Metropol

No the East Coast route isn't fully electrified, which is why they run HSTs as well as IC225 Electras. The East Coast Main Line is, but VTEC serve destinations beyond that such as Inverness.

As for OHLE failure, it's not that rare an event, trust me.

East Coast is electrified to Edinburgh Waverly. The electric trains can carry on over to Glasgow using the commuter lines but the line to Aberdeen via Dundee is diesel only. Atm, a London to Aberdeen services is a diesel 125 for the entire journey running under the wires.

Pete wrote:East Coast is electrified to Edinburgh Waverly. The electric trains can carry on over to Glasgow using the commuter lines but the line to Aberdeen via Dundee is diesel only. Atm, a London to Aberdeen services is a diesel 125 for the entire journey running under the wires.

As is the once-a-day extension to Inverness. VTEC also serve Harrogate, Lincoln Central and Hull (all non-electrified).

And also one train a day Leeds to Aberdeen & return, which isn't electrified Leeds to York.

They are also planning to run one a day to Huddersfield which is also not electrified and won't be for a while now the government have postponed the Transpennine electrification.

Alexia wrote:Differences this time:

Well, FGW have now confirmed the service they will run on Sunday 23rd August: https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/strike

Despite your predictions it is indeed better and not worse than last time. Main improvements I noticed are:

'Limited' catering will be available.

Barnstaple branch has 3 trains per day in each direction rather than 1.

Other Devon branches running an hourly rather than bi-hourly service

Taunton-Cardiff units partially running (doing Taunton-Bristol which will re-instate a proper service on the Weston loop. Access to Cardiff can still be achieved from the West by changing at Bristol Parkway as per last time)

Plymouth-Paddington running hourly rather than bi-hourly.

Direct Penzance-Paddingtons running bi-hourly rather than relying on units to do Penzance-Plymouth and change.

Alexia wrote:It's a weekend, so the management substitutes are less likely to give up their weekend to cover trains.

What may well have been the difference is that management are more likely to be employed under what I call 'normal' employment contracts which include terms like 'reasonable extra duties to meet the needs of the business', 'working shifts as necessary to meet the needs of the business' etc etc. They may not have had the option of refusing to give up their weekend if the business deemed it necessary for them to work. They probably also aren't allowed to wear lanyards and badges drawing attention to their battle with their employer whilst working on their employer's time and serving their employer's customers either, so also may not have any way of protesting about it.

But a lot of this is largely arbitrary for the time being - the latest rumours circulating are that electrification of the GWR route has been pushed back a further two years. The new trains, built or not, won't be able to run until 2019 at current predictions.

Which surely underlines the pointlessness of striking now. The trains are still going to run - again, your strike isn't going to work - again. Yet you're still going to do it and you're still going to do it again at the end of the month. You've already thrown away 2 days pay for nothing, why throw away another 4 when FGW seem quite resolute that they're not going to move on this, and when they've shown again that your actions won't stop them from operating?

Correction: FGW have published what they HOPE to run on Sunday 23rd August.

This is of course all entirely dependent on drivers not "chucking in" their Sunday hours, which they are perfectly entitled to do, and which will result in absolutely no comeback on them at all. It is also dependent on enough serviceable, signed-off, railworthy sets being provided from the various depots.

"Limited catering" will be the management giving out free tea and coffee from the First Class stock - so tea, coffee, water and biscuits.

Of course, what the drivers say in the messroom and what they actually do in the end are two different things.

I've NEVER known a manager do something they aren't contractually obliged to, especially on Reading Festival Sunday.

The next RMT meeting with FGW bigwigs is currently being mooted, and the ASLEF rep has been invited too. Watch this space.

Our local bus company has being borrowing a bus from Go Ahead North East for the past couple of weeks, and having been on it en-route to the hospital I must say it's very nice! It had the Go Ahead depot details and a logo above the door but otherwise it carried some sort of purple Enviro branding, along with a tagline of it being designed by and for the industry or something. Interestingly, it had tables on the upper deck, which was something I'd never seen on a bus before - there were also quite a few on the top deck which was surprisingly as surely they hit the capacity of the bus by a fair amount, and no bus journey in Ipswich would really be long enough to make them a necessity? It also had high backed leather chairs throughout, which were quite thin on the padding front but looked good and were relatively supportive. Leather seats are no longer new in Ipswich - a few years ago I think some ex-London buses came along with them, and First has been making a big fuss about their leather seats recently. However, this bus also had air conditioning (and an enormous unit at the top of the stairs at that), a nice wood-effect floor, and CCTV everywhere - surely it would be distracting for the driver to have so many cameras, as there was one above all the tables and then in the usual positions, with the top of the stair camera displayed on a screen at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures.

If I'm honest, the interior was probably nicer than that of Greater Anglia!

EDIT: I may not have taken any photos, but it turns out that there's an Ipswich bus blog, who did. For those who are interested.

Alexia wrote:Correction: FGW have published what they HOPE to run on Sunday 23rd August.

This is of course all entirely dependent on drivers not "chucking in" their Sunday hours, which they are perfectly entitled to do, and which will result in absolutely no comeback on them at all. It is also dependent on enough serviceable, signed-off, railworthy sets being provided from the various depots.

Whilst you are no doubt correct, FGW have gone throwing about words like 'confirmed' as well as listing a higher frequency service than they managed to achieve last time - they didn't have to do that. It would be a massive embarrassment to them if they have to do a U-turn on this, so I would imagine they do more or less know what the drivers are going to do and the availability of stock. If that was still up in the air then surely they would still be sticking to their previous line of 'hoping to provide the same service' that they did last time?

Alexia wrote: I've NEVER known a manager do something they aren't contractually obliged to, especially on Reading Festival Sunday.

But do you know what they are contractually obliged to do? Most employment contracts I come across do include clauses like those in my earlier post which essentially give the employer carte blanche to require their staff to do any duties they require at any time they require it. If they have them in they won't have a choice. After all, by 'management' running trains it will be middle management who are as much cogs in the machine as anyone else is. I doubt the top-level management of the company who your battle is with ever intended to get their hands dirty and certainly won't care about forcing the lower levels of management to work if they are able to do so.

With the issue of Reading, what is the deal with that now it's directly operated by NR rather than FGW? Is it the same setup as when Bristol TM changed from FGW to NR operated where 'NR Operated' meant an NR management but FGW staff on the ground or is it all NR's staff in which case it will make no difference if FGW staff are striking? Either way, is there anything stopping NR from pulling staff in from London stations to help out at Reading?

And on the trains themselves, if there is concern about the volume of passengers and baggage, then wouldn't they just get all the 'baggage assist' and 'customer ambassador' types on the trains to help - they're not in the RMT are they?

Will reply more in full later but yes, Reading is NR managed but all trainside customer service staff are FGW.

cwathen wrote:But do you know what they are contractually obliged to do? Most employment contracts I come across do include clauses like those in my earlier post which essentially give the employer carte blanche to require their staff to do any duties they require at any time they require it.

"plus such other tasks and duties as may be required by management from time to time"!

Strike update.....

Having a quick look through the system, it seems that between 6 and 8 of the scheduled services from Paddington are being cancelled per hour. These are not just InterCity 125 services, but Thames Valley driver-only services. It would seem that there is an effect occurring. It is worth remembering that although most mainline drivers are in ASLEF, some shunters and depot pilots are RMT, so if there's no-one to bring an empty train off of the depots, the train won't run.

Management working trains : TSSA members considered balloting after the last strike to prevent the heirarchy from forcing them to perform safety-critical duties outside of their remit. Suddenly the ballot was forgotten about and the management were happy to work trains again. I wonder what incentive they got?

There's another wrinkle to this - some trains and stations had operational incidents (dispatch attempts against a red signal, doors on catches, communication procedure with Signaller not followed) and as such bodies such as RAIB and CIRAS are keeping a close eye on the situation to make sure that FGW are not wilfully putting passengers in danger by running trains with underqualified and non-competent staff; and that competency is not being given out willy-nilly / under political pressure from "above". Strikebusting may seem an attractive idea to those of a certain ilk, but in some circumstances it's just not safe or practical.

And on the trains themselves, if there is concern about the volume of passengers and baggage, then wouldn't they just get all the 'baggage assist' and 'customer ambassador' types on the trains to help - they're not in the RMT are they?

Passenger Assist are very much in the RMT, as are FGW-hired cleaners and train preparers. Customer Ambassadors (purple people) are management grade and will probably be TSSA. In fact, I would bet that FGW made it a condition of their employment that they not join the RMT. They are also station staff and are assigned to a particular patch (Wales, South West, B&B, Reading, Padd etc) so will probably remain stationary.