Great Western Coffee Shop

...as reported by Railway Eye.

http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/2009/11/doomed-london-midland-slapped-with-wet.html (http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/2009/11/doomed-london-midland-slapped-with-wet.html)

Sorry Btline.  ;)

Can anyone enlighten me as to the particular significance of the date 06 Sep 09 cited by Chris Mole?

Interesting, although I couldn't fault the Snow Hill services for punctuality (or prob most of the West Midlands) It's just the WCML services that are unreliable.


Why are you sorry? ???

I thought you were a fan!

You're getting mixed up with Chiltern  ;)

...or was it Phil Sayer?  ;D

Can anyone enlighten me as to the particular significance of the date 06 Sep 09 cited by Chris Mole?
[/quote]

6 September was the Sunday when London Midland cancelled all services due to a shortage of drivers. 

http://www.londonmidland.com/news/latest-news/london-midland-services-on-sunday-6-september/

So we can probably expect a similar notice to be served on FCC. Hence my comment about TOC's and the Government needing to change the rules before it turns farcical. If a TOC is going to be slapped with a remedial notice and forced to commit extra money to the franchise as well as losing the revenue on the day of action, then they will have to tackle the problem.

I don't know if the notice in LM's case was issued purely because of the events of 6 September, or if these just precipitated the notice after a range of other problems/failures. FGW were in fairly dire straits for a little while before Ruth Kelly hit them with the Remedial Plan, as I recall.

I dont think so as London Midland was self inflicted when they decided to reduce the amount paid to staff for working the sunday.  AFAIK FCC have not done anything similar.

The WCML woes won't have helped. Nor the delay in rolling stock causing short forms and LM desiros swanning off to SN.

But it is a shame that the whole franchise area is tarnished by this.

The LM Desiros loaned to SN have never caused any shortages, they have always been covered by the additional retained 321s. Having followed the numbers of units available, they are still well above the eventual steady state at the moment, ie 7x321s and 30x350/1 and 37 350/2, because they still have about 15 321s, but are only 3 350/1s short.

In any case, as the 350 loan was to deal with an 'industry wide' problem, it would be highly unusual for DfT to issue a remedial notice as a result, likewise for the WCML inspired delays, which were outside LM's control as well. LM would not have accepted the notice if it was based on either of these issues.

I expect it is purely down to the poor industrial relations, poor control of train crew diagramming, and little or nothing to do with rolling stock.  One problem as an outside observer, is you can't really tell if short forming is due to defective units, or the drivers have turned up at the wrong depot. The effect is the same...

Paul