Problems with IET trains from April 2021

[whole diary]

[a-driver]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

[TaplowGreen]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

One thought.....could the crew of the 0905 which failed not have run the 1006 which didn't have a crew?

[broadgage]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

Yes, that would explain the staff shortages, but not the number of short formations and cancellations due to train faults. These are presumably due to cracks, heat related faults or other mechanical failures.

[a-driver]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

One thought.....could the crew of the 0905 which failed not have run the 1006 which didn't have a crew?

It depends on were the 1006 is short of a crew!  For example.

The crew for the 0905 could work to Truro to then go onto the Falmouth, if there is no relieving driver, the train is stranded at Truro or there could have been similar issues further up the line.  
Or the crew on the 0905 might work to Exeter to then work one back to Penzance in which case they would taxi the driver up to Exeter.
A whole host of scenarios

[a-driver]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

Yes, that would explain the staff shortages, but not the number of short formations and cancellations due to train faults. These are presumably due to cracks, heat related faults or other mechanical failures.

I suppose it depends on wether track and trace has hit the maintenance staff leaving them short.
I’d also guess that some short formations occur where you have a driver booked to bring sets off the depot who is taken off that job to cover a service train.

[IndustryInsider]

I suppose it depends on wether track and trace has hit the maintenance staff leaving them short.

Good point.  I’m sure there are shortages there as well as a result of being pinged.  It is after all badly affecting the whole country now.

[IndustryInsider]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

One thought.....could the crew of the 0905 which failed not have run the 1006 which didn't have a crew?

It depends on were the 1006 is short of a crew!  For example.

The crew for the 0905 could work to Truro to then go onto the Falmouth, if there is no relieving driver, the train is stranded at Truro or there could have been similar issues further up the line.  
Or the crew on the 0905 might work to Exeter to then work one back to Penzance in which case they would taxi the driver up to Exeter.
A whole host of scenarios

Yes it's a perfectly logical suggestion, but one with quite a complex set of reasons as to why it often can't happen.

Especially with the longer distance journeys, there is usually some stumbling block regarding the crew.  This particular train has four drivers allocated to it to do separate stints between Penzance and Paddington, and three train managers.  Almost certainly if they had been held back an hour to work the next train (rather than travelling on the next available service) it would have implications on their next workings for at least one of them and could end up causing a whole load of reactionary delays worse than the original problem.

You don't need to have four drivers and three train managers of course, a Penzance to Paddington could be done with two of each - and sometimes is - but trying to optimise staff utilisation (and also laziness in terms of diagramming sometimes) means that increasingly it seems short stints are used to cover certain routes.  Not to mention the fact that when staff are at a premium as they are now, they are often given different parts of several normal diagrams to get everything covered.  The elastic band only stretches so far.

[stuving]

A month ago, the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) produced a "Passenger impact review – Hitachi class 800 trains". The have analysed what decisions the operators took, though only briefly, and have more to say on the information provided (completeness, consistency, etc.) as well as assistance of refunds. There are several such secitons - here, for example, is their assessment of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s "Consistency and clarity of travel information 10 – 21 May":

Our examination of the information on GWR’s website found that suitable prominence had been given to information about the disruption and this was largely both clear and consistent throughout the period checked. We noted only minor differences between the information provided by GWR and National Rail Enquiries.

GWR continued to extend its “do not travel” message on a daily basis but was also able to expand on the information provided for each route that was affected. Journey planners were initially updated daily, and it broke down the longer distance routes into a number of shuttle services. However, although we have seen useful internal maps showing the shuttle services that were operating, these were not seen in any of our checks on the information available to passengers.

By Sunday 16 May, an amended timetable was loaded into journey planners for travel through to Friday 21 May. With over 60 trains available for service by 17 May and the timetable stabilised, ticket acceptance with other operators was withdrawn. We noted that some services used different rolling stock (Class 387 services on some Bristol Parkway to Paddington journeys) which was not advertised specifically; facilities available to passengers on these services were not those usually provided, for example seat reservations, and the difference could only be identified by the longer journey time (owing to a lower top speed).

They also wrote individually to each operator (including NRE^‡(resolve) and the ticket sellers), copies to be found with the press release..

[bobm]

Consecutive cancellations this morning. One train failure, the second due to crew shortage- return trips also cancelled - more unhappy customers, more traffic on the roads for want of a reliable alternative;

09:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 14:27
10:06 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:29

Not much they can do when Track n Trace is ripping through depots up and down the country. The government should have envisaged this and acted accordingly

One thought.....could the crew of the 0905 which failed not have run the 1006 which didn't have a crew?

It depends on were the 1006 is short of a crew!  For example.

The crew for the 0905 could work to Truro to then go onto the Falmouth, if there is no relieving driver, the train is stranded at Truro or there could have been similar issues further up the line.  
Or the crew on the 0905 might work to Exeter to then work one back to Penzance in which case they would taxi the driver up to Exeter.
A whole host of scenarios

Yes it's a perfectly logical suggestion, but one with quite a complex set of reasons as to why it often can't happen.

Especially with the longer distance journeys, there is usually some stumbling block regarding the crew.  This particular train has four drivers allocated to it to do separate stints between Penzance and Paddington, and three train managers.  Almost certainly if they had been held back an hour to work the next train (rather than travelling on the next available service) it would have implications on their next workings for at least one of them and could end up causing a whole load of reactionary delays worse than the original problem.

You don't need to have four drivers and three train managers of course, a Penzance to Paddington could be done with two of each - and sometimes is - but trying to optimise staff utilisation (and also laziness in terms of diagramming sometimes) means that increasingly it seems short stints are used to cover certain routes.  Not to mention the fact that when staff are at a premium as they are now, they are often given different parts of several normal diagrams to get everything covered.  The elastic band only stretches so far.

If I remember rightly the 10:06 is the first long distance train of the day from Penzance formed off an incoming service.  That didn’t run due to a shortage of crew so even if you could step up the crew from the 09:05 there wouldn’t have been a train for them to work.

[broadgage]

Over 20 short formed IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) again today, And that is with the reduced "covid mode" timetable.

[IndustryInsider]

Good to see a couple of new phrases for the 2021 edition of Broadgage Bingo. 

[broadgage]

Good to see a couple of new phrases for the 2021 edition of Broadgage Bingo. 

When do you expect IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) to return to full availability, that is to operate the pre-covid time table.
And without "cheating" by stating that train length does not matter much now that social distancing is over.
Or that there are fewer commuters (whilst forgetting about extra leisure travel)

[IndustryInsider]

I don’t expect that the Dec ‘19 timetable, and expected enhancements to the Bristol service the following May, will ever return.

The service will likely be structured differently to cope with a different market bias, which will be much more leisure based, but that might take several years to settle down into the finished article.

I expect IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) availability to hover around the current 60 units a day, with some good days and some bad days, until the repairs are made.  I expect most of the time that will provide more than enough seats, but there is no doubt that there is a risk some routes will struggle to cope at times over the next couple of months.

[IndustryInsider]

Over 20 short formed IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) again today, And that is with the reduced "covid mode" timetable.

None listed for the rest of today.  Not sure if there were (m)any earlier on?  Good days and bad days…

[broadgage]

Over 20 short formed IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) again today, And that is with the reduced "covid mode" timetable.

None listed for the rest of today.  Not sure if there were (m)any earlier on?  Good days and bad days…

Agree. IET availability is partly random due to maintenance requirements and the occurrence and rectification of minor faults.

The number of short formations is also related to the staffing situation which is best described as "insufficient but very variable" Suppose that on a bad day that only 50 IETs are available, with a full staff that would lead to dozens of short forms.

If however dozens of IET services were cancelled for want of staff, then just 50 units could operate the reduced number of services at full length.

Conversely a good day for IETs might see 65 units  available, but a lot of short forms if the staffing was improved.

I expect the staffing situation to improve long before the cracks are mended.