LOndon Midland *were* short of drivers. I'm not sure we have definitely concluded that GWR▸ are - just too many on 'wrong contracts'. London Midland's extras were part of a 'fine' for poor performane
I wish GWR would come out and say what exactly the problem is on weekends on 'West' services and what they are doing about it. Be a bit more understanding if it was clear what the problem was.
That would require leadership and honesty......
don't hold your breath.
Here's an explanation I have been offered (from a senior level within GWR) that does seem to make sense when you look at the arithmetic:
"More that usual train crew needing training at the same time"
Let's analyse that.GWR has just over 5,000 staff (from
here).
Training days delivered in 2015/16 = 20,600 and in 2016/17 = 22971. Planned for 2017/18 = 61,500 and for 2018/19 = 43,100. Those latter two figures say "includes data from new programmes and areas previously not reordered" which makes for figures we have to be careful about when we compare - I haven't a clue how many new areas have come in! So that's 4.5 days per staff member in the year to March 2017, and over 12 days per staff member this year.
Can loss of availability of the average GWR staff member of 8 days of doing their regular job make a real difference? Yes, and a significant one if
* staffing is already very close to being at its limits
* staff are already putting in as much overtime and Sundays as they want
* the extra training isn't even across the 5,000 but rather is skewed towards those moving train types
* Monday to Friday staff levels are maintained as prime goal, with shortages being managed to occur at the weekend
* training step-up didn't occur until the equipment on which to train (80x trains and 16x trains) was available.
If you loose the
average staff member (yeah, I know - the operation team are all exceptional
) for 8 more weekend days over the 9 months from July 2017 to March 2018, that's a 10% loss from your staff pool, and that 10% shortage is going to be very hard indeed to fill week after week after week where the system is already close to its limit.
Come 3rd January 2018, the Westbury depot and staff based at Fratton and Weymouth too, should be switching overnight from driving 15x trains to 16x trains, and (unless we have a January 2007 style meltdown) training will need to be substantively completed by that point. So even my 9 month estimate for extra training time may be too generous - we may be looking just over the final 6 calendar months of 2017, and the crew shortage creeps up to 15%. Realistically, it may be 20% or 25%, bearing in mind that the proportion of extra training for platform staff, ticket sellers,
HQ▸ based staff, station maintenance teams, etc, is not going to be anything like as high as the driver and train manager extras.
The explanation also fits in with the metrics of where the staffing shortages are being seen - predominantly in Wessex (where trains are changing over) rather than further west. Further west, the main changes are the bolstering of stock of the same types they're already crewing and maintaining, with the loss of some 153 and the 150/1 units - so not the same "new unit" training needs.
You can question some of my fuzzy logic on figures and estimates. You can ask why Saturdays and Sundays have been targeted as the days on which any cuts are to fall. You can ask whether mitigating actions have been considered / taken. I'm thinking of the contracting
SWR» staff from Salisbury, as they do a train. I'm thinking of asking retiring staff to stay on for a final autumn to provide an extra staff availability during the changeover. I'm thinking of offering staff already trained earlier in the year (i.e. Bristol based crew) more shifts down to Westbury, enabling the remaining Westbury crew with route knowledge to distant and remote places like Weymouth and Portsmouth to be concentrated on those services.
Some or even all of those thing may have been considered, may actually be being done - I have no data either way. Certainly the current drive to recruit more staff for Westbury looks like it's got an element of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted about it ... but it may well be setting things up for a much better 2018 if the initial training is towards 16x units, with only a couple of GWR calls of 158s at Westbury each way each day next year.
Edit to clarify source of suggestion
Click on the map to explore geographics
