Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[Timmer]

Cancellations to services between Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads

Due to a shortage of train crew between Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads fewer trains are able to run on all lines.

Train services running through these stations will be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice
We're sorry for the delay to your journey today. Due to a shortage of train crew, fewer trains are able to run between Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads via Salisbury and Westbury. Customers are advised to seek alternative routes where available. We have very limited road transport in place due to a lack of availability.

Customers travelling between Cardiff / Bristol and the South Coast are advised to travel via Reading using Cross Country services between Reading and Southampton Central. Tickets will be accepted on this route at no extra cost.

Nowhere has been immune to cancellations today but it’s been mainly local services that have seen the most cancellations/short running.

Things aren’t too clever on services up from the Southwest to London this afternoon with the 14.18, 16.18 from Penzance and the 17.45 from Plymouth all cancelled. The 17.32 Exeter to London service also being cancelled won’t help the situation much either.

[GBM]

https://busandtrainuser.com/2024/10/03/a-nightmare-journey-on-gwr/
A lovely piece from Roger French

A nightmare journey on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)
Thursday 3rd October 2024
Last Sunday wasn’t a good day for GWR passengers and as bad luck would have it I was one of them.

The signs weren’t good from first thing with a post on X from GWR at 07:19 advising “disruption is expected to the end of the day” due to “forecasted severe weather”.
...snip....

Mods, please move as required.
This covers several different threads

[Witham Bobby]

https://busandtrainuser.com/2024/10/03/a-nightmare-journey-on-gwr/
A lovely piece from Roger French

A nightmare journey on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)
Thursday 3rd October 2024
Last Sunday wasn’t a good day for GWR passengers and as bad luck would have it I was one of them.

The signs weren’t good from first thing with a post on X from GWR at 07:19 advising “disruption is expected to the end of the day” due to “forecasted severe weather”.

Quite restrained, really

Interesting to note from the GWR's twitter response to Kirstie Alsopp that they are operating with fewer trains than desirable, because of government decisions about the amount of taxpayer subsidy.  But if trains are this rammed, ypou have to ask why any subsidy at all is needed.  If the railway can't be run profitably when the trains are piled-high with passengers, the question that springs to mind is "why on earth is it so expensive to operate? Why are the costs so high?

[ChrisB]

That/'s been answered a few times in the past, and nothing much has changed.

I think staffing repped around a third of total costs.

Off-peak tickets just about cover operational costs IF every service was full, I think I saw quoted - to cover full costs, peak service at peak prices was needed to be as full as pre-pandemic. So it is losing billions right now.

[TonyK]

Quite restrained, really

Interesting to note from the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s twitter response to Kirstie Alsopp that they are operating with fewer trains than desirable, because of government decisions about the amount of taxpayer subsidy.  But if trains are this rammed, ypou have to ask why any subsidy at all is needed.  If the railway can't be run profitably when the trains are piled-high with passengers, the question that springs to mind is "why on earth is it so expensive to operate? Why are the costs so high?

Looking at it the other way around, would the train have been that rammed if more services were running?

[grahame]

Quite restrained, really

Interesting to note from the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s twitter response to Kirstie Alsopp that they are operating with fewer trains than desirable, because of government decisions about the amount of taxpayer subsidy.  But if trains are this rammed, ypou have to ask why any subsidy at all is needed.  If the railway can't be run profitably when the trains are piled-high with passengers, the question that springs to mind is "why on earth is it so expensive to operate? Why are the costs so high?

Looking at it the other way around, would the train have been that rammed if more services were running?

Perhaps if there were more (equally rammed) trains running on the same tracks, the costs per passenger would be lower.  After all, while you're adding the cost of an extra train you are not adding the extra track fixed costs, are you?

[TaplowGreen]

12:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 17:32 will be started from Plymouth.
It will no longer call at Penzance, St Erth, Camborne, Redruth, Truro, St Austell, Par, Bodmin Parkway and Liskeard.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

14:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 19:32 will call additionally at Hayle, Lostwithiel, St Germans and Saltash.
This is due to the train making extra stops because a train was cancelled.
Will be formed of 5 coaches instead of 10. There are no reservations on this service.

16:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 21:32 will be terminated at Exeter St Davids.
It will no longer call at Tiverton Parkway, Taunton, Reading and London Paddington.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

Short trains and cancelled journeys for Cornish customers - if you're going to start Penzance-London Services from Plymouth or finish them at Exeter, at the very least make sure the one that's going all the way isn't half its usual length, especially if it's making extra stops 

[IndustryInsider]

14:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 19:32 will call additionally at Hayle, Lostwithiel, St Germans and Saltash.
This is due to the train making extra stops because a train was cancelled.
Will be formed of 5 coaches instead of 10. There are no reservations on this service.

Short trains and cancelled journeys for Cornish customers - if you're going to start Penzance-London Services from Plymouth or finish them at Exeter, at the very least make sure the one that's going all the way isn't half its usual length, especially if it's making extra stops 

Both realtimetrains and internal systems are reporting this as being a 10-car.  Formed with 800010/21.

[TaplowGreen]

14:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 19:32 will call additionally at Hayle, Lostwithiel, St Germans and Saltash.
This is due to the train making extra stops because a train was cancelled.
Will be formed of 5 coaches instead of 10. There are no reservations on this service.

Short trains and cancelled journeys for Cornish customers - if you're going to start Penzance-London Services from Plymouth or finish them at Exeter, at the very least make sure the one that's going all the way isn't half its usual length, especially if it's making extra stops 

Both realtimetrains and internal systems are reporting this as being a 10-car.  Formed with 800010/21.

Fingers crossed they are correct and commonsense has prevailed!

[Timmer]

Local services mainly affected today with cancellations and short running concentrated on the following routes:

Cardiff-Portsmouth
Bristol-Severn Beach
Bristol-Weymouth
Exmouth-Paignton

[TaplowGreen]

Local services mainly affected today with cancellations and short running concentrated on the following routes:

Cardiff-Portsmouth
Bristol-Severn Beach
Bristol-Weymouth
Exmouth-Paignton

It's not school holidays, England aren't playing football, hardly BBQ weather................Saturday starting to become  another Sunday?

[Timmer]

It's not school holidays, England aren't playing football, hardly BBQ weather................Saturday starting to become  another Sunday?

Only a couple of HS^▸ (High Speed (short for HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) High Speed Services)) services cancelled/short running so far today. It’s local services where there are issues today.

What tomorrow brings on long distance services…

[Timmer]

Heads up for tomorrow (Sunday 20th of October):

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads

Due to a shortage of train crew between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads fewer trains are able to run on all lines.

Train services running to and from these stations will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day on 20/10/24.

Customer Advice
Due to a shortage of train crew, fewer services are able to operate between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads tomorrow, Sun 20/10/2024..
***
As a result, long distance services between London Paddington and Swansea will be taking an alternative route between Swindon and Bristol Parkway, calling additionally at Chippenham, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads. This will extend journey times between London and South Wales by approximately 40 minutes. Passengers who need to travel to/from Chippenham, Bath Spa or Bristol Temple Meads should board these services, or make use of other local services in the Bristol area, which will continue to operate. Please note that we expect these services to be extremely busy, so if you are able to delay your journey to travel on another day, you may have a more comfortable journey. To enable this, you can use your ticket on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) services on Monday 21st October at no additional cost.
***
If you are travelling between London Paddington and Reading/Didcot Parkway/Swindon, you should use local GWR services between London and Swindon, which will continue to operate as normal.

At least GWR are giving out advance information that tomorrow’s service between London-Bristol and South Wales is going to be badly affected..

Here are the cancellations listed so far for tomorrow. Doesn’t look too clever does it:

Sun, 20 October 09:00 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare due 11:09
Sun, 20 October 11:33 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 13:07
Sun, 20 October 12:33 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare due 14:38
Sun, 20 October 13:33 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 15:07
Sun, 20 October 14:33 London Paddington to Taunton due 16:41
Sun, 20 October 15:33 London Paddington to Taunton due 18:07
Sun, 20 October 16:33 London Paddington to Plymouth due 20:34
Sun, 20 October 17:35 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare due 19:44
Sun, 20 October 18:05 London Paddington to Plymouth due 21:59
Sun, 20 October 18:33 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare due 20:39
Sun, 20 October 19:33 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 21:03
Sun, 20 October 20:33 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare due 22:36

There must be a reason why this line is so badly affected tomorrow?

[GBM]

Heads up for tomorrow (Sunday 20th of October):

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads

There must be a reason why this line is so badly affected tomorrow?

Apparently they're not short of crews.........

edited to fix quotes

[grahame]

Heads up for tomorrow (Sunday 20th of October):

[snip]

There must be a reason why this line is so badly affected tomorrow?

Is that in addition (or should I say a further subtraction?) from the culling of the direct Swansea services which will be calling at Chippenham, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads?  Or are the cancellations shown because there's another service a few minutes separated?

Why ... dunno.  I do know that my dad who spent his working life with HSBC as it became was paid on 20th of the month.  Perhaps back pay has just hit and the "Sundays optional" drivers are opting out tomorrow in significant numbers?