Great Western Coffee Shop

Apparently this is due to a shortage of drivers......FGW state that enough drivers were scheduled but cannot comment further on why they were unable to work.

Not great for customers.

A certain amount of last minute absence due to sickness etc is to be expected and should be allowed for.
It does seem rather odd for this to happen suddenly and on such a scale, I am not aware of any large outbreak of illness generally.

Could be some form of protest perhaps, if significant numbers have suddenly decided not to work overtime ?

Some of the earlier cancellations were due to animals on the line, but as posted above , most are staff shortage.

Possibly should be merged with http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15855.msg177808#msg177808
as these two topics are pretty much related

It's Fathers Day so you may find more members of staff deciding they don't wish to work their Sunday's. Many grades also have the option to opt-out of Sunday work so the company has to rely on people wanting to do them.

And they want to be able to run trains when no guard is available; must be time to start thinking of removing the need for a driver too.

Whilst I understand that drivers would not wish to work today being Father's Day, it's once again the travelling public who are inconvienced because the train operating company doesn't have enough staff to cover the advertised timetable. Not helped of course by engineering work taking place between Chippenham and Swindon.

Hmm :-\ . Thanks for your constructive suggestion, Adelante_CCT.  However, in this particular case, I read that earlier 'animals on the line' issues, as well as other problems, caused widespread cancellations and delays in the Cotswolds - while more particular driver shortage issues caused disruption around Melksham.

I'm therefore inclined to leave these two discussion topics in their existing separate boards.

A cow at Kingham. Or, more precisely, an ex-cow at Kingham. :(

hmm is it now being cut into steaks and roasting joints I quite fancy a sirloin steak and all the trimmings!!

Wish I'd known about this earlier. I was catering today, and, whilst there was food a-plenty, I'm sure a few very fresh steaks would've been appreciated.

It would appear that the TOC did have enough staff rostered, but a number of those scheduled to work chose not to. I'm sure they had their reasons, and that they spared a thought for the thousands of customers they inconvenienced by doing so.

I'm not sure I share the hilarity regarding the cow being hit on the line, I've been on a train where a similar thing happened, and it was pretty upsetting for the driver and others concerned with the incident.

Doesn't anyone here know if the rostering affected any of the other TOCS or is there something different about the FGW driver employment contracts?

It's an "odd one".   Staff rostered don't normally just fail to turn up for "no good reason" - FGW train crews are (personal experience) pretty responsible.  I suspect tight rostering, perhaps a flu virus going around where a higher than normal number called in sick, and backup calls to other staff "please come in to help" at the last minute being me with "sorry - my son/daughter has had me booked since April for Father's day".   

Still not clever at all; I run a business and we have a fallback to ensure that we're still fully operational even if someone calls in at 6 a.m. sick for a 6.15 start, and ironic when you look at the number of extra buses running around yesterday, with more drivers than there would have been train drivers providing an inferior service at (no doubt) extra cost.

I seem to recall another TOC got into similar trouble with Sunday rostering a few years back. Have a feeling it was either FCC or Silverlink or one of the North London suburban franchises.

I think it was Central Trains and its successor London Midland that had the most heavily publicised issues around Sunday (non-) working.

Not sure of any specific reason for yesterday's shortages, though in general we've been teetering on the edge regarding driver availability for some time now.  Many Sundays (and indeed Saturdays and weekdays) rely on drivers working additional shifts, which they are not obliged to do, or deviating from their rostered turn of duty to start earlier or later, again which they are not obliged to do.  Some depots have an agreement where they can 'throw in' their Sunday with no penalty as long as they give five days notice, and to balance the books there has to be an equal number of drivers who are willing to work an additional Sunday for the generous payment that offers.  There usually is, but something like Fathers Day could well tip the balance quite quickly so that there aren't enough drivers to go round.  A couple of 'sickies' on the day would then compound the problem.

Additionally, in previous years, depots such as Oxford helped cover shortages by working the trains the HSS depots cover over their shared routes thus allowing the HSS drivers to be released to cover for non-shared routes, but a general shortage of drivers at the other depots mean that they're struggling badly to cover their own work.  Believe me, we are not a million miles away from a similar crisis to the one that London Midland found themselves in a few years back.

Bringing Sunday shifts into the rostered week would largely resolve the issue, as would having depots that have no vacancies and drivers that are fully up-to-date with the routes and traction they are supposed to sign.  I can't see either happening any time soon though, so prepare for some more weekend (and weekday) cancellations as a result of driver shortages.

II your reply was very useful, thanks

Are there any limits on length of shifts and time between shifts?

Dave

Hidden rules (after the Clapham disaster) require all TOC's to follow these rules:

• No more than 12 hours shifts
• No less than 12 hours between booking off and on
• No more than 72 hours worked in a week
• No more than 13 consecutive shifts without a day off

In addition there are various rules around breaks and continuous driving which depend on the length of shift and vary with each TOC.