Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

Yes, the overall statistics may indeed be as you say, but (if I?ve done my sums right) 5 out of 12 trains from Paddington to Bristol are cancelled in the middle part of to-day, so less than 60% of the published service is running.   

Exactly this - what was that old saying about statistics?

[a-driver]

A large number of train crew at certain depots have either tested positive for Covid or are awaiting test results. This is affecting both drivers, train managers and maintenance staff.

[Timmer]

Journeycheck now confirming the cancellations on two routes by way of offering more infomation:

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads

Due to a shortage of train crew between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads:
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled. Disruption is expected until 23:30 12/12.

Customer Advice
You are advised to check your journey before travel, direct train services between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads have been reduced to an hourly train service.

If you are travelling between London Paddington, Reading, Swindon and Bristol Temple Meads, you can use your ticket for travel between Swindon and Bristol Temple Meads via Bristol Parkway as this journey may be quicker than waiting for the next available train service.

Cancellations to services between Westbury and Swindon

Due to a shortage of train crew between Westbury and Swindon fewer trains are able to run on the line.
Train services running through these stations may be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice
Due to a shortage of train drivers, fewer services will be able to operate between Swindon and Westbury via Melksham in both directions.

Passengers from Westbury wishing to travel to Trowbridge may use alternative services towards Bath Spa, passengers wishing to travel to Chippenham and Swindon should also travel to Bath Spa and change there for services to Swindon.
Passengers for Melksham, please contact the Westbury station team and a taxi will be arranged.

Passengers from Swindon wishing to travel to Chippenham may use alternative services towards Bath Spa, passengers wishing to travel to Trowbridge and Westbury should also travel to Bath Spa and change there for services to Westbury.
Passengers for Melksham, please contact the Swindon station team and a taxi will be arranged.

A rail replacement taxi has been arranged to convey passengers from Melksham station to Swindon via Chippenham if required, and also from Melksham station to Westbury via Trowbridge if required.
Passengers are requested to go to the rail replacement bus stop at Melksham station.


An additional train service has been planned to operate departing Westbury at 19:15 and calling at Trowbridge at 19:21, Melksham at 19:31, Chippenham at 19:45 and arriving Swindon at 20:04.

Journey times will be extended. We apologise for the inconvenience.

[Timmer]

Pleased to see London-Southwest fast services are calling additionally at Newbury, Pewsey, Westbury and Castle Cary to cover for the cancelled semi fast services.

[grahame]

Pleased to see London-Southwest fast services are calling additionally at Newbury, Pewsey, Westbury and Castle Cary to cover for the cancelled semi fast services.

It makes huge sense ...

There has been too much forced practise in timetable changes and making ends meet with reduced crews ... but that does have something of a sliver lining in that they're getting very much more used to making the best of a bad job.   

I can have a lot more sympathy with current time shortages, which realistically have been outside the control of the industry and have come from left field, than with the rail industry's own goals when this thread started.  And decisions like these extra stops are welcome - working for passengers rather than (one has felt in the past) working to ensure on-time arrival of trains to minimise late running financial penalties.

A contingency of alternate London to Bristol trains, making it hourly and stating it as such also makes sense too - far better than ad-hoc and patchy changes.

[TaplowGreen]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website states "There is a good service across our network"

Today's cancellations, all due to crew shortage;

08:34 Exeter St Davids to London Paddington due 11:08
09:56 Plymouth to Penzance due 11:51
11:03 London Paddington to Plymouth due 14:11
12:33 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids due 15:00
13:03 London Paddington to Plymouth due 16:13
13:15 Plymouth to London Paddington due 16:29
14:33 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids due 17:01
15:03 London Paddington to Plymouth due 18:11
15:10 Plymouth to London Paddington due 18:29
15:40 Exeter St Davids to London Paddington due 18:07
16:33 London Paddington to Plymouth due 20:02
17:40 Exeter St Davids to London Paddington due 20:07
17:46 Plymouth to London Paddington due 21:07
18:33 London Paddington to Plymouth due 22:03
19:15 Plymouth to London Paddington due 22:44

Foreshortened (in most cases dramatically)

09:47 Exeter St Davids to Penzance due 12:56
11:30 London Paddington to Paignton due 14:58
13:41 Swindon to Dorchester West due 15:40
14:03 London Paddington to Penzance due 19:09
14:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 19:29
15:13 Penzance to London Paddington due 20:29
15:59 Paignton to London Paddington due 19:44
16:03 London Paddington to Penzance due 21:08
16:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 21:29
16:23 Dorchester West to Bristol Temple Meads due 18:26
16:30 London Paddington to Plymouth due 20:22
17:03 London Paddington to Penzance due 22:09
17:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare due 19:37
19:03 London Paddington to Plymouth due 22:12
20:14 Weston-Super-Mare to London Paddington due 22:47
20:15 Plymouth to London Paddington due 00:12
20:48 Bristol Temple Meads to Dorchester West due 22:58
21:25 Cardiff Central to Westbury due 23:13
22:15 Cardiff Central to Warminster due 00:05

Good luck to anyone feeling brave enough to risk it today -

[grahame]

Good luck to anyone feeling brave enough to risk it today -

Would they (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) would do FAR better to say "We are short staffed as many members of our operational team are isolating or awaiting test results.  Services from London to Plymouth will run every 2 hours, and make calls at stations usually served by both express and semi-fast trains.   For details ...."?

[Timmer]

With the new timetable starting today, which features a later start and reduced hourly service between Bristol-London, I suspect without these two factors we?d have seen a reduced service on this line too.

On the WoE line, once again pleased to see fast services calling at Pewsey, Westbury and Castle Cary to cover for the cancelled semi fasts, something we didn?t see this time last year and I personally experienced on this very weekend a year ago.

[Surrey 455]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website states "There is a good service across our network"

Perhaps they should break it down journey by journey in the same way that TfL^» (Transport for London - about) do for the Tube. And put it on the home page!
SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already do this although at present each route is showing "Special Timetable"

[TaplowGreen]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website states "There is a good service across our network"

Perhaps they should break it down journey by journey in the same way that TfL^» (Transport for London - about) do for the Tube. And put it on the home page!
SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already do this although at present each route is showing "Special Timetable"

Excellent idea.

This has been added in the last few minutes so it appears that someone is awake, but still no mention of the mass cancellations/alterations which this makes worse of course;

Cancellations to services between Westbury and Castle Cary
Due to engineering works not being finished on time between Westbury and Castle Cary all lines are blocked.
Train services running through these stations may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 11:00 13/12.

[bradshaw]

A ecs move from Castle Cary to Westbury was cancelled and it seems the stock will be used to run the 2O71 Westbury Weymouth from Castle Cary. It appears in Tracksy on platform 2.

[bobm]

Will run as far as Dorchester West only because of engineering work further south.  (If it ever gets going)

[IndustryInsider]

Perhaps they should break it down journey by journey in the same way that TfL^» (Transport for London - about) do for the Tube. And put it on the home page!
SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already do this although at present each route is showing "Special Timetable"

Yes, that should be quite easily done as internal staff systems have now started doing that (see the attached images).  You do not want to provide too much on the homepage but perhaps a three stage message level of:

"GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is operating a good service on all routes"
"GWR is operating a good service on most routes but there is disruption on selected routes.  Click here for more details."
"There is widespread disruption on GWR services. Click here for more details?"

When you click for more details it takes you to the layout in the attached images.  That could then link to individual alterations if you click on a yellow or red banner.

[TaplowGreen]

Somewhat belatedly;


Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Plymouth
Due to a shortage of train crew between London Paddington and Plymouth fewer trains are able to run on all lines.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Customer Advice
You are advised to check your journey before travel, if travelling between London Paddington, Newbury, Pewsey, Wetsbury, Castle Cary, Exeter St Davids and Plymouth.

If your service has been cancelled, you can use your ticket for travel on an earlier train service between London Paddington and Plymouth. Additional stops will be put on train services, for Newbury, Pewsey, Westbury and Castle Cary where the previous cancelled train would have called at these stations.

[fintan_stack]

Looked in here to see what people knew about the current service cancellations.

I went up towards London last evening, my train was cancelled so I get half my single ticket price back for a half hour delay, came back today on time but I noted lots of cancellations on the journey checker.

Had a chat to the guard (no weekend first class upgrades were being collected so a slightly better seat was had gratis) and he said there was still a lot of annual leave needing to be taken by the end of the year, only a day can be carried forward to next year. so that was partly behind yesterdays cancellations. It seems some managers were begging drivers in particular to cancel leave in the autumn of this year and now they are running out of time to take it.

On the guards side, he said earlier in the pandemic leave had to be taken even if it meant sitting at home on lockdown, it couldn't be swapped to free weeks later in the year and that that hadn't gone down too well with some staff.

Seems that there are some covid cases and some people isolating but not a huge number but it's felt the company will use covid as an excuse for everything now. Very few of the trolley people are back yet and there's a worry for their jobs when the government get the pandemic and brexit closed off.