London Midland - shortage of drivers

[whole diary]

[Brucey]

Rather unsurprisingly, London Midland are advertising for trainee senior* conductors at (take a deep breath) Birmingham New Street, Birmingham Snow Hill, Worcester, Shrewsbury, Leamington Spa, Bletchley, Northampton, Watford and Crewe.

* = I thought senior conductor was a title used by the InterCity TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company)?  New title to go with 110mph working?

[Brucey]

I've gained a little more information about the staff shortages.  Apparently they are due to an unexpected number of bereavements and illnesses.

Additionally, I have been informed there may be NO service on the Marston Vale Line tomorrow due to staff shortages.

[Bristolboy]

As a frequent user of London midland I would say the company has reduced staffing levels to the bone and now are getting hit. Kings langley, apsley, hemel hempstead and watford junction stations are also often short of staff so have ticket offices shut when they should be open etc.

[eightf48544]

Marston Vale line, new one on me when was it rebranded?

Scrub that just twigged! Wires soon so won't be diesel service in an electrified area

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

London Midland staff shortages cancel trains


Trains were cancelled on several routes from Birmingham

More than 30 London Midland train services, including routes to London, Birmingham and Liverpool, have been cancelled because of staff shortages.

London Midland apologised and said the cancellations were "predominantly due to recent high turnover of staff". It advised passengers to check online over cancellations, which affected 12 evening services.

Commercial director Richard Brooks said it had recruited "a substantial number of new people who are in training".

The RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) trade union said it had warned the company about ongoing staff shortages in areas including drivers and guards "for some time", but said it had "fallen on deaf ears".

Services to Rugeley and Redditch were also affected.

Phil Davis, from Travelwatch West Midlands, said it seemed to be part of an ongoing problem. He urged London Midland to "get their act together", particularly with ticket prices going up. "I was caught myself yesterday with a cancellation on the route to Redditch and the knock-on is that the next train is chock-a-block. It's not good enough really," he said.

Earlier, London Midland warned of delays of up to 25 minutes on some other services, while a number of passengers complained about overcrowding on other routes, including Birmingham to Shrewsbury.

One passenger, Tom Hammersley, used Twitter to describe a service in "meltdown" at Five Ways station outside Birmingham.

Another Birmingham traveller complained of cancellations on one cross city service, only to find an 11-minute delay on the next train.

London Midland said a number of drivers in training were due to qualify soon and that it had recently advertised for more.

[TonyK]

Recent high turnover? Hm. It is unusual for trained staff in railways to just leave the industry for no particular reason, especially drivers. My manager already knows that I am retiring on 31 March 2016, unless I get a better offer sooner, and won't be doing much in the last year. So staff retiring is foreseeable. If they are being poached by other companies with higher wages and  / or better conditions, then London Midland's (LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise)) choices are obvious. If it is drivers leaving that is at the heart of the problem, it won't be sorted quickly - it takes time to train new staff.
So is there more to this than meets the eye? RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) (not entirely sure, but I'm confident the R is for Rail) have made no secret of their disagreements with LM over a number of issues, especially some of the McNulty report. Bristolboy's point about staff reductions may be a very good one. Brucey's information about bereavements and illnesses may be right, or may be a smokescreen. They are a small outfit compared to FGW^▸ (First Great Western), who operate 9 times the passengers miles of LM. Any slippage will show up more quickly. Has the union formed the opinion that LM is being used as a pilot scheme for cuts? This mess will cost them dearly, as their reliability figures were not a model of excellence before this- except on the Stourbridge Town line, with the class 139s.
I wonder if we may be in for a winter of discount tents.

[eightf48544]

One of the big miconceptions by the Tories when they privatised was to think that breaking up the railway into lots of bits would lessen the power of the Unions.

They didn't realise that with modern traction, unlike steam  a driver couldn't just jump on the footplate and drive, provided  they knew the route. So you only have to call asmall number of drivers out to completely disrupt a route or tOC.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Sixty London Midland trains set to be cancelled

More than 60 trains to and from Birmingham are expected to be cancelled on Tuesday as London Midland's shortage of drivers continues.

On Monday the company cancelled about 30 trains on the Lichfield to Redditch, Birmingham to Northampton and Walsall and Rugeley to Wolverhampton lines.

The cancellations and delays have been going on for several weeks.

The company apologised to passengers and said it would provide road transport where necessary.

It has said the shortfall in qualified train drivers will be addressed by mid-December.

The company has listed all the affected services on Tuesday on its website.

On Saturday afternoon and evening up to 30 services on the same routes were subject to delays or cancellations.

The company has said that daily cancellation updates will be posted on its website at 17:00 BST the day before services are due to be affected.

These include trains between Coventry, London Euston, Northampton, Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street as well as between Redditch, Lichfield and Four Oaks.

[brompton rail]

I believe that a larger than expected number of XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) and Virgin drivers are retiring and their places are filled by drivers recruited from London Midland ( and possibly freight TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company)). As, presumably, LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) drivers are paid less than XC and Virgin it isn't too big a surprise to see why the drivers might move. I imagine LM drivers are on ^40k whilst perhaps XC/Virgin pay nearer ^45k? Or you could get ^30k as a teacher!

[Chris from Nailsea]

An update, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

London Midland train cancellations: Rail minister issues warning

Rail Minister Norman Baker has warned train firm London Midland about its performance, after further cancellations of services.

Mr Baker said commuters, who have faced weeks of disruption, were not "getting the services they need".

More than 60 services were affected on Tuesday, prompting Marcus Jones, Conservative MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Nuneaton, to say the situation was unacceptable.

Mr Baker said he would be closely monitoring the firm's performance.

Most of the services affected are to and from Birmingham, but the problems have affected other destinations on the London Midland network.

There is a full list of affected services on Tuesday on the London Midland website.

Fourteen services between Nuneaton and Coventry were cancelled on Tuesday. Mr Jones warned that commuters would turn to other ways to travel.

Richard Burden, Labour MP for Longbridge, Birmingham, tabled a written parliamentary question on Monday asking the transport secretary to make a statement on the cancellations.

Mr Baker said he had spoken to the firm's managing director to "discuss how performance can be improved".

He said in a statement: "As with other franchises, London Midland is required to meet stringent benchmarks relating to their performance and I will be monitoring this extremely closely to ensure that normal services are resumed as a matter of absolute priority."

London Midland has the disruption on a shortage of drivers, but said it was addressing the problem.

The company apologised to passengers and said it would provide road transport where necessary.

It has said the shortfall in qualified train drivers would be addressed by mid-December.

Up to 30 services were cancelled by the company on Monday and Saturday.

[Brucey]

A rather extreme, expensive and unworkable solution, but I wonder how much training would be involved in getting other TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s drivers to work some of London Midland's trains?  I'm thinking many Virgin drivers will already have the route knowledge, just need to learn about the different rolling stock.

In my own dream world....

[IndustryInsider]

A rather extreme, expensive and unworkable solution, but I wonder how much training would be involved in getting other TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s drivers to work some of London Midland's trains?  I'm thinking many Virgin drivers will already have the route knowledge, just need to learn about the different rolling stock.

That assumes that the other TOC's have spare drivers in the first place of course.

The situation at the LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) depots for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is starting to get critical.  Hopefully widespread cancellations like LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise)'s will be avoided, but there are lots of vacancies, and an ever-growing backlog of established driver training (Class 180s especially) and lack of route knowledge which it is getting harder to release people for because it's all hands on deck just cover the basic train service!  Watch this space.

[eightf48544]

I wonder if part of the problem is that trains are getting too complicated with all their computers etc and different cab configurations.

On the southern if you were an electric driver there were in the early 60s only two types of stock straight Westinghouse like the 4 Subs and the later EPBs.

Also many early DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) were blue square with similar cabs and controls.

So if you jnew the route you could drive most things.

Now you can't even couple two types of the same units (377s) and it takes a week to introduce a new coach into a Pendelino. And I've been told that although the cabs on a Pendo and Vomiter are virtually the AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System) acknowledge button is transposed with another between the two types.

Looking at continental cabs the controls seem to have aremakable consistency with very similar style and posistions of the various controls. I understand there is supposed to be Euro cab.

[IndustryInsider]

Yup, controls and couplings are too diverse and complicated.  Look at the Class 180s, only able to couple with Class 175s which they're hardly ever going to meet in anger.  Voyager couplers are remarkably similar but mounted differently meaning that a Voyager could never rescue a Class 180 and in practice a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) or Loco would have terrible bother with the monstrous coupler adapter impracticable in all but the severest situations.

I'd lay many a penny on the fact that IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) and Crossrail trains (together with whatever EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) are used on FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) route and the remaining Turbos) are all incompatible with each other making a failed train so much harder to deal with.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

London Midland driver shortage cancels 133 more trains

London Midland, which has cancelled more than 400 trains in three weeks because of a driver shortage, plans to cancel 133 more on Saturday.

The firm lists the planned cancellations on its website, which impacts a range of services, mainly in the West Midlands region.

The firm, which runs 1,300 services a day, said 410 trains had been cancelled since 7 October and many others had been disrupted.

On Friday, 38 trains were cancelled.

Lines affected on Friday included Birmingham-Coventry-Northampton, Lichfield-Birmingham-Redditch and Wolverhampton-Birmingham-Walsall-Rugeley.

Some services terminated early and road transport was provided where necessary, according to London Midland.

On Saturday, the same lines are expected to be affected, while many trains between Birmingham New Street and London Euston will be running only shorter distances.

The firm said the shortfall in qualified train drivers would be addressed by mid-December.

A London Midland statement said: "Due to a temporary shortfall of qualified train drivers, we have had to cancel a number of trains over recent weeks. We're sorry if you have been affected.

"Whilst the shortfall itself should be addressed by mid-December, we are working hard to ensure the impact on our passengers in the meantime is kept to an absolute minimum. On most days we hope to run a full service."

The firm said some drivers were working overtime to reduce the impact and "a number of changes to the way we resource our train services" would also help.

London Midland has said it will list its cancellations every day on its website until 11 December.

Rail Minister Norman Baker has warned the firm its performance is being monitored.

The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce has said it is "critical" the issue is resolved for businesses in the area, especially shops during the half-term holiday.

The Sunday Politics in the West Midlands will be looking at the London Midland issue in more detail on BBC1 at 11:00 GMT on Sunday.