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Services across the region seem to be being decimated today due to "shortage of train crew" -widespread alterations and cancellations - it's one of the busiest weekends of the year, how can this be allowed to happen? Are rosters not prepared well in advance?

They would of probably known weeks in advance, hoping to rely on rest day working/overtime perhaps, that's not forthcoming on a bank holiday weekend?

There is a difference between rosters, and rostering.

Rosters are prepared months in advance as a means of covering the required service. It doesn't take into account the manpower available to cover those turns which is where rostering comes in, which is subject to change on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

As has been explained on here before you can have a depot with fifty rostered turns per day (which would include spare drivers with no booked driving), but then take into account staff shortages, leave, sickness, courses, last minute problems and suddenly your potential fifty drivers for fifty turns could become forty men, or less. The Train Crew Supervisor is then under the cosh to get existing Drivers to work overtime, call in somebody on a rest day, or call on other depots to try and cover the work.

What is it this weekend? - bank holiday. Weather? - excellent. Incentive to work overtime, or a day off?  - virtually nil.

No true railway professional willingly cancels trains but having had the experience of having to do it it is not a decision taken lightly, and, in my day, was taken by sacrificing local journeys to run long distance ones where possible.

The same issues apply on Sundays as applied last year - i.e. Drivers at some depots don't have to work if they don't want to.  Perhaps connected with the diversions via Gloucester and the number of drivers with that route knowledge, I'm not sure?  I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often this year (if you remember last year, there were quite a few cancellations on many of the summer Sundays, especially in Cornwall). 

It's not much of a consolation for those that are travelling, but fortunately it isn't actually that busy today compared with other Sundays, on the longer distance services at least, as many people away for the weekend aren't returning until tomorrow.

There is an awful lot going on today (end of the Reading Festival etc) which will make it busy but let's hope that the planning has been better for tomorrow and that the same situation as today doesn't arise.

I'm noticing a lot of the cancellations today being London to Cheltenham Spa, with more of the blue lines on our map being due to the London to Swansea services making extra stops at Kemble, Stroud, Stonehouse and Gloucester.  Without any knowledge of the loading expected on the middle of 3 days of a bank holiday weekend, there does seem a case for the South Wales services making these extra calls ... as a plan, rather than as a fix on the day.  

And there are Swindon to Cheltenham Spa direct expressed today, which are rather quicker than the normal trains end to end.  The 11:09 is due Cheltenham Spa at 12:09 (today's direct train).  The 11:39 was due at 12:44 (all stops; reversal at Gloucester) and is cancelled.

I'd be surprised if there are many problems tomorrow as all drivers can't just make themselves 'unavailable' like they can on Sundays.  Indeed, there may well be a surplus as less trains are running due to the engineering works, so I would expect the only possible problems to arise should the diversionary route via Gloucester not be 'signed' be enough drivers.  I certainly hope there aren't problems as tomorrow will be extremely busy!

As for Reading festival, the vast majority return home tomorrow morning apart from those just going for the evening who tend to be making shorter journeys which aren't really affected today.  Likewise the majority of the carnival traffic is local journeys.  Looking at the reservations lists (a good indication of how busy a train is going to be), the 10:21, 11:21 and 12:21 Swansea to Paddington trains all have only around 100 seats reserved today.  They'll be far from empty, but that's exceptionally quiet for a Sunday!

...........rather fortunate that there aren't too many reservations as some of those trains will have to pick up the extra load of customers between Gloucester and Kemble stranded by other cancellations !

Really? It's p*****g down here! I'd much rather be driving a train.

Yes indeed, and also rather fortunate that the diversions are taking place and extra trains are routed via Gloucester.  In effect it means only a 10-20 minute delay to those who have been 'stranded' as the diverted trains were booked to follow close behind the cancelled ones.  That impact is something I'm sure that Control would have considered when they realised some trains would have to be cancelled today.

It's just stopped here and the sun is out.

Quite. I would have been driving my loco up at Cutteslowe Park on the raised track of  the Oxford Society of Model Engineers track this afternoon if it hadn't been doing likewise in West Berks. Shortages occur all over. Last week there were only two locos at Cutteslowe on Wednesday afternoon and my battery loco and one lone steam engine took a flogging all afternoon. Never cancelled one, and had many hundreds of happy passengers! Mind you the drivers were feeling the strain!

Paddington to Cheltenham services have been vulnerable  on Sundays for several weeks now.

..............so is there a plan to address these ongoing Sunday issues? Is it a case of the RMT playing funny buggers, GWR failing to deal with it, or a combination of the two?

Is there a resolution in sight or is it just two sides taking positions and beating their chests whilst the customers who finance them suffer in the middle?

I note that there are reports today regarding the RMT sabre rattling and balloting for strike action over catering arrangements on the new trains, it seems that any excuse to cause trouble anywhere on the railway is being seized upon by the RMT at the moment.

No immediate sign of an end of the ability of Paddington drivers to be entitled to say they're not available for work on Sunday's that I'm aware of.  Sunday's are not part of the 'working week' and until they are the issue will continue to rear it's head. Not just GWR affected - I see Chiltern cancelled several trains today due to driver shortages.

The best chance of changing agreements is when a training deal is struck for the new IEP trains.

Not sure there is ever a good time, but that probably isn't as it could just drag out the negotiations until the deadline is nearly there and then RMT will have the upper hand. 

It'll cost....which will get passed on into the fares

Any increases should be balanced out by increased productivity.  That's the idea anyway.   ;)

Not in this case. The unions will all want some form of increase to reward staff for letting this day off go....

I see where you're coming from, but in theory, that would be balanced out by not having the 'cost' of cancelling trains, or covering them by having to pay a premium rate for overtime, which is what currently happens.

It will be a very tricky change to negotiate though, so my money would be on the status quo continuing, or, at best, very small changes to T&C's.

I think it could easily be 'worth' 2.5% on their basic

When my former employer introduced Sunday's to the working week all affected staff were offered a compensation payment of 10% annual salary in exchange for signing the new contract of 7 day working.

To bring Sunday's into the working week?  Or to just remove the local agreements about being able to withdraw from a rostered Sunday?

Frankly it's bizarre that a group of people who have decided to work in a 7 day a week operation can en masse decide that one of those days is optional....and yes I know it's in their T's & Cs but these are clearly not fit for purpose judging by the worsening situation every Sunday...get around a table and work it out it is 2016 not 1975....I challenge anyone to name a private industry in which employees are feather bedded in this way at the expense and inconvenience of their customers.

It's been much better this summer than last year, possibly because drivers were feeling the squeeze a bit more after the rest day working ban earlier in the year. 

Quite agree that it shouldn't be like it is, but nobody has managed to get close to sorting it out, so I don't hold out much hope.

So its in their T&C's do you expect them to give it up without some recompense?  No private sector company would willingly give up some benefit in their contract without recompense, so why should staff do it for a company.  Both are contracts. 

I thought the former, but Richard W thought more. The latter I guess would be sufficient though.

I agree compensation should be payable, but will the unions settle for a sensible figure?

I would fully expect the RMT to try to screw as much as possible out of the company, and that some recompense will be necessary, that is why as you will note I suggested that they get around a table and sort it out...I struggle to think of any company in the real world who would have allowed such a ridiculous contractual situation to arise in the first place.............in the end of course, we all know who will be paying for it.

Point of order, why all the talk of RMT?

The shortage of DRIVERS is as ASLEF matter, guards don't matter as any manager can operate a train.

My apologies...........that's how demarcation disputes start!  :)

If existing staff are not required to work on Sundays, then IMHO it would be unreasonable to retrospectively enforce this. A voluntary agreement is no doubt possible in theory but might be hugely expensive.

However in my view, all newly engaged staff should be required to work say alternate Sundays. There is nothing unreasonable in this provided that the requirement for Sunday working is made clear from the beginning.

The trades unions would hate this as they are strongly opposed to change in itself, and even more strongly opposed to different terms for new and existing staff.

There is a thing called 'harmonisation' that has been going on since GW took over Thames and Wales and West in 2004, and as far as I know remains unresolved, despite years of meetings.

The difference is that GW Drivers have a working week that includes Sundays, neither of the others do. And there is the nub of the matter. If you joined a company where Sundays are not part of the week then that is that. You lose out by some thousands on your basic salary because of it, but you can make it up by working some.

Rostering was mentioned earlier on and you will find that Drivers with no Sundays are actually rostered to work on some, perhaps one in four, and at a premium rate. They have the option of working it, or turning it in and hoping some of the 'gobblers' at the depot will snap it up. If they don't then they have to work. It is an anomaly going back to the dawn of the railways and I have never been able to fathom out why Sundays is 'a special day' within the industry unless it was because of religious grounds back in the days of yore.

The idea that you can just change it may be ok, but what do you change it to? You have three old companies still arguing about who has the best deal, and at the moment, as I understand it from a local union rep who is a Driver for the former Thames Trains company they have the best, and the others want it as well, and that does not include Sundays as part of the working week.

I am open to correction here but as I understand it original GW drivers, known as HST links, have a basic salary of around £8k a year more than the others because of the included Sundays, and funnily enough some want to give that up to go for the non-Sunday working conditions.

Where do you go based on that? Years ago family life, and quality time off (a much vaunted phrase in the industry) were not quite so important as they are now. Ask any industry that involves shift work and see how they are getting on, todays generation don't want it, especially weekends.

Looking at the reservation numbers on the equivalent trains today and they are well into the 200's per train.  No cancellations on the Swindon to Gloucester route today though thankfully, but a blown fuse affected the signalling equipment in both directions between Kemble and Stroud caused a few delays late morning.  That's getting back to normal now though, so shouldn't cause too many problems when it get really busy later.

There was an awful lot of trains headed up from Swindon via Kemble this morning - a Swansea, 10 minutes later a Cheltenham, and 10 minutes after than an Edinburgh.    Swindon to Edinbugh is a logical service - from Wessex to the midlands and north has always seemed slow in the past and this was a great run to Birmingham. Now than Kemble's doubled, can we have that as a daily service please!

Yes, as you perhaps remember, Virgin Trains had plans back in around 2000 to run 2+5 HST's hourly from Paddington to Birmingham via Swindon (though whether it would have survived with the scarcity of paths out of Paddington, I don't know), but it would certainly have been a useful link to and from Swindon from the north.

Now Reading has been upgraded to provide additional platforms, you might lobby the DfT at the next XC franchise bidding for say, an extra Birmingham - Reading via Stroud hourly service? Alternatively, the Birmingham - Reading via Oxford could come that way instead?

Or lobby the DfT for the next Greater Western franchise to extend the hourly Paddington to Cheltenham Bi-Mode IEP services to Birmingham New Street.  That would remove the need for that clumsy shunt at Cheltenham Spa and be an ideal service to stop at the new Worcestershire Parkway station.

No GWR Drivers have Sundays included in their basic pay in any sector (WEST, LTV or HSS). Just different local conditions regarding how they can get it covered if they don't wish to work.

That would make sense from many angles!

I think there are restraints on the throat into New Street in the peaks, and possible platforming issues too

As well as an hourly service north from Swindon, if timed right it would also provide a half-hourly service from Gloucester to Birmingham (as well as from Worcestershire Parkway) mixing in with the Cardiff-Nottingham XC service, and a third train per hour from Cheltenham to Birmingham.  Perhaps stop it at Bromsgrove as well to connect in with the new electric services from there next year and provide that station with a better southbound service (currently just the hourly service to Hereford via Worcester for most of the day).  Not sure if New Street's platforms are IEP friendly though, and as ChrisB says it's not got much capacity - though the Gateway platform refurbishment project would be finished by then, which has meant one platform constantly out of use for years now.  You could always run them via the Camp Hill route into New Street rather than through the busy section via University and Selly Oak if that proved easier to path.

Food for thought...

The 2tph between Reading and Birmingham are busy enough as it is, no chance of removing one of those.


Reading station may be larger now but still only has minimum space for additional terminating services, certainly once crossrail has started and possibly East-West as well. Continuing through Reading on to say Gatwick or Heathrow (via WRATH) could be an option.


Yes, certainly the best idea with regards to utilising the existing (or currently being built) infrastructure

Cheltenham to Birmingham is (?) busiest part of the NE / NW to SW route.  Local trains through Five Ways every 10 minutes (so 6 an hour) but only 3 of the intervals have an express in them. So - platforms and conflicting movements allowing looks like there might be capacity (amateur guess!).   Potential stops between Cheltenham Spa and Birmingham include Worcester Parkway, Ashchurch for Tewkesbury, Bromsgrove and University.  University of Birmingham has some 34,000 students ... with Heathrow Western Link, the overseas ones have an easy route to Heathrow ...

But you would need at least two? additional IEP trains for this, and XC might complain of extraction from Cheltenham-Birmingham

It was just a suggestion, and no doubt there would be a few hurdles to overcome, ChrisB - there always is.  Though I agree with Adelante_CCT in that it's much more likely than your suggestion of lobbying to reduce the Birmingham-Leamington-Banbury-Oxford service down to one train an hour.

Insider, thank you for that correction I thought it was.