West Midlands Trains: Train crew unavailability

[londonmidland]

I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks, there are increasing amounts of WMT services from Birmingham New Street being cancelled due to a shortage of train crew. It usually affects services from around early afternoon until the end of service. With the evening and late night services the most at risk.

I assume with the Christmas period coming up, this has some involvement with it? Not to mention COVID still being present. I recall this (Christmas period shortages) happening every year around this time, with it being an issue since London Midland days if my memory serves me right?

 

[Nova1]

Sadly it has been incredibly poor for the past few months, to the point where I worry about having to rely on the trains.

It isn't uncommon to see three trains in a row, in the evening peak, cancelled out of Stratford-Upon-Avon (which only gets a 1tph service). WMR always promise to cover gaps over 60 minutes with a bus, but these buses often just don't show up.

However, this week it has been a lot better for me on the snow hill lines.

 

[AlanL]

Unfortunately it's the same on the Shrewsbury to Bham New St route with numerous cancellations especially in the afternoons/evenings and West MIdlands trains are getting an extremely bad reputation and there are calls from local politicians for the company to have the franchise taken away from them. This terrible service does nothing to attract customers to public transport.

 

[Nova1]

there are calls from local politicians for the company to have the franchise taken away from them

I'm not sure a new franchise holder would solve any problems. They'd still have issues with crew shortages. WMR do blame the pandemic (understandable, other TOCs are having issues too) but lack of train crew has been a problem for a long time (even back into the previous london midland franchise)

 

[londonmidland]

You really couldn’t make this up - less than half an hour between the two tweets.

National Rail Enquires stating there’s no longer issues, and within half an hour of that tweet, LNR tweet saying there’s issues again for the service on Sunday.

 

[theageofthetra]

You really couldn’t make this up - less than half an hour between the two tweets.

National Rail Enquires stating there’s no longer issues, and within half an hour of that tweet, LNR tweet saying there’s issues again for the service on Sunday.

View attachment 105596

Blame an industry that runs on rest day working.

 

[Swanley 59]

At the risk of sounding naive, do TOCs not have Service Level Agreements written into their contracts? I would have thought that regularly failing to operate (say) 95% of services on a given line would place them in breach of contract, with appropriate penalties.

 

[JamesT]

At the risk of sounding naive, do TOCs not have Service Level Agreements written into their contracts? I would have thought that regularly failing to operate (say) 95% of services on a given line would place them in breach of contract, with appropriate penalties.

In normal times that would be the case. Most TOCs are running under Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements due to covid where it’s essentially the DfT taking the revenue risk. If it costs the government less when trains don’t run they may be less inclined to use the performance penalties.

 

[philosopher]

I'm not sure a new franchise holder would solve any problems. They'd still have issues with crew shortages. WMR do blame the pandemic (understandable, other TOCs are having issues too) but lack of train crew has been a problem for a long time (even back into the previous london midland franchise)

I remember some years ago, London Midland kept having to cancel large parts of the Sunday timetable due to not enough staff volunteers.

It seems like there is some long term issue that whoever is the operator of that franchise has been unable to solve.

 

[12guard4]

Alot blaming the franchise and saying it should be stripped but they only recently started running it. For 18 months under Covid the railway was government run. Just an easy thing to say for those outside the industry who don't understand how things work.

 

[sd0733]

Alot blaming the franchise and saying it should be stripped but they only recently started running it. For 18 months under Covid the railway was government run. Just an easy thing to say for those outside the industry who don't understand how things work.

It would achieve precisely nothing anyway, still takes the same time to train new crew if Abellio, DfT or the West Midlands Mayor were in charge they would still be left with the exact same problems and still a specification put down by DfT/the treasury on expenditure.
Way back in LM and even Central days this was a problem so at least 3 operators of the franchise haven't managed to sort it.

 

[david1212]

Blame an industry that runs on rest day working.

I remember some years ago, London Midland kept having to cancel large parts of the Sunday timetable due to not enough staff volunteers.

It seems like there is some long term issue that whoever is the operator of that franchise has been unable to solve.

Indeed not having enough staff to permanently roster for all timetabled services should have been resolved long before Covid.

Rest day working should only be needed to cover things like abnormal levels of sickness, diversions due to engineering, one off staff training e.g. new trains or new procedures and occasional extra services e.g. sports fixtures.

 

[dk1]

Indeed not having enough staff to permanently roster for all timetabled services should have been resolved long before Covid.

Rest day working should only be needed to cover things like abnormal levels of sickness, diversions due to engineering, one off staff training e.g. new trains or new procedures and occasional extra services e.g. sports fixtures.

It would in a perfect world but even with full staffing it rarely copes without rest day working. There are no easy ways to fix the Sunday working issues here either.

 

[6Gman]

There are also particular issues around Saturday late turns being covered by voluntary Rest Day Working given the behaviour of some passengers.

 

[172007]

There are also particular issues around Saturday late turns being covered by voluntary Rest Day Working given the behaviour of some passengers.

Yes, German Market does make train crew think twice about RDW on a weekend evening.

 

[dk1]

Yes, German Market does make train crew think twice about RDW on a weekend evening.

Many of us like to visit but would you honestly want to work amongst it if you don’t have to? Can’t blame them.

 

[D.K.TAYLOR]

Bit of a gamble to rely on anything after 5pm my friends drives for them he does seem to be spare quite a lot

 

[option]

It's been a problem for years & years & years.

It's a very competitive place for rail staff in the Midlands, as there's so many operators; WMT, XC, Avanti, Chiltern, freight operators

 

[6Gman]

It's been a problem for years & years & years.

It's a very competitive place for rail staff in the Midlands, as there's so many operators; WMT, XC, Avanti, Chiltern, freight operators

Even when I was working for Central Trains (20+ years ago) we had a constant drift away to InterCity operators.

We shouldered all the basic training and then t'others got ready made staff at the expense of just traction training and some extra route knowledge!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Nov 2021 ==

Yes, German Market does make train crew think twice about RDW on a weekend evening.

Not just German Market - our local paper (Cheshire) quite often runs "Police appeal for information after train assault" stories; almost invariably an evening Liverpool - Birmingham.

 

[172007]

It's been a problem for years & years & years.

It's a very competitive place for rail staff in the Midlands, as there's so many operators; WMT, XC, Avanti, Chiltern, freight operators

And XC where not mandated to provided driver training in their first franchise so they didn't, no doubt saved them a fortune. Therefore XC poached from Central and London Midland for drivers. Great strategic mistake by Whitehall.

XC also took the vast majority of senior drivers and they have had and still have bubbles of mass retirements due to that strategic error too from the very start of privatisation. The age discrimination of transferring over the senior drivers was avoided if I cast my mind back to then as it was agreed by Aslef under collective bargaining, similar to the enforced retirement age at XC now.

 

[Horizon22]

WMT will be far from the only operator affected. It's been posted many times here on the forum but put very succinctly - there is a shortage of train crew due to a) a general reliance on overtime & b) delays in driver recruitment / training as a result of Covid & reduced in-cab training.

Most of the time Monday-Friday this reliance on overtime is hidden because there is a higher % of people willing to do overtime. On a Saturday (especially one without committed Sundays on Sundays in the working weekend) naturally there's a lower % uptake of overtime; it's the weekend and given a choice train crew wish to do things with friends / family who are also free. That's not to say there aren't takers but it is proportionately less. Most Saturday timetables are quite similar to M-F and as a result there's more cancelled trains.

Very generally it seems to me that crew prefer early turns compared to late turns and therefore Saturday evenings are the most affected in terms of cancellations.

The only way to solve this is to work through the backlogs in training/recruitment quicker, ensure there is a proper 7-day week and ensure proper depot establishment levels. Some of these things are already well known and changes being made but others are harder to resolve or would require wholesale changes in T&Cs or more money which is a roadblock. Some depots / TOCs are more disroportionately affected than others which is why some routes seem absoutely fine and others have chronic problems.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

West Midlands Trains is now under a National Contract, so it isn't really a franchise anymore so you can't 'strip' Abellio of anything.

Also, training is so far behind what was already going to be a shortage, creating a real issue with driver availability. Currently I believe there's 7 schools worth of drivers, mostly stood down, waiting for Instructors.

Add into that no pay rise in 2 years nearly for drivers, and a pay freeze this year for conductors so there are lots of staff either leaving for other TOCs or not interested in helping the company to cover these extra shifts, especially as it has been clear since the change from London Midland that Abellio had plans greater than the staffing and traction it could muster, with the DfT as its puppet master.

I should also add, there is a large issue with staff on permanent earlies/lates and staff makjg themselves available for RDW only for early shifts. I can totally understand their reasons why, but I know other depots have changed to being available/not available so you are allocated whatever job fits into your hours which could help New St/Snow Hill availability issues

 

[dk1]

I should also add, there is a large issue with staff on permanent earlies/lates and staff makjg themselves available for RDW only for early shifts. I can totally understand their reasons why, but I know other depots have changed to being available/not available so you are allocated whatever job fits into your hours which could help New St/Snow Hill availability issues

The same issues happened at my TOC. Firstly the LDC decreed that putting AM only beside your name when volunteering was no longer permitted didn’t really work as drivers just waited for the list to be posted then cherry picked the vacant jobs. This was resolved around 2016 by introducing a bonus payment for anyone volunteering in advance.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

The same issues happened at my TOC. Firstly the LDC decreed that putting AM only beside your name when volunteering was no longer permitted didn’t really work as drivers just waited for the list to be posted then cherry picked the vacant jobs. This was resolved around 2016 by introducing a bonus payment for anyone volunteering in advance.

Now at Bletchley, on the drivers side this is banned. You have to make yourself available and you will be allocated the first available shift, and because this is done prior to 48hr sheet nobody knows how many of the jobs have been filled.

WMT doesn't even do Xmas/Summer enhanced payments so no chance in hell of getting bonus payments! Especially now it's a National Contract not a Franchise

 

[wobman]

The same issues happened at my TOC. Firstly the LDC decreed that putting AM only beside your name when volunteering was no longer permitted didn’t really work as drivers just waited for the list to be posted then cherry picked the vacant jobs. This was resolved around 2016 by introducing a bonus payment for anyone volunteering in advance.

The bonus payment was talked about at the toc I work for but management said no, so jobs get left uncovered and split to cover the work.
Seeing jobs uncovered on the daily basis is the norm, that's before summer and school holidays.

They seem to think there's new drivers passing out and them jobs will be covered then, but the PQA drivers don't sign all routes and that's not understood by some people in the company

 

[dk1]

The bonus payment was talked about at the toc I work for but management said no, so jobs get left uncovered and split to cover the work.
Seeing jobs uncovered on the daily basis is the norm, that's before summer and school holidays.

They seem to think there's new drivers passing out and them jobs will be covered then, but the PQA drivers don't sign all routes and that's not understood by some people in the company

It would work out cheaper to pay the bonus payment than split the jobs if paid as overtime as many will only do it for 12hrs or with a carrot offered by the shift manager.

 

[Kite159]

I can't blame railway staff for not wanting to work Saturday evening trains, as some of those can be quite grim (especially as the night draws on and those passengers who have had a touch too much to drink start returning home)

 

[david1212]

On the late evening news

West Midlands Trains warn of delays and cancellations this Christmas

The company said the issues have been caused by a backlog in driver training

www.coventrytelegraph.net

West Midlands Railway has warned that commuters could be faced with train cancellations at short notice in the run-up to Christmas.

The rail company has blamed the coronavirus pandemic for delaying new drivers’ training and said there are almost 100 drivers whose training is incomplete.

It has also pointed to a recent increase in Covid-19 related absences as well as many drivers requesting Christmas leave.

At face value nothing unreasonable or surprising.

However, as posted previously, if at 1st March 2020 they had enough drivers to roster for all timetabled services so long as no disruption, engineering work and similar they would be in a much better position now.
Further if rest day working was the exception would more staff have already used much more of their allocation of leave ?

 

[SCDR_WMR]

On the late evening news





At face value nothing unreasonable or surprising.

However, as posted previously, if at 1st March 2020 they had enough drivers to roster for all timetabled services so long as no disruption, engineering work and similar they would be in a much better position now.
Further if rest day working was the exception would more staff have already used much more of their allocation of leave ?

Don't forget about retirements etc, there are many that have retired in the last 18 months at the 2 depots I've been at in that time.

Also, some depots have had the size of their rosters cut so there is less crew to work

March is usually near to fully booked as far as leave goes but far more crew tend to also be available for RDW than in December where many quite rightly focus more on family.

 

[AgentGemini]

Some thoughts as a friend works on the railway.

Firstly - Abellio may have inherited the problems form London Midland, but their management have apparently done nothing to ensure or keep up the goodwill of the ground staff. Management do not seem to see traincrew as anything but assets and it shows. The Van Der Velde era left many deep scars.

Afterall, with many traincrew looking to leave, they must not be happy. And if they aren't happy, why would they go into a workplace that makes them unhappy extrawise?