It’s happening elsewhere. No reason it can’t happen here.
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Rail Industry Recovery Group
- Thread starter Nicholas Lewis
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It’s happening elsewhere. No reason it can’t happen here.
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That’s an interesting one. As someone who was commuting daily into Waterloo, the current timetable (which is reduced from during the earlier part of the pandemic) takes out my regular train home. Now, that gives me a 2hr door-to-door journey home which makes me less likely to want to travel in future. Need to be very, very careful as to what gets cut.
jettofab
Member
I realise this isn't a ground breaking statement and I'm merely repeating what has already been said many times on the forum but one thing that is perhaps more nuanced than is first readily apparent, is that surely cutting a service doesn't have an isolated effect? So removing the 16XX service from A coastal town to B bigger city might do more than displace those passengers onto other retained services; it might stop them travelling altogether. Perhaps I'm over estimating the impact but it looks like an extremely delicate set of decisions. Plus of course, rail services as profit making enterprises vs essential infrastructure in rural areas is going to be a tough one to navigate.
O L Leigh
Established Member
This thread is becoming highly speculative, as it just gives an excuse to rehash any number of pet theories regarding rail operations and staffing. RIRG is, if my understanding is correct, no more than a talking shop intended to spitball and thrash ideas back and forth across the table. That one thing or another may be under consideration or seem likely to us to be a sensible way forward does not mean that the RIRG will agree with us nor that the DfT will take those ideas forward.
Quite clearly there is an imperative to look at the railways and how they are run and funded (although God alone knows why it's taken a pandemic to focus the minds of the Government on it when it should have been done ages ago). It's going to be a balancing act for sure, working out how to make rail travel attractive again in order to tempt people back onto the trains, and quite possibly it will happen anyway once the final restrictions and guidance relating to the spread of Covid-19 are rescinded.
Quite clearly there is an imperative to look at the railways and how they are run and funded (although God alone knows why it's taken a pandemic to focus the minds of the Government on it when it should have been done ages ago). It's going to be a balancing act for sure, working out how to make rail travel attractive again in order to tempt people back onto the trains, and quite possibly it will happen anyway once the final restrictions and guidance relating to the spread of Covid-19 are rescinded.
You're absolutely correct. Cuts in timetables which already have services of hourly or less, are likely to have a particularly damaging effect on connectivity.
What he said.
Agreed
Some of their press releases are so extreme they almost seem to stray into parody. I’m honestly not sure whether it’s ideology (probably) or part of a strategy.
They do seem to be pretty effective at what they do, albeit I’m concerned they’re going to overreach themselves this time. Take this latest statment of intent to resist the cuts, for example. That’s not so different to what other TUs are saying, yet seems to be generating a lot more heat!
The overwhelming majority of RMT members I’ve spoken to would agree with most if not all of that. Many also cringe at the press releases! I think the point isn’t made enough that most railstaff are not tub-thumping, hard left firebrands. Exactly the same with ASLEF, although they tend to keep a lower profile.
The industry has changed (partly as a result of the Ts and Cs and good pay) and now attracts people from a wide range of backgrounds who aren’t traditional trade union supporters (I’m one of them). To be fair you do see a different side to unions from the inside - there’s a great deal of work done by both rail unions in terms of rostering, pastoral care etc.
We only ever hear about the disputes in the press, which are a tiny part of the overall picture.
You may inadvertenly have hit upon why the unions would support renationalising: if pay drops (or freezes) as it inevitably would, this would tend to increase support for the union. When people are well paid and have a good life they tend to view unions as less of a necessity. Interesting thought anyway.
That's an impressive piece of mental gymnastics right there.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Not to mention the extra Liverpool services planned to be operated by 807s next year...
Birmingham-Wolves is interesting because it did not get any WCRM upgrades, and it mixes IC, regional and local services.
You probably wouldn't cut Avanti, XC or TfW, so that leaves WMT's stoppers, the Liverpools and Crewe via Stoke.
I guess one/two of the WMT regionals will become the stoppers.
It's also a route crying out for bi-modes, but there are no plans for it.
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whoosh
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At least 99% of staff I work with are of your mindset.
Agreed.
In an ideal world, rail staff would get substantial payrises every year, passenger's fares would reduce or at the worst not be put up, and the taxpayer would be delighted with paying for an efficiently run system where everyone is happy.
But we don't live in an ideal world, nor will we ever.
There's optimism, even naïve optimism, but insane idealism is where they seem to fall into quite often with regard to Nationalisation.
I don't buy that at all - the unions that represent rail workers have a very high proportion of those workers as members. There aren't many non-members to try and gain - especially amongst frontline staff. Certainly compared to any other industry the proportion of members to non-members is very high indeed.
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the sniper
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Not quite true - Wolverhampton gained Platform 4 in 2004, and Tipton Level Crossing closed (replaced with an underpass) in about 2008.
The "safer" thing to do is have more splitting of services.
As an example from SWR, the running of the Basingstoke Stoppers and the Alton services as one train to Woking and then splitting to go to both ends points from there.
If the timings are done well then there's a short gap between staff arriving and them then departing on their next country bound service.
This then saves money but doesn't change frequencies, so the passengers don't lose out on their ability to get about.
Other options could include adding stops, which has the impact of slowing down services, however if it reduces the need for services could be useful.
For instance, if the fast services which call Fleet and Farnborough were to see Hook and Winchfield added but then there was the loss of one of the Basingstoke Stoppers the frequency would be retained at the cost of +6 minutes for longer distance passengers.
It may require a timetable recast to try and more evenly balance frequencies (with the "loss" of stops vs the Basingstoke Stoppers inwards of Woking it would mean a faster journey time to Waterloo on some services compared to others).
Other things to consider elsewhere maybe the use of more "branch line" services. As an example rather than 2tph with 2 coaches on each from city A to towns B,C,D,E and F, there's a change 4tph with 6 coaches along a core with others feeding in to it still at 2tph (or better still at 3tph). Again this could use the above model where trains split and join to reduce the loss of direct services.
The shorter feeder services don't have to run the full length so each one saves costs compared to when they ran previously and whilst you'd need more rolling stock overall you probably reduce your staff costs enough to cover that. However with that extra capacity comes extra income (as the train is now nicer to use as you're not getting squeezed into small train). Yes you run the risk of losing some as you've got to change, however often the issue there is the "if I miss the 08:12 I've got to wait 30 minutes (or longer) for the next service" complaint, well if for broadly the same cost you can increase the branch line frequency that becomes less of an issue.
However if that branch line has passenger numbers of (say) 2 million, is it really going to make all that much difference if the fall in that line is 17% compared to 12% if the direct services were retained.
You also have to add to the calculation the reduction in the risk of delays as there's fewer trains at the critical pinch points, which is likely to mean that fewer people miss the connecting service.
Obviously such suggestions wouldn't work everywhere, and there's likely to be other suggestions which could be added to the mix to ensure that the menu of options provided a good overall balance.
The one thing that I would say is that I'm not convinced that rail use will be all that much lower than pre pandemic levels once we get past September (or wherever 6 weeks after "Freedom Day" is.
Yes it will be down, maybe by about 25%, however for commuting and other business travel (about 65% of travel) to impact it by that much would require it to two by a little over 35%. That would be nearly the same as everyone who commutes reducing to a 3 day working week.
Whilst many will do that, there's still going to bea lot of people who still need to go to work just as much as before.
Now whilst this would still be 50% more than we are currently seeing, it's got to be remembered that we're still seeing lots and lots of companies still with significant numbers of staff 100% WFH.
As an example one person I know had only been to their office for 3 days in the last 15 months and that was all done on three consecutive days about 2 weeks ago.
Another I know who reports 25% of staff being in at all with the other 75% still mostly (read over 90% of the time) or entirely working from home.
It wouldn't take many working in the office some of the time to see passenger numbers rise from the circa 50% that we are currently seeing.
Then there's the possibility (and whilst the numbers may be small overall, the impact could reduce the falls a little) that some do more travel by rail.
As an example a couple who WFH 2 days a week, they previously both drove, now they get rid of one of their cars and one of them uses the train one day a week. They would save over £1,000 a year from not having that car but if it was costing them £20 a week or less in train tickets it would likely still save money.
However a £20 return gets you a reasonable distance by rail (Woking to Waterloo isn't much more than that for a peak hour return), and so the saving could be noticeable.
Yes they would be saving a lot in fuel costs anyway, however they may wish to live in a bigger house if they are working there a lot of the time.
However even if they WFH 3 days a week and don't use rail weekly, it's likely that they could need to make some infrequent travel by rail and so add to the revenue of the railways. For instance, if they have family where they could go and stay they could work from there leaving 1 parent there for a few days whilst the other gets the train back home to go to the office and then they swap over but the one at their family's house has the car to be able to get their kids about.
The other thing to consider is that those who used to work 5 days a week may travel more working 3 days a week. For example why live in Wimbledon, when you could live in Winchester and yes it'll take longer to get to/from work when you do in, but then you'd save that in the days you don't. If you've got children if you can put them to bed 4 or 5 days a week then it's less of an issue that you miss that the other 2 or 3 days. Especially given that by the time they are (say) 6 they can stay up late enough on those 2 or 3 evenings that you can do so 7 days a week (especially if those later evening finishes can be done on the train/after the children's bed times as remote working is possible).
Add to that the cheapest per journey cost is likely to be 5 days a week commuting, whilst there's likely to be some savings by going to 3 days a week, it's not going to be 40% off your rail travel. It may only be 20% off (although other savings may also come into play, like saving 4 takeaway coffee's a week).
As such whilst passenger numbers may see a fall of 40%, 25%, 15%, 5% (take your pick, and whilst 5% is unlikely equally so is 40%) revenue may not fall by as much.
As an example 15% fall in revenue, but the trains carrying 20% fewer passengers, makes running those extra peak hour services not needed in capacity terms but in turn few other cost savings would likely be needed.
The other thing to consider is that a 20% fall in passengers is likely to take us back to circa 2014 in terms of passenger numbers, at the time there was no large scale calls for cuts in services (quite the opposite).
Now whilst a greater burden of passenger falls is likely from commuters in London and the South East, there was a significant number of non commuter travel in that area too (it wasn't uncommon to get on a train during the day where there weren't many spate seats and not just at Waterloo or other stations within the M25).
Yes but I think service cuts are likely not to be about connectivity. Instead of 4tph (at weird non-clock face times and non-standard calling patterns) of 12-cars from Suburb A to terminal B, it might be more feasible to have 3tph of 8-cars.
Yes, that would be the sensible way to rationalise. The fear is though that it wouldn't be enough to meet the demands of the treasury.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Indeed. The south WCML commuter morning and evening peak service is presently not clockface because you need to cram in as many trains as possible, but off peak it is. If demand reduces, you could operate the same thing* all day but with a few peak extensions from 8 to 12-car - i.e. near enough basically the Saturday service. Much simpler and far fewer units and crews needed peak only.
* Basically the Crewe, 3 Brums, MKC semifast, two Tring stoppers and the Southern.
Well that's true. Obviously only a select few would be able to work out what the best margins are on each trai (taking into account the whole cost). Almost certainly not even an exact science. It's of course likely rural routes are the lowest / unprofitable but many of those will be maintained for societal reasons.
The problem is that 3tph needs a substantial timetable rewrite or an unbalanced pattern of services whereas cutting 4tph to 2tph is relatively straightforward.
It is even worse where the calling pattern is currently a mix - for example, Thameslink on the Brighton line is currently 4tph Brighton, 2tph Horsham and 2tph Gatwick via Redhill. One option could be to cut this to 2tph Brighton and 2tph Horsham (perhaps with the facility for control reliefs from Brighton on sunny days) but to do this requires a complete change of the timetable because the current services share the stops between them.
Of course. 3tph was just an example. 2 is of course easier without a complete timetable rework - although that seems likely anyway with a change in the way the peak functions and a rebalancing of the timetable.
Is your Sunday currently inside the working week?
I’m quite happy with it outside to be fair. Things like this people sell for a few extra quid, but I can’t see us getting any sort of supplement in exchange.
I’m all for forgoing a pay rise for a while (as long as it’s not what I’m owed for passing my PQA period), but I’d support any objection to move Sundays inside.
Don’t get me wrong, it makes perfect business sense to do so, but that’s not the point.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No. However I don't work for a 7 day a week public service, I work in a 9-5:30 Mon-Fri office job. One reason I chose a 9-5:30 Mon-Fri office job is that it doesn't tend to involve weekend working very often.
So recruit all new staff to always work Sundays initially until it evens out. But then people will moan "differential T&Cs" - but so what? You worry about your T&Cs. People taking new roles take them or not based on what is offered. Collective bargaining does make some sense, but it doesn't mean everyone has to be on identical T&Cs.
There is clearly a problem, I have an issue with the prevailing attitude being that no solution to it is acceptable because some staff quite like having optional weekend overtime that isn't contracted. If something isn't contracted, you can't rely on having it. I used to get periodic bonuses and now I don't because after a couple of takeovers my employer's approach to that has changed, and that's just how it is because they were not contractual.
But to be fair someone who has signed a contract that doesn’t include working Sundays has by definition also chosen a job that doesn’t involve Sundays! The nature of railway shifts is such that it is difficult enough to plan life around work already, so some people like to have one day per week they know they definitely won’t be working.
I suspect Sundays outside is more of a throwback to the days when railstaff regularly worked five of six days per week, and the four (long!) day week model has improved work life balance. Personally I wouldn’t do the job if I was expected to do these shifts five days per week.
No need to even do that. Just create two links (as has happened at my place). All new drivers recruited have Sundays inside. When this arrangement was brought in existing drivers were offered the choice of remaining with Sundays outside, or bringing their Sundays in (for a pay rise of course).
The problem often is that the TOC itself doesn’t want Sundays inside, or the quid pro quo offered for bringing them inside (changing movements of spare, longer shifts etc.) are unacceptable.
Along with Stigy, neither do I.
I accepted my job with a contractual agreement that Sunday’s were outside the working week, why should I suddenly have to work Sunday’s because you and other people who very rarely work Sunday’s want me to?
How would you feel (and others that do not work Sunday’s) if suddenly your employer said that you HAD to work Sunday’s and you’d get no extra pay for it?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I get that. What's your view on the logical alternative of all new staff working every Sunday, and Sunday overtime thus dying out?
The same way, l imagine, as British Gas engineers felt when told sign these new contracts with inferior T&Cs or consider yourself fired. It's absolutely appalling and horrible but sadly increasingly the norm.
Sometimes, I just don't think people are listening.
The TOCs have been against it for longer than I've worked on the railway. You could add Sundays to new starters, offer special links, agree new terms etc etc and I don't think you would get much objection and the mercenary nature of people means its an easy buyout. Convincing the TOCs to increase staffing levels and accept the costs involved is the single biggest hurdle.
If HMG says make it so and specifies it as part of their contract with the TOCs....
I have no real answers, I’m open to most things as long as I’m not trodden on like British Gas and treated like a person and an asset.
One thing I do know (ok, I imagine) is that as soon as any government body becomes involved it will become a total cluster …k!
They will do the wrong things at the wrong time, those at the top will get bonuses and then a year or two down the line they will realise they were wrong, blame everyone and everything else and get more money to waste bringing the situation back to how it was in the first place.
One thing I do know (ok, I imagine) is that as soon as any government body becomes involved it will become a total cluster …k!
They will do the wrong things at the wrong time, those at the top will get bonuses and then a year or two down the line they will realise they were wrong, blame everyone and everything else and get more money to waste bringing the situation back to how it was in the first place.
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