Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[REVUpminster]

Two trains cancelled from Paignton between the 12.33 and 13.26 which includes the London departure. Just as well the tide is out at Dawlish. or bang goes the XCountry.

Torquay and Paignton are the 3rd and 4th biggest settlements in Devon and it is holiday changeover day; so very poor for a line not technically a branch..

[Timmer]

So was I. Luckily, living near to Maiden Newton, I can decide on the day, since the decision on the service is only made that morning.

I do feel for the Swanage Railway. If it’s not strikes bedevilling this Saturday service now it’s lack of traincrew to run it.

[grahame]

I do feel for the Swanage Railway. If it’s not strikes bedevilling this Saturday service now it’s lack of traincrew to run it.

I feel for them too - not only in lost revenue, but in loss of reputation to have a combined service run as advertised.  And that has an effect long after the day of the cancelled trains.

Sadly, many people learn the hard way that you need a safety net and backup plan if you're going to put your faith in the wider rail industry.   Lesson first learned 15 years ago when all the ducks were in line to start the build of Corsham station and someone pulled the plug on the Bristol <-> Oxford trains which would have served it.  Lesson repeated many times since.

[bradshaw]

They managed to find stock and crew for the afternoon service from Yeovil to Weymouth and return to London. However one more Exeter service(1420) and return (1825) stopped/begins at Salisbury.

[Adelante_CCT]

Various list this morning of services cancelled or altered due to lack of staff, with Bedwyn services operating using 3 car turbos instead of IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train)

[TaplowGreen]

Various list this morning of services cancelled or altered due to lack of staff, with Bedwyn services operating using 3 car turbos instead of IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train)

39 longer distance services with no catering due to staff shortages too.......hopefully Broadgage isn't feeling hungry today!

Seriously however that must represent quite a loss of revenue to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) as well as goodwill.

[broadgage]

Broadgage has the sense to avoid weekend trains, unless some exceptional circumstance requires weekend train travel.

No Pullman
No proper first class.
More screaming infants/children.
Greater risk of bustitution.
And increasingly not even a trolley.

[martyjon]

Cor blimey, the're already putting up tomorrows cancellations now and its only just, well one hour past, midday.

[IndustryInsider]

Cor blimey, the're already putting up tomorrows cancellations now and its only just, well one hour past, midday.

Which is a very good thing to do - the more notice the better.  As long as they are cancellations and they’re not cancellations that end up being cancelled!

[Timmer]

39 longer distance services with no catering due to staff shortages too.......hopefully Broadgage isn't feeling hungry today!

Seems to be quite a high number today. Not the catering team’s annual BBQ today is it?

On a more serious note, at least the train is running and Broadgage isn’t travelling today.

PS Pleased to see the 1203 Paddington-Penzance calling additionally at Pewsey, Westbury and Castle Cary in lieu of the 1142 Paddington-Paignton service being cancelled; though it might be a bit cozy on this train. On any other weekend Westbury passengers can change at Bath Spa but not today with engineering work taking place in the Bath area.

[Timmer]

Broadgage has the sense to avoid weekend trains, unless some exceptional circumstance requires weekend train travel.

I do as well if I can especially Sundays. It just seems that rail travel on weekends is second rate for reasons you’ve listed as well as train crew shortages.

[IndustryInsider]

Weekends have certainly become incredibly popular for rail travel within the last 20 or so years.  Back then it used to be steady on a Saturday, dead on a Sunday morning and then get a bit busy on Sunday afternoons - many places had a poor or non-existent Sunday morning service anyway, which is slowly getting better. 

Nowadays Saturday mornings and evenings are very busy, and on Sunday it is busy from the off, building to near (and sometimes beyond) breaking point in the mid-afternoon.

[TaplowGreen]

Weekends have certainly become incredibly popular for rail travel within the last 20 or so years.  Back then it used to be steady on a Saturday, dead on a Sunday morning and then get a bit busy on Sunday afternoons - many places had a poor or non-existent Sunday morning service anyway, which is slowly getting better. 

Nowadays Saturday mornings and evenings are very busy, and on Sunday it is busy from the off, building to near (and sometimes beyond) breaking point in the mid-afternoon.

Probably best to ensure that there's enough crew available to reflect that before it becomes "dead" again as everyone gives up and returns to the road?

The crew shortage issue is now also seeping into the weekday service as we are seeing, and we aren't even into the school holiday season yet.

[IndustryInsider]

Yes, indeed, especially on Sundays as we have discussed at length.

There's no sign of much 'giving up' as yet - latest results and journeys are up another 3% on last year to 1.759 billion a year.  I distinctly remember the 'Thanks a billion' poster from around 15 years ago when that mark was hit for the first time since the 60s.  It won't be long before we're at double that!

I'm not trying to make excuses, and the railway is certainly guilty of being slow to react to change, but a look at the graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain#/media/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png and you can clearly see why the industry has struggled to cope.  Other periods where there were sustained increases at the current rate were when new railways were being built everywhere in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or in the immediate aftermath of WW1 and WW2 when the infrastructure was there but the demand unsurprisingly suppressed during the war years. 

The last 20 years has seen journeys nearly triple since the low point in 'the good old days' in the 80s and have to be accommodated with hardly any new lines and only very modest improvements to the existing ones.

[TaplowGreen]

A number of services cancelled this afternoon/evening due to crew shortage but cancelling this one is particularly poor on a Friday night...


23:42 London Paddington to Oxford due 01:01 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.