Transpennine Express boss apologises for poor services (BBC)

[Facing Back]

A nickname for the Mark 3 coaches painted in the red and silver Virgin Trains livery.

It had the livery of a Pendolino, so was called the Pretendolino.

Thanks

 

[Starmill]

Passengers on the Marston Vale line eventually had a pretty decent service before Vivarail went bust, I would say you're doing the staff who worked on the project a pretty big disservice with that statement but that's rather off-topic.

I'd say that "pretty decent service" is a disputed description for it, others will certainly not be in agreement with your view. On a personal level, I can sympathise deeply with the individual staff working on the project, and of course commiserate their loss of the role they were doing, especially those directly working at vivarail. However, I don't see that it's a disservice to them, or anyone involved in the ROSCOs, to call 230s / 769s / 442s life expired - it's an accurate description which was based on solid evidence, and unfortunately events have now proven the truth of it. If their attempts to use life expired rolling stock on TPE services had come to fruiton, the liklihood is that TPE today would be in an even worse position than they already are. It does not denigrate the people involved personally to call the attempts unsuccessful; far from it, many of them are good career professionals who were simply misled or mistaken.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Jan 2023 ==

I do feel for Matt Golton as he is someone I met many times when he was at GWR, he is genuinely a good bloke and most of all is an actual proper railwayman, which is becoming a rarity these days, particularly in senior roles. When he worked within the projects team he managed to get a lot of real positive changes into GWR/FGW at the time.

Exactly. Nearly everyone working at the company is simply doing the best job they can with a chronic lack of resources and under some especially difficult circumstances. I don't think anyone is making personal criticisms - although I myself would level such personal criticisms at Ministers and MPs in the party of government.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I assume there's been no official suggestion about a merger between the two, and this is just speculative? Beyond managerial positions, there's very little cash to be saved by bringing these two together now, and the brands would likely remain to distinguish the different levels of service.

Huw Merriman suggest at his last outing of the transport select committee

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/12550/pdf/

There is an opportunity, if one looks at TransPennine Express and Northern, for a different model that combines both. I am not saying this is exactly what is being designed, but many commentators have said that the model could be better put together were those two operators to be amalgamated as one

 

[Tetchytyke]

It certainly wasn't perfect- FNW and Northern Spirit had plenty of issues at various stages- but the franchises worked better when it was RRNE and RRNW.

 

[yorkie]

For any discussion regarding the possibility of Northern and TPE merging, please use the following thread, which covers that subject:

Future of TPE

What if you diverted XC Manchester-South Coast services to Manchester Airport and welded them onto the Manchester-Scotland services? So XC would run Scotland to the South Coast via Manchester rather than the ECML.

www.railforums.co.uk

Thanks

 

[sheff1]

I do feel for Matt Golton as he is someone I met many times when he was at GWR, he is genuinely a good bloke and most of all is an actual proper railwayman

If TPE do go into the OLR, then hopefully Matthew Golton would be kept on like David Horne was with LNER.

The mess that TPE is in is not down to him, and he has not had the freedom of other MDs due to the DfT restrictions.

I don't know whether he is a good bloke or if the mess is down to him, but stating ""We've not got a shortage of drivers" when we have been informed on a daily basis for months that trains are cancelled due to shortage of drivers is not a good look.

 

[185]

If TPE do go into the OLR, then hopefully Matthew Golton would be kept on like David Horne was with LNER.

The mess that TPE is in is not down to him, and he has not had the freedom of other MDs due to the DfT restrictions.

The buck stops with the senior managers. If they have led a contractor not compliant with the agreed contract, they need to be gone at the point of termination.

It should be noted that their finance director jumped ship and spread some of the TPE financial magic to her new employer...

...Avanti.

 

[Krokodil]

If TPE wants to improve the productivity of its crews, it should start by reinstating the route cards back to the way they used to be. That will take time and cost money of course, but it's one of the main causes of the current problems.

 

[mike57]

all of TPE's woes can be traced back to the unfathomable decision to order and implement three entirely different new types of train at exactly the same time.

It was one of those decisions where you could see so many problems that you wondered at the lack of understanding by those that took the decision.

If TPE wants to improve the productivity of its crews, it should start by reinstating the route cards back to the way they used to be. That will take time and cost money of course, but it's one of the main causes of the current problems.

Problem is journalists dont seem to pick up on these issues, and do not research topics properly before interviews or features. The information is out there, but when it comes to railways the 'sloppiness factor' from journalists seems to multiply, and therefore instead of asking some really searching questions they end up just running through the same old topics.

TPE have been failing since May 2018, as a passenger I am sick of hearing excuses, I dont care if the problem is TPE, the DfT or some mix of the two, the bottom line is the train I want to use is possibly cancelled, may not run to the end of its timetabled journey and stands a good chance of being short formed. So if it turns up it will be overcrowded, and possibly late. If I am travelling to the NW it doesn't use the Manchester station I need for the majority of my onwards connections, and in general journey times are poorer than 5 years ago. So the pre May 2018 reasonably OK service (barring some overcrowding) has been replaced with an unusable service. Millions has been invested in new rolling stock, fares have gone up, subsidies have increased. In any other industry the business would have folded years ago. Covid feels like an excuse as the service was dire before covid.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The buck stops with the senior managers. If they have led a contractor not compliant with the agreed contract, they need to be gone at the point of termination.

The Managing Director of First Rail is Steve Montgomery, who's also been doing the government's bidding at RDG. Small world.

 

[GordonT]

A quick reality check on how dire TPE continues to be on a daily basis (from Journey Check at 0840 on 30/01).

CANCELLATIONS:
04:57 Manchester Piccadilly to Glasgow Central due 08:19

05:20 Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle due 08:16

05:35 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly due 08:21

05:43 Manchester Airport to Cleethorpes due 08:53

06:03 Manchester Airport to Edinburgh due 09:38

06:27 Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle due 09:11

06:28 Lancaster to Manchester Airport due 07:45

07:09 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street due 09:59

07:45 Glasgow Central to Preston due 10:41

07:48 Scarborough to York due 08:38

07:55 Hull to Liverpool Lime Street due 10:31

08:30 Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle due 11:13

09:43 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly due 12:18

10:00 Hull to Liverpool Lime Street due 12:31

10:12 Edinburgh to Manchester Airport due 13:44

10:24 Liverpool Lime Street to York due 12:13

10:26 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 14:00

10:54 Liverpool Lime Street to Hull due 13:25

11:42 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly due 14:18

12:03 Preston to Glasgow Central due 14:39

12:35 Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle due 15:13

12:54 Liverpool Lime Street to Hull due 15:25

13:24 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 17:00

13:54 Liverpool Lime Street to Hull due 16:30

14:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 17:50

14:35 Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle due 17:17

14:48 Scarborough to Manchester Piccadilly due 17:12

15:04 York to Liverpool Lime Street due 16:59

15:08 Glasgow Central to Preston due 17:48

15:24 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 19:01

16:24 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 20:00

17:03 Hull to Liverpool Lime Street due 19:31

17:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 20:50

17:24 Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle due 20:14

17:30 Manchester Piccadilly to Scarborough due 19:53

17:43 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly due 20:27

18:53 Saltburn to Manchester Airport due 22:10

19:00 Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield due 19:41

19:54 Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria due 20:28

20:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 00:01

20:42 Manchester Piccadilly to York due 22:21

20:51 Saltburn to York due 22:19

21:01 Newcastle to Edinburgh due 22:48

22:40 Manchester Airport to York due 01:16

22:54 Liverpool Lime Street to Huddersfield due 00:13

23:40 Manchester Airport to York due 01:55

PART CANCELLATIONS:
05:04 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 09:00

05:30 Manchester Victoria to Hull due 07:39

05:36 Doncaster to Liverpool Lime Street due 08:00

05:40 Manchester Airport to Saltburn due 09:06

05:54 Saltburn to Manchester Airport due 09:09

05:54 Sheffield to Cleethorpes due 07:50

06:06 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street due 09:05

06:24 Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle due 09:18

06:30 Manchester Victoria to Hull due 08:28

06:44 Manchester Airport to Saltburn due 09:58

06:53 Hull to Liverpool Lime Street due 09:33

07:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 10:52

08:01 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street due 11:00

08:04 Manchester Airport to Edinburgh due 11:37

08:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 11:52

09:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 12:53

09:54 Liverpool Lime Street to Hull due 12:25

10:06 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street due 12:59

11:03 Hull to Liverpool Lime Street due 13:31

11:24 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 15:00

12:06 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street due 14:59

12:24 Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle due 15:22

12:24 Cleethorpes to Liverpool Lime Street due 16:00

14:04 Manchester Airport to Edinburgh due 17:41

14:44 Manchester Airport to Saltburn due 17:58

15:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 18:53

15:43 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly due 18:18

16:02 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street due 19:04

16:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes due 19:53

16:44 Manchester Airport to Saltburn due 20:04

19:11 Edinburgh to Liverpool Lime Street due 00:31

21:19 Liverpool Lime Street to Doncaster due 23:54

 

[DarloRich]

The issue in all of this ( and Avanti) remains the government. The company leadership are not really running the show. The Government are and they don't want to sort out the problems here or in many parts of our national infrastructure. The leadership can only play the cards dealt to them by DfT and those cards are basically the advert for top trumps, the waddingtons logo and the rules of 3 card brag.

Passengers on the Marston Vale line eventually had a pretty decent service before Vivarail went bust, I would say you're doing the staff who worked on the project a pretty big disservice with that statement but that's rather off-topic.

is that right? Guess i must be in living another dimension. It is really good to be told how great your service is by people who dont have to rely on it. The service has been carp although if compared TPE then it has been FANTASTIC!

 

[Clarence Yard]

The real problem here is not complying with the contract - it’s not being able to fix the problem because the real solution was/is not being funded. Control of that lies outside of the contractor.

Getting rid of any contractor is the easy bit. What happens next is the hard part.

 

[Spartacus]

If TPE wants to improve the productivity of its crews, it should start by reinstating the route cards back to the way they used to be. That will take time and cost money of course, but it's one of the main causes of the current problems.

Yes, this and some pretty sloppy work by rosters at time, cancelling whole portions of diagrams rather than sending someone pass...

 

[Some guy]

If TPE wants to improve the productivity of its crews, it should start by reinstating the route cards back to the way they used to be. That will take time and cost money of course, but it's one of the main causes of the current problems.

It would mean less cancellations a service from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh doesn’t need 2 changes of staff at Preston and Carlisle especially when Preston signs the entire route and then Glasgow crews got stopped going all the way to Manchester

 

[sjm77]

Even several years ago, I experienced an aggressive and arrogant response from TPE "Customer Services" to Delay Repay claims (I had to escalate one to Transport Focus before they eventually backed down). In the same era Northern was generous with offers of free tickets for two people to travel anywhere on their network over two days, as an alternative option to a cash repayment of only a few pounds.

Agreed!
TPE refused my delay repay claim for a journey from Manchester to Harrogate. The TPE service was late and I just missed my connection, but TPE claimed the service from Manchester arrived at Leeds before the Northern Harrogate service left so it was my fault. They are correct it arrived 3 minutes before but I had to get from platform 15 to platform 1. I even tried running over the bridge hoping to make the connection when staff shouted at me and told me to stop running!
I consider myself to be a victim of theft at the hands of TPE.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Mimlnimum advertised connection time at Leeds is 10 mins. Get passenger focus on to it

 

[mike57]

A quick reality check on how dire TPE continues to be on a daily basis

It must be getting close to the point where the list of services running is shorter.

I consider myself to be a victim of theft at the hands of TPE.

Join the club, last 3 Delay Repay claims with TPE have resulted in them not wanting to accept them, the last one they tried to blame Northern when it was their train that was late and triggered the missed connection.

 

[philthetube]

It will be because they run very few trains on a Sunday, even fewer today due to engineering works.

There'll be plenty of drivers sat around all depots twiddling their thumbs as the company runs trains based on the small number of guards who are committed to work on a given Sunday. They could run alot more if they utilised guards who have their names down to work overtime. (Sundays are inside for all drivers).

I know this is off topic but Northern probably run a highre proportion of their service on a Sunday than any other operator, most lines have the same service as weekdays, just starting a bit later in the morning. there are very few additional commuter journeys.

 

[josh-j]

I don't know whether he is a good bloke or if the mess is down to him, but stating ""We've not got a shortage of drivers" when we have been informed on a daily basis for months that trains are cancelled due to shortage of drivers is not a good look.

I think TPE and all the others are contractually obligated to clear their public comms with the government though. They can't just say the actual cause of all this because the government won't let them (because it's their fault!)

 

[Tetchytyke]

The real problem here is not complying with the contract - it’s not being able to fix the problem because the real solution was/is not being funded. Control of that lies outside of the contractor.

Getting rid of any contractor is the easy bit. What happens next is the hard part.

To an extent, perhaps, but sour industrial relations are not limited to TPE.

As an outsider, the problems seem to be:
1. Trying to implement three new types of rolling stock at the same time;
2. Trying to implement new routes whilst also implementing three new types of rolling stock;
3. Roster planning which is far too aggressive in terms of prioritising efficiency over reliability;
4. Sour industrial relations that the whole industry is dealing with.

TPE services will seemingly often have two or three crew changes en route, and it only takes one of these to fall over (delayed as well as absent staff) and the whole thing collapses like a pack of cards. I don't think we can blame the government for that.

Interestingly the government have gone on the attack in relation to staff sickness. Well yes, sickness will be higher with drivers. If I've got a heavy cold I can take a Lemsip and muddle through at 70% productivity, but I'm not sure I'd want a train driver dosed up on Day Nurse and muddling through.

 

[Krokodil]

It would mean less cancellations a service from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh doesn’t need 2 changes of staff at Preston and Carlisle especially when Preston signs the entire route and then Glasgow crews got stopped going all the way to Manchester

I particularly had Liverpool-Newcastle/Scarborough (when the through services to the latter used to run) in mind. Liverpool drivers used to sign the whole route, so you could work to Newcastle, have a break, work one back and finish. Six hours driving in seven and a bit hours on duty. Nice and productive - you make the average working week up to 8.75 hours by having some longer turns (no real reason that a Liverpool driver shouldn't be able to sign all the way to Glasgow, ideally you'd merge all WCML services into Avanti to make route refreshing easier).

Now they only sign as far as Leeds so if you want to get the same amount of productivity out of them you have to drill the dead time between changing trains down to the absolute minimum which of course means that the service falls apart in disruption.

 

[Confused52]

To an extent, perhaps, but sour industrial relations are not limited to TPE.

As an outsider, the problems seem to be:
1. Trying to implement three new types of rolling stock at the same time;
2. Trying to implement new routes whilst also implementing three new types of rolling stock;
3. Roster planning which is far too aggressive in terms of prioritising efficiency over reliability;
4. Sour industrial relations that the whole industry is dealing with.

TPE services will seemingly often have two or three crew changes en route, and it only takes one of these to fall over (delayed as well as absent staff) and the whole thing collapses like a pack of cards. I don't think we can blame the government for that.

Interestingly the government have gone on the attack in relation to staff sickness. Well yes, sickness will be higher with drivers. If I've got a heavy cold I can take a Lemsip and muddle through at 70% productivity, but I'm not sure I'd want a train driver dosed up on Day Nurse and muddling through.

Why are the supposedly more efficient rosters not working. Are the services suffering extra delays to the roster change points? Just because it is more satisfying to do end to end trips doesn't not make it inherently better, and I can see why a greater intensity of staff usage is possible with shorter individual duties. The question remains what is causing the delays which frustrate the handovers?

 

[GordonT]

Why are the supposedly more efficient rosters not working. Are the services suffering extra delays to the roster change points? Just because it is more satisfying to do end to end trips doesn't not make it inherently better, and I can see why a greater intensity of staff usage is possible with shorter individual duties. The question remains what is causing the delays which frustrate the handovers?

The big advantage of rostering end to end trips is surely that at times of crew shortage or other forms of disruption there is likely to be less cross-contamination between different services???

 

[Parjon]

Good luck more intensively using a member of staff on a service that won't make it to the changeover point because, although the driver is fine to take the train out of Liverpool, the next link in the chain is broken through illness.

I'm not sure what could be so surprising that adding more moving parts to anything results in more risk of things going wrong.

If there is enhanced resilience to plug any gaps that emerge then fine. But if the objective is to use fewer staff (as suggested by "more intensive utilisation"), then clearly there is no contingency being provided, just a silly expectation that things will work out OK.

Someone needs to be sacked.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Just because it is more satisfying to do end to end trips doesn't not make it inherently better, and I can see why a greater intensity of staff usage is possible with shorter individual duties.

The more times you change crew, the more times there is a possibility of something going wrong. And the more duties a crew member is booked on, the more trains that will be cancelled.

If an unavailable crew member is booked an out-and-back then that's two services cancelled, and the unit is where it should be for the next out-and-back. But if they're doing four part-trips then that's at least four cancellations and four units that won't be where they should be.

On top of that, there's the cross-contamination. Take Manchester-Scotland, crew changes at Preston and Carlisle. If the Preston crew are unavailable then we have a unit stuck at Preston going nowhere and a crew at Carlisle sat in the mess room twiddling their thumbs. Maybe they can take the next southbound train instead of the missing booked crew, but maybe not, it depends on hours. If not, there's another unit stuck at Carlisle.

It wasn't so long ago three of the six platforms at Victoria were blocked by TPE units without a crew to move them, which then spreads the problem to other operators.

I get why on paper it looks more efficient- and if everything works, it is- but the second something goes wrong then the whole thing collapses.

WMT/LNR tried the same thing with the same consequences a year or two earlier.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

To an extent, perhaps, but sour industrial relations are not limited to TPE.

As an outsider, the problems seem to be:
1. Trying to implement three new types of rolling stock at the same time;
2. Trying to implement new routes whilst also implementing three new types of rolling stock;
3. Roster planning which is far too aggressive in terms of prioritising efficiency over reliability;
4. Sour industrial relations that the whole industry is dealing with.

TPE services will seemingly often have two or three crew changes en route, and it only takes one of these to fall over (delayed as well as absent staff) and the whole thing collapses like a pack of cards. I don't think we can blame the government for that.

Interestingly the government have gone on the attack in relation to staff sickness. Well yes, sickness will be higher with drivers. If I've got a heavy cold I can take a Lemsip and muddle through at 70% productivity, but I'm not sure I'd want a train driver dosed up on Day Nurse and muddling through.

Good analysis question for DfT is does TPEs current plan deliver an improved outcome vs handing it over to OLR who would no doubt need to be given 18-24mths to turn it around so no benefit for TPE passengers

 

[TurbineEnginee]

With 20/20 hindsight, of course the decision to order three different fleets was a huge mistake. But it couldn't have been known at the time just how badly it would go wrong, and if FirstGroup hadn't have bid that, the franchise would just have been won by someone else who bid roughly the same - the DfT specification required such a quick speed of introduction (irony of ironies...) that it didn't allow for one uniform 80x order.

I just find this so frustrating. I just can’t accept that they failed to walk through the issues with ordering those 3 fleets and didn’t assess it properly.

I don’t work in Railway but I do provide services managing really complex projects for third parties.

We will absolutely walk away if we can’t do it. Of course we will give them our best advice first but there is just no upside in tying up your team in something that can’t actually be done and the subsequent hit to your reputation that follows when the inevitable happens.

Either they knew it was impossible and were playing fast and loose with the process anyway in the hope of renegotiating it later, or they didn’t know it was impossible in which case they were incompetent.

It’s just no excuse that somebody else will bid for it if you don’t. If you can’t know that you can do it then you don’t promise that you will.

 

[Spartacus]

I just find this so frustrating. I just can’t accept that they failed to walk through the issues with ordering those 3 fleets and didn’t assess it properly.

I don’t work in Railway but I do provide services managing really complex projects for third parties.

We will absolutely walk away if we can’t do it. Of course we will give them our best advice first but there is just no upside in tying up your team in something that can’t actually be done and the subsequent hit to your reputation that follows when the inevitable happens.

Either they knew it was impossible and were playing fast and loose with the process anyway in the hope of renegotiating it later, or they didn’t know it was impossible in which case they were incompetent.

It’s just no excuse that somebody else will bid for it if you don’t. If you can’t know that you can do it then you don’t promise that you will.

It's the traincrew diagramming and rostering issues far more than the number of different types operating that's the problem. With the 68s largely boxed off on their own there's still been huge problems with just two overlapping fleets at a time, and TPE has had two fleets before without these problems, as have plenty of operators.

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed, they've had plenty of time to get used to three train fleets.

Look at how many fleets Northern has - they're managing to run their timetable.