Cross Country Destruction of service

[whole diary]

[willc]

The time penalty incurred by a stop at Willington is a whole two minutes, according to XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))'s timetable, on hourly Class 170-operated services which function as the local stopping service between Birmingham and Derby.

I assume you are in favour of encouraging the use of trains, so how on earth can you have a problem with this trial of a handful of extra services? It's not as if they are going to be stopping a Voyager or HST^▸ (High Speed Train) travelling from Plymouth to Scotland.

[eightf48544]

I'm all for stopping more trains at stations like Willington, which lost out very badly when the franchise changed.

Up until then Centro? (I get confused with these here today gone tommorrow TOCS) had built up a decent service at Willington and gave reasonable commuting oportunities to Birmingham, Derby and Nottingham.

This service was  decimated when East Midlands took over.

A bit like Melksham so maybe two voices are better than one and so every time better services are mentioned for either station then the other should be put on the table as well. There are several other stations which could come under the "while you are about it what about?" 

It makes it much more difficult to play one campaigning group off against the other.

[willc]

It's not really like Melksham, where the trains were taken away. There are still lots of trains passing through Willington, just that fewer of them stop there than before, which may have something to do with its status as somewhere managed by a firm which it doesn't actually run any trains to it, in the shape of EMT^» (East Midlands Trains - about) - because XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) doesn't manage stations - even though XC runs all the trains between Birmingham and Derby - the same management situation applies at Burton-upon-Trent, just down the line. Not sure that makes either party a champion of the interests of those two stations. EMT scrapped  two through London services from Burton inherited from Midland Mainline, which also called at Willington, in 2008.

[grahame]

If a train is on the line between (let us say) Achnasheen and Achnashellach, then it can't at the same time be on the line between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren ... so to that extent there is a degree of competition between lines / services / stations when there aren't enough trains to go around.  But this business of "playing one service off against another" can be overstated ... case in point, I don't think there's a trade off between Willington and Melksham and the people who are looking for an improved service in both of the towns have far more to gain by talking with each other and working togther than by competing with each other.   Actually, reading the thread it could be particularly useful for the folks or Willington, Mottisfont and Dean to talk to each other.

[thetrout]

Boarded an XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) Service from Bristol - Taunton Last Saturday, was travelling First Class and when I boarded pretty much every table was covered with rubbish, took up a good third of the table when piled in the corner as you can see below...

[John R]

Why don't you send that to the MD of XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)), copy in Passenger Focus and ask whether he is proud of the standard of the cleanliness of their trains since they axed the contract cleaners.

[IndustryInsider]

Well, for the third week running the cancellation rate on a Saturday has been awful with no less than 6 trains cancelled this afternoon through Oxford/Reading, including four arrivals from Newcastle in a row from 16:43 to 19:43 (Oxford timings).  One of these was cancelled throughout, another two terminated at New Street and the other at Derby.  I've no idea what the morning figures were like, but I suspect they were just as bad.  The route down to the south west also saw some cancellations, including the 09:00 Glasgow to Penzance which only got as far as New Street.

From what I can see they were all due to train crew shortages and I did hear a rumour that drivers were not volunteering for rest days, or that Arriva told drivers that they didn't need them to volunteer - can't remember which one, but does anyone have any more information?

[devon_metro]

You are correct, Arriva changed their overtime terms as far as I know, and staff are showing management what they think of it.

[IndustryInsider]

They do seem to be quite adept at being a pretty shoddy operator all round, but still managing to keep just under the radar of true awfulness and the bad publicity which that attracts!

[JayMac]

It's interesting to note however that the Sunday services appeared to run OK today. Driver's working to rule on Saturdays but not on Sunday when the overtime or RDW terms are more generous.

[The Grecian]

In fairness to XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)), I'm an Exeter City fan living in Bristol and as I try to make as many games as I can, I generally want to use XC once a fortnight on Saturdays, occasionally returning on Sundays (this is variable, but it's a rough estimate of the number of trips I've made since August). Most of these trips are with XC due to the limited number of direct FGW^▸ (First Great Western) services. I also travel through to Axminster via Exeter occasionally on Fridays and Sundays as my family lives in that area. In that time, I've had comparatively few disruptions. The only time when their general time-keeping and train running has been noticeably poor was around Christmas. Otherwise I've had few problems - the trains run on time and I can always get a seat, bar bank holidays.

It may be though that their running on the south coast route is somewhat shoddier than on the south west route.

[readytostart]

Problems on the South coast route have been made worse by the current diversion via Laverstock.

Longsight drivers (Manchester) sign as far South as Reading, Birmingham drivers sign as far south as Bournemouth, but not the diversion. This leaves Bournemouth depot the task of driving each train between Poole (for some turnarounds) and Reading as well as the start and end of day positioning at Eastleigh depot (which this weekend due to engineering work has to be accessed by an alternative route).

The reason why Sundays may seem to run smoother than Saturdays could be down to the fact for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) Sunday does not count as annual leave unless in the middle of two weeks off, the Sunday can be requested off but not guaranteed.

[Worcester_Passenger]

...for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) Sunday does not count as annual leave unless in the middle of two weeks off, the Sunday can be requested off but not guaranteed.

RTS - pardon my ignorance here, but could you expand on what all of this means?

[Tim]

Does it not come down to the difference between a rest day (which they can request you to work on subject to extra payment) and annual leave which they can't.

A Sunday is normally a rest day unless it is part of a block of booked off holiday (ie if you have booked off two weeks for a holiday in Spain, they can't force you to come to work on the middle sunday of the fortnight)

[Timmer]

This leaves Bournemouth depot the task of driving each train between Poole (for some turnarounds)

That would explain why I saw a XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) Voyager in the sidings at Poole last year. If they send some trains down to Poole to turnaround, it's a shame they don't run them as through passenger services teminating at Poole rather than Bournemouth.