Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway since September 2017 - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[bobm]

From GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).com

Changes to train services Sunday 11 July
An amended timetable will be in operation on Sunday 11 July due to a significant number of staff having to self-isolate following notification from test and trace.

Where possible customers will be contacted and advised of cancellations affecting their journey.

Customers wishing to travel can choose to travel on alternative services immediately before or after their booked service or claim a full refund with no admin fee if their service is affected.

Find out more about claiming a refund or rebooking your journey.

Where services can operate, they are expected to be busier than normal. Please check before you travel.

[Lee]

From GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).com

Changes to train services Sunday 11 July
An amended timetable will be in operation on Sunday 11 July due to a significant number of staff having to self-isolate following notification from test and trace.

"Interesting decision from the ref there, Ron. Might have to go to VAR..."

[TaplowGreen]

From GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).com

Changes to train services Sunday 11 July
An amended timetable will be in operation on Sunday 11 July due to a significant number of staff having to self-isolate following notification from test and trace.

"Interesting decision from the ref there, Ron. Might have to go to VAR..."

..............there's a lot of it about you know.........

https://www.itv.com/news/border/2021-07-09/northern-warns-weekend-of-disruption-following-covid-outbreak-among-rail-staff

[broadgage]

A cynic might suspect that rail staff wanting time off for the football or for any reason might be deliberately going near to persons with covid, in order to activate the track and trace system.
Or to be more exact only their smart phone has to be within range not the owner of the phone.

[TaplowGreen]

A cynic might suspect that rail staff wanting time off for the football or for any reason might be deliberately going near to persons with covid, in order to activate the track and trace system.
Or to be more exact only their smart phone has to be within range not the owner of the phone.

I've been lucky enough to attend some memorable sporting events in my time (mostly at Twickenham/Murrayfield/Paris/Dublin/Cardiff) , and even been to some pretty good BBQs, but I wouldn't put my life at risk by exposing myself to a virus that is killing millions of people for either, and frankly I doubt anybody with an IQ above single figures would to be honest.

I'm sure it's a coincidence and that the cynicism is unjustified on this occasion.

[grahame]

I always used to go shopping in the supermarket on FA cup final afternoon. Wonderfully quiet and I don't give a **** whether it's Aston Villa or Stenhousemuir who win it.  I suspect that passenger numbers, with the singular exception of journeys to / from Wembley (is that where the match will be played?) will be down on Sunday, and there is an element of sense in planning ahead of time to thin out the Sunday service ahead of time rather than last-minute and potentially successive-train cancellations.

Let's be short term pragmatic and say "sensible call a couple of days ahead" - as I understand at, no-one would have expected / given short odds on England (they're playing, right?) in the match, so hard to plan for too much ahead.   With the exception of trains that take real live people too and from the match, I would not expect overcrowding and if travelling otherwise on the day, much happier to know I can catch the 10:15, 12:15 or 14:15 than turn up for any :15 train and have a 50% cancellation possibility.

The "self isolate" reasoning looks thin - it could be a contributory cause, but other causes still include Sunday practises and running a tight ship with few "spare" drivers, and it does the rail industry little credit with those of us who know to give the excuse as self-isolation.  Perhaps most others take the reason give and believe it, and perhaps that's good marketing, even if it smells a bit fishy to those with trained noses.

[eXPassenger]

If the problem is Covid self isolation then I would expect it to last for most of the week.

[IndustryInsider]

COVID isolation are not helping the situation at all, but, yes, it’s a massive stretch to claim that’s the sole reason for any cancellations.

[TaplowGreen]

I would have thought if there were any doubt in individual cases, staff could be asked to provide a screenshot of the instruction to isolate that they've received?

[Electric train]

I would have thought if there were any doubt in individual cases, staff could be asked to provide a screenshot of the instruction to isolate that they've received?

Why should they be any different to people employed in any other business; I am sure other employers do not ask for such proof 

[PhilWakely]

I would have thought if there were any doubt in individual cases, staff could be asked to provide a screenshot of the instruction to isolate that they've received?

Difficult if the instruction to isolate is received by telephone.

[TaplowGreen]

I would have thought if there were any doubt in individual cases, staff could be asked to provide a screenshot of the instruction to isolate that they've received?

Why should they be any different to people employed in any other business; I am sure other employers do not ask for such proof 

I am sure they do, hence the NHS provide a facility to obtain it

https://111.nhs.uk/isolation-note/

[grahame]

I would have thought if there were any doubt in individual cases, staff could be asked to provide a screenshot of the instruction to isolate that they've received?

Why should they be any different to people employed in any other business; I am sure other employers do not ask for such proof 

From the days of running a (much, much) smaller business, there were just one or two times - over all the years - that I was concerned at a difference between the real reason and the stated reason for calling in sick (and quiet research confirmed the difference).  But that (1) person who was not with us very long could so easily have spoilt the trust for everyone.  For a much bigger business, much harder and I can understand the need to have a standard system.

[Ollie]

Couldn't you just put a customized sat nav in each drivers cab to show where you are, where you are going, what speed you should be doing, where the next signal is, where the next station is, how long it will take to reach them at your current speed plus any other relevant information?

Problem solved. No route knowledge needed.

Oh, maybe not. I've just remembered it's the railway. It would come in way over budget and never work as it was supposed to eventually being scrapped before introduction. 

Sorry to say, but it wouldn't be particularly realistic on its own.

That screen would need a lot of info displayed at once to be realistic in matching what a driver and train manager learns as part of the route knowledge.

To give some examples.

Line speed on a display and how far to next station and signal is all well and good, but if I'm doing 125mph, I want to know the route, I want to know where appropriate places are to start braking for the next station, taking into account various speeds I may be doing if I'd been on restrictive signals.

What if the sat nav loses signal, I'm approaching a signal in an area I've not signed, is the signal giving the correct indication for the route I need to be taking. Will it give enough notice that I'm going to go over a junction where I need to get the speed down to 40mph? Yes for this sort of thing there are indications the signal can give you, but it's the route knowledge that defines what you do with information that the signal presents.

Don't want to take this too off topic so won't keep listing reasons for route knowledge being important, but give me a train that is crewed up with staff that have learned the route over a train with staff and a customised sat nav any day.

Closest you will get to what you describe is places like the Thameslink core or some underground routes which have automatic operation, but even then, someone is required on board still, and they need the appropriate knowledge to be able to take control.

[broadgage]

I would have thought if there were any doubt in individual cases, staff could be asked to provide a screenshot of the instruction to isolate that they've received?

I was suggesting that the instruction to isolate might be genuine, but that this instruction results from deliberately placing the phone near a person known to be or suspected to be infected.

Example; person A has the virus and persons B, C, and D who were near A self isolate as instructed by the app. Persons E, F, and G, then hear of this and and go near A. Screenshot no help here as the instruction really was received.