a planning error.

Do you really expect us to believe Northern didn’t know the train was going to be cancelled at Lancaster until it was crossing the River Lune?

 

[northwichcat]

So Northern are effectively saying expect delays and cancellations to services next week.

The company said there would be an extra 1,300 services added to the network.

Northern's train planners said their efforts were hampered by an electrification delay on parts of the routes "leaving less than four months to fully re-plan our May 2018 timetable, less than half the normal time required".

A spokesman said: "This is a significant operational challenge, and given the late nature of the planning for this, we do expect some localised service disruption, which could happen at very short notice while the new timetable beds in.

"We will continue to do everything we can to ensure we minimise any service disruption and keep customers informed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-44174565

 

[northwichcat]

Because he's wading into an area where he clearly has no idea what he's talking about and very limited power to do anything about, and he's helping stoke up this hostile atmosphere where staff members, who have absolutely nothing to do with this situation, are now concerned for their safety at work

As metro mayor he sits above the local councils for Greater Manchester, the local councils across the north are collectively partly responsible for the franchise and DfT is also partly responsible for the franchise. Note initially he directed his questions at Northern, when they failed to give adequate responses he directed them at TfN and now DfT.

 

[Robertj21a]

So Northern are effectively saying expect delays and cancellations to services next week.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-44174565

At least they've warned the general travelling public in advance - and tried to explain some of the reasons.

 

[Bertie the bus]

At least nothing. If they put out prior notifications of which services might/will be affected then people can plan around it. Just saying there will be some disruption without giving any specifics helps nobody.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because he's wading into an area where he clearly has no idea what he's talking about and very limited power to do anything about, and he's helping stoke up this hostile atmosphere where staff members, who have absolutely nothing to do with this situation, are now concerned for their safety at work

That is Northern/Arriva's fault and nobody else's.

What do you expect him to say? That a high quality service is operating and people are being unreasonable by expecting TOCs not to issue vast swathes of seemingly random cancellations?

 

[B&I]

Based on everything he has said and done so far, Burnham's interests only incidentally align with his constituents. He's not acting in their interests out of the kindness of his heart. He's a cynical opportunist, as he has shown throughout his career

His letter is wilfully misleading because he is inferring there are planned cancellations when there clearly aren't. The email he quotes is likely to be an email showing which turns on the roster are currently uncovered. This doesn't mean they are going to be cancelled - indeed, he admits that a third of them weren't cancelled in the end anyway. His appraisal of the RDW situation was also incredibly one-sided. But the problem isn't just the letter itself. This letter is now going to be reported by the media, and they will base their reporting off this skewed version of events - take a look at the BBC's reporting of it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-44174565. As you can see from our statement in that article, we are communicating that we negotiated with ASLEF but weren't able to reach an agreement

What he was pointing out is that Northern knew about cancellations in advance but did not inform anyone, as the e-mail shows. Some of the journeys which were not covered may have ended up being covered, but that does not mean that Northern did not know in advance that there would be others which were not covered. What else did he say that was not correct ?

I don't know much about the training but the impression I get is that it is having to be condensed into a much shorter time period, so therefore it wouldn't have had as much of an effect if the work hadn't overrun. There's also lots of other training going on on different parts of the network - Barrow drivers are learning 158s, Leeds drivers are learning 170s, and so on. There's just a lot of this all going on at the same time, which makes me wonder if that was a wise decision way back in the franchise agreement to do all of this at the same time

So, now the roots of the problems go back to the franchise, do they ? Should have given you plenty of warning of the need to recruit enough drivers to cover your services.

Yes, I work for Northern - I've been fairly open about that on this forum, but obviously these are my views and not the company's. The justification for not renewing the RDW agreement was a failure to reach agreement with ASLEF. Other posters here seem to have more knowledge about what that entailed, but it doesn't surprise me at all that ASLEF made large demands. ASLEF are clever enough to realise that Northern need them on side over DCO and so can't afford a dispute. All of these things are connected in their own way, which is why I keep saying you can't just view them in isolation

You'll note I've never once said whether or not I think "Northern management" are doing a good or bad job - the honest answer is I have absolutely no idea. All I've said is that 1) this situation's a lot more complex than some posters here are making out and no single organisation is solely to blame, 2) "Northern management" largely have their hands tied and there's very little they can realistically do to resolve this in the immediate term, and 3) politicians and the media are not helping by misrepresenting this to the public and essentially rounding on Northern, creating a hostile atmosphere where staff members are concerned with their safety

And I'm broadly in favour of some form of nationalisation or concession model in the long term as well, but until then Northern should be allowed to see out its franchise. It doesn't serve anyone's interests to go changing things again, unless Arriva decide off their own back to hand in the keys

So you're as much in the dark as the rest of us about the cause of this mess, but have a different set of speculative explanations ? I see

 

[B&I]

Because he's wading into an area where he clearly has no idea what he's talking about and very limited power to do anything about, and he's helping stoke up this hostile atmosphere where staff members, who have absolutely nothing to do with this situation, are now concerned for their safety at work

Now we are entering the realms of the ludicrous. By extension of this argument, no public or private sector body could ever be criticised, in case some meathead decided to take it out on that body's staff

 

[B&I]

As metro mayor he sits above the local councils for Greater Manchester, the local councils across the north are collectively partly responsible for the franchise and DfT is also partly responsible for the franchise. Note initially he directed his questions at Northern, when they failed to give adequate responses he directed them at TfN and now DfT.

Rather undermining the criticisms of some on here that he is unfairly targeting Northern, rather than other parties responsible for this mess

 

[Bertie the bus]

Rather undermining the criticisms of some on here that he is unfairly targeting Northern, rather than other parties responsible for this mess

I think you've misread what Andy Burnham is doing. Northern are responsible for the mess and Andy Burnham is saying that. He isn't targetting TfN or the DfT but prompting them to take some action to ensure Northern sort out their mess because Northern have made it clear they're not going to and are only interested in trying to blame Network Rail.