Open Access - Hull Trains and Grand Central suspend services

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Hull trains reduced a few days ago and have now stopped ... looks like Grand Central is suspending too.  Does that leave any Open Access operators running trains?

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-on-grand-central-service-suspension/

RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) Press Office:

RMT demands full protection of jobs and wages as Arriva Grand Central confirms it is suspending services from tonight

RAIL UNION RMT has demanded full protection of jobs and wages after Arriva-owned Grand Central confirmed that they will be suspending all services from the last train tonight.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said

“RMT is frankly appalled that Grand Central is not intending to make up the full wages of the staff who are being stood down and is instead intending to just pay the 80% covered by the Government scheme.

“Arriva, who own Grand Central, are a wealthy company which can afford to make up the 20% difference and that is what we are calling on them to do.

“‎There are nearly 250 hard working rail staff caught in the crossfire of the Grand Central service suspension plan. RMT's preference was for those workers to be kept operational in an arrangement between the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and the company which would have kept trains running.

[eightonedee]

Oh, come on Mr Cash

Arriva is owned by DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about), who will have suffered a catastrophic collapse in passenger numbers in all their operations.

And if they were truly private, operating paying all your staff full whack would cripple the P&L, and the balance sheet, with the knock on effect of reducing even further the value of shares owned by pension funds. We are literally all in this together.

[grahame]

From the TSSA^» (Transport Salaried Staffs' Association - about)

LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) must take over Grand Central rail so NHS staff, police, and shop workers can get to work
3 April 2020

TSSA is today calling for publicly owned rail company LNER to take over Grand Central trains, which will temporarily cease operations today (Friday) due to the coronavirus crisis.

The union is also calling for LNER to absorb Hull Trains which stopped running trains earlier this week.

TSSA leader Manuel Cortes said, “Grand Central provides services from the North East and West Yorkshire that many passengers rely on. It needs to keep running so key workers such as those in the NHS, police, and food shops can make it to work.

“When Hull Trains stopped running, LNER put on a replacement direct train service from Hull to London. LNER is also planning to start running trains to replace some Grand Central services. If they’re going to do that why not just take on the whole shebang?

“Across Britain’s rail network there’s been a 95% drop in passenger numbers because of coronavirus which companies like LNER can cope with because they’re in government hands. But companies like Grand Central and Hull Trains are 'open access' operators that don't have any government support so this drop in passenger numbers has hit them hard.

Very interesting idealogical discussion ... open access is supposed to be there to provide extras on top of what's needed in franchises - optional extras. ...