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And doing their best to point the finger elsewhere..

http://www.thameslinkrailway.com/about- ... ourservice" target="_blank

Dan

But it's ok because all of the drivers are having a jolly old time at our expense.

Pharcyde wrote:But it's ok because all of the drivers are having a jolly old time at our expense.

What a bizarre comment re. drivers.

The reason for the cancellations is that the franchisee has chosen not to recruit and train enough drivers to run the service.

They do this because it is cheaper (read : more profits for shareholders) than cancelling trains. Rest assured that if it was not the case, they would have enough of them.

Driver turnover is extremely low and very predicable. Hardly any leave until retirement. It is therefore extremely easy to plan to have enough. The key word is 'plan' because it takes at least a year to get a new starter up and running.

Even after years of fiddling with privatisation, our government still cannot put together a franchise agreement which makes railway companies employ enough staff to run a service. It's depressing and incredibly annoying at the same time.

In this particular case, it is probably not the fault of govia, but of First. They realised some time ago they weren't going to get the new franchise and just didn't bother to recruit any drivers to cover natural wastage. Such an obvious problem but for reasons beyond the wit of man (apparently) completely impossible for the govt to remedy.

Don't worry though. Senior management and shareholders will still have their bonuses and dividends (probably slightly larger than if they actually tried to run a service). And ex-ministers and senior civil servants will get their 'consultancies'...

Sigh, I've just looked at trains back from KX late tonight and after 11pm it's a bus replacement from Alexander Palace and reason given is "Great Northern staff shortages".

This is really quite shockingly bad!

A bus from AP is going to be painful. you'd probably be better off having another pint and getting the 5am train tomorrow

There were 'staff shortages' the week before on the journey from Hertford North to Moorgate in rush hour.

Staff shortages?

It's a train service.

I'm confused. Don't they allow for possible illness and hoilidays? Or do they simply choose to run with the minimum of staff and then stuff the passengers when there is an absence of drivers?

Perhaps if the multitude of inspectors were trained as drivers as well ( and yes, I know it is a job that requires a lot of training and skill ) they could stand in as drivers instead of warming their posteriors at Hertford North.

did you not read the link?

essentially FirstCC went very lean (obviously as they were losing it) and increasing staff cannot be done at the flick of a switch.

This will always happen whenever we change operators.