Transpennine woes and a moan...

[VauxhallNova]

88% PPM today and just 1% cancelled. Has rest day working been agreed?

 

[driver9000]

88% PPM today and just 1% cancelled. Has rest day working been agreed?

Not for Drivers.

 

[Peterthegreat]

88% PPM today and just 1% cancelled. Has rest day working been agreed?

Given TPE currently list 17 cancellations and don't run anywhere near 1700 trains per day I can't see that figure is correct.

 

[VauxhallNova]

On the day performance statistics don't include trains cancelled last night, which I agree can give a misleading figure.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Way too many 3-car services out today. If anybody says they're all down to technical faults, I'll dispute them.

No excuse for this under the current slightly reduced timetable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Way too many 3-car services out today. If anybody says they're all down to technical faults, I'll dispute them.

No excuse for this under the current slightly reduced timetable.

With TPE having so much stock, it's difficult to justify why they'd be putting 3 cars out alone. Even with no LHCS in use they still have a massive surplus. Some years ago they were operating what they're operating now (near enough) with ONLY 185s. Now they've got 80x and 397s in use as well.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

With TPE having so much stock, it's difficult to justify why they'd be putting 3 cars out alone.

Reduced lease rental costs if calculated on a mileage basis?

 

[Peterthegreat]

On the day performance statistics don't include trains cancelled last night, which I agree can give a misleading figure.

It's ludicrous. And the 17 cancelled has now risen to 20 so that means at keasr 3 more on the day cancellations.

 

[cuccir]

You might not have noticed a reduction in cancellations, but there certainly has been one.

There definitely has been a reduction in cancellations on the North route. Friday, Monday and Tuesday are the first time in months that I've seen all 3 TPE services which run through my area during commuter time running for 3 consecutive working days (services which terminate 07:23, 08:13 and 09:11 in Newcastle). It has been quite common to see all of them cancelled. Could be chance rather than a trend at this stage but long may it continue (particularly with the LNER rest day working agreemnt ending in a few weeks!)

 

[Howardh]

When the December timetable comes out, will TPE be running fewer trains but therefore fewer cancellations to account for the lack of staff? I'd prefer trains to run less frequently but be far more reliable and keep to the scheduled timetable.

 

[DanNCL]

Given TPE currently list 17 cancellations and don't run anywhere near 1700 trains per day I can't see that figure is correct.

I strongly suspect that’s 1% of all trains that hadn’t already been axed by 22:00 cancelled.

 

[Fokx]

Way too many 3-car services out today. If anybody says they're all down to technical faults, I'll dispute them.

No excuse for this under the current slightly reduced timetable.

Driver shortages are affecting what can and can’t come out the depot ECS alongside the autumnal problem of slightly square wheels (flats).

In some cases it’s a 3 car or no train at all.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Nov 2022 ==

When the December timetable comes out, will TPE be running fewer trains but therefore fewer cancellations to account for the lack of staff? I'd prefer trains to run less frequently but be far more reliable and keep to the scheduled timetable.

Timetables are actually increasing with changes to crew rostering.

Traincrew at most* depots are reducing their knowledge in order to simplify what each depot does on a daily basis.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Traincrew at most* depots are reducing their knowledge in order to simplify what each depot does on a daily basis.

let me correct that for you

traincrew at *most* depots are having their knowledge taken off them in order to simplify what each depot does on a daily basis

bad, bad. bad idea……. you only need to read through this entire thread to see the folly of that statement And the multitude of problems it causes. But to sum up loss of route knowledge means depots cannot cross cover, forces trains to utilise multiple crews and leaves the service wide open for disruption where crews are missing due to not being allocated and mo spare cover available or where crews are delayed elsewhere. It doesn’t simplify anything, it makes rostering far more difficult and is contributing significantly to the mass of cancellations every day.

the simple fact is its cheaper, they can apparently get more work out of less crews by doing it this way - as one company director has stated to me directly - and as long as P Coded trains don't count towards the performance stats and theres no penalties incurred then there’s no incentive to run the service but the company still earns the income. To hell with the passengers that need and rely on the service!

 

[yorksrob]

let me correct that for you

traincrew at *most* depots are having their knowledge taken off them in order to simplify what each depot does on a daily basis

bad, bad. bad idea……. you only need to read through this entire thread to see the folly of that statement And the multitude of problems it causes. But to sum up loss of route knowledge means depots cannot cross cover, forces trains to utilise multiple crews and leaves the service wide open for disruption where crews are missing due to not being allocated and mo spare cover available or where crews are delayed elsewhere. It doesn’t simplify anything, it makes rostering far more difficult and is contributing significantly to the mass of cancellations every day.

the simple fact is its cheaper, they can apparently get more work out of less crews by doing it this way - as one company director has stated to me directly - and as long as P Coded trains don't count towards the performance stats and theres no penalties incurred then there’s no incentive to run the service but the company still earns the income. To hell with the passengers that need and rely on the service!

Clearly First Group needs to be relieved of the TOC in that case. If they deliberately refuse to run the railway, they need to be gone.

 

[Seehof]

When I was a conductor at York in the days of Northern Spirit we were passed out on all routes. We worked the TPE routes in those days and I signed everywhere that those routes and Northern Spirit operated including diversionary routes. It made us very flexible and I enjoyed the variety. There was an early turn; once round the Harrogate line and after a break at York, the airport and back.
We used to have work where we worked routes end to end which was particularly interesting and useful when working the airport route where sometimes people needed more help especially if their flight was delayed arriving.

 

[Parjon]

as long as P Coded trains don't count towards the performance stats and theres no penalties incurred then there’s no incentive to run the service but the company still earns the income. To hell with the passengers that need and rely on the service!

This is the big problem. I noted a couple of daily newspapers recently picked up the issue. P codes are a nonsense, or at least are being made so. Just how many trains could a TOC can over how long before government felt they weren't due their performance bonus! Let alone penalties.

 

[Peterthegreat]

This is the big problem. I noted a couple of daily newspapers recently picked up the issue. P codes are a nonsense, or at least are being made so. Just how many trains could a TOC can over how long before government felt they weren't due their performance bonus! Let alone penalties.

I suspect the government are fully behind this.

 

[Frankfurt]

And the number of P Coded trains will increase come December with the (non) uplift of services.

 

[mike57]

Clearly First Group needs to be relieved of the TOC in that case. If they deliberately refuse to run the railway, they need to be gone.

Its a view I have had for a while, I think they are getting paid for not running anything like a proper service (think of stronger words here if you know what I mean...),

the simple fact is its cheaper, they can apparently get more work out of less crews by doing it this way - as one company director has stated to me directly

The loss of route knowledge which is happening as result of their changes, is in the opinion of those on here going to result in a less robust service, and more importantly it will have repercussions for a long time after they have eventually been relieved of the franchise which I believe will happen, probably as a political knee jerk reaction to show that 'something is being done' in the face of media criticism. And it appears that the only benefit of the change to route knowledge is to swell the coffers of First Group, back to my first statement.

The average passenger isnt interested in when the train was cancelled, They still doesn't arrive at their destination when they need to, possibly incur other losses (working day shortened = less pay, missed appointments, onwards connections missed) and generally have a bad view of rail travel.

Its worth comparing the paths of Northern and TPE since the May 2018 meltdown. Both have introduced new rolling stock, and navigated covid and other challenges. TPE are just as bad as they were in May 2018, they may be hiding behind cancelling prior to 10pm the night before but the reality is that the trains are not running. Northern on the other hand have made progress, no they are not perfect, far from it, but as a passenger my perception is that they have improved over the 4 years.

I accept that a lot of the problems that have led to the current situation will not in themselves be solved by a change to what I assume will be a directly operated TOC, but there are occasions in life where you need to make a change because the current incumbents of a job or business are seen as failed. It happens in politics, business, sport, think of a failing football team, who sack their manager, the incoming manager in all likelyhood has the same team to play, but he is not tainted by what has gone before.

 

[Parjon]

I suspect the government are fully behind this.

As do I. Which would raise the issue of proper use of public funds!

 

[irish_rail]

Loss of route knowledge, big big big mistake. Its time someone took First group to task over this issue.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Loss of route knowledge, big big big mistake. Its time someone took First group to task over this issue.

And how is that going to happen when it is the DfT who won’t pay for the route knowledge?

Since March 2020 TPE have only effectively been “following orders” from the DfT. They are now on an NRC which means the DfT gets the TOC revenue and also pays for the TOC costs. TPE, like other TOCs, is under strict budgetary control and FG only get management fees - a base fee and a performance fee, which has 4 elements iirc, only one of which is train performance.

Thanks to the previous MD, TPE entered government control in March 2020 in a worse state for train crew than most other TOCs. Those that had sufficient crew in March 2020 have survived the COVID training hiatus and the disputes better than those that didn’t.

 

[josh-j]

The root cause of all this is that the current government does not like railways, it's as simple as that. All the complexity of trying to allocate responsibility comes back to the government refusing to do anything about the many problems.

There's no point blaming TPE MDs, the government should have fixed this a long time ago but haven't.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is there anything preventing TPE, or for that matter Northern, implementing a vaguely workable emergency timetable, as Avanti have done? (though they were having trouble with even that on Saturday...)

 

[Peterthegreat]

Is there anything preventing TPE, or for that matter Northern, implementing a vaguely workable emergency timetable, as Avanti have done? (though they were having trouble with even that on Saturday...)

They already have. It still doesn't work.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They already have. It still doesn't work.

Cut further, then. There will be a point at which it will. Avanti's very basic one largely does.

 

[Clarence Yard]

You have to persuade the DfT that this is the best course - the DfT, for political reasons, always want you to operate the maximum service possible.

This Government isn’t anti railway - the DfT tend to like to run trains but not at the current cost. The Treasury on the other hand would like to see significant cost savings, irrespective of how much of the network is left at the end of it. The problem for the wider railway is that an ex treasury man now heads up the DfT civil servants.

The savings that DfT TOCs are being mandated to save in their 2023/24 Opex budgets are substantial and that was before tomorrows possible Budget reductions.

Without some serious money put into TPE’s train crew training operation, to widen route and traction knowledge, things are not going to improve quickly enough. They also need to get the DfT to unlock more 6 car working.

 

[Killingworth]

Is there anything preventing TPE, or for that matter Northern, implementing a vaguely workable emergency timetable, as Avanti have done? (though they were having trouble with even that on Saturday...)

On South Pennine it's a random service. Probably not possible to find a bookie to place a bet with but there are so many permutations of totally unreliable that most former regular users have all but given up even occasional journeys.

I'm planning one next week but totally expect to have to check timings the evening before and again at day break. On recent form I've an evens chance of having to catch the EMR service half an hour earlier - which will be packed. The uncertainty contributes to the pain. If we all knew what was actually going to run for certain the other TOCs could better plan what they might be able to do to help cover the gaps.

Just as Covid hit us TPE had a period of about a month (late February and early March 2020) when things were starting to go as planned. A few weeks later The Sunday Times published an article about longer distance commuting by reliable and quick rail to Manchester, recommending many places for good value housing including Sheffield, the Hope Valley and Dore. That went well.

Edited. As I submitted the above my copy of Rail, Issue 970 arrived on the door mat. Philip Haigh, Pages 6 and 7, must have seen the draft of my next long post which was to highlight exactly the same route and to use almost the same data he's quoted although only for the Manchester - Sheffield section.

I'd add that as a knock-on effect of TPE's woes the punctuality of all trains on the Hope Valley route is also suffering badly. Dore & Totley currently features as 2603rd out of 2621 stations nationally for punctuality according to Ontimetrains figures for the last 4 weeks, see; https://www.ontimetrains.co.uk/stations/DOR

Routinely in the worst 250, noted here as in the worst 100, but currently gained promotion to the worst 20. What a reputation to have - Dire and Tottering!

 

[muz379]

Not in any way a Tory supporter , but its also worth bearing in mind that a lot of the DFT's positions will be based on the calculated decision making of the officials in the DFT not government ministers who are briefed one way or the other by these officials .

Of course some of the underlying themes/direction are dictated by politics such as cuts to funding or large infastructure spends .

 

[43066]

This Government isn’t anti railway

That’s a bold statement. They certainly aren’t pro railway. They’re also penny wise pound foolish, as the current disruption must be impacting passenger recovery.