We are sadly used, in the North of England, to dealing with unreliable train services on creaking infrastructure. But when a heritage train company’s launch of a once-a-week locomotive service between Manchester Piccadilly and London is seen as a serious rival to the mainstream offering, you know you're in trouble.
Over recent years, it seems operators in the north have been competing for the title of 'most cancelled', but Avanti West Coast could be on track for first place. They took over from Virgin Trains to run the West Coast Mainline between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow in 2019, stating they were ‘on a mission to take the services you know and love and make them better.” Perhaps, as passengers deal with slashed routes and suspended ticket sales amid ‘severe staff shortages’, that statement should have ended with ‘know’.
Because, for a firm which promised 263 more services every week by 2022, things are not going well. It had a cancellation score of 16.2pc between June 26 and July 23 - the highest in any recorded period for the West Coast franchise in records dating back to 2014.
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The decision to cut timetables in a bid to curb these cancellations has wreaked havoc on passenger journeys across the West coast Mainline, with as few as four trains running an hour. But the Manchester-London route has been worst hit, with services plummeting from three to one an hour ‘until further notice’.
Meanwhile, ticket sales have been suspended for travel until September 11 while the new schedule is finalised. Tickets for the following weeks will be released on a rolling weekly basis.
Just as Department for Transport data shows national rail usage has returned to 90pc of pre-Covid levels (Avanti say their levels were at 78pc in the spring) this action by the consortium owned by the UK’s First Group and Italian state railway Trenitalia has the hallmarks of the timetable crisis of 2018, and, warn experts, is damaging the recovery of the railways.
It’s also pummelling the economy when it needs all the help it can get. Chris Fletcher, policy director at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, told the M.E.N. that businesses were 'struggling to come to terms' with the one train per hour service.
He added: “The inability to book in advance and the basic gutting of available seats has meant many would-be travellers are thinking twice now about the journey or cancelling it completely. This is having a significant impact on a wide range of businesses across Greater Manchester. "
He said conferences were being postponed and 'critical meetings' delayed. He said despite Zoom or Teams meeting, travel was often still a necessity, adding: "There has been such a reliance on this service and those serving other destinations in Greater Manchester like Wigan and Stockport that this is a huge blow.”
'They are lying about the problems', unions claim
Describing the decision to slash services as 'counter productive at best', he said it was causing 'ongoing damage' to people's perceptions of rail travel, adding: "Rail travel is a viable, green and convenient alternative but to offer a so called more reliable service by slashing numbers doesn’t quite feel right."
And with an historic Manchester Pride this weekend, the timing arguably could not be worse.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Avanti West Coast managing director Phil Whittingham have blamed ‘unofficial strike action’, with those drivers previously volunteering to work on rest days now refusing to. However, train drivers union Aslef says it comes down to a simple lack of staff recruitment on the company’s part. Mick Whelan, general secretary, sums up their stance: “The company is lying. The company should stop lying and start recruiting.”
Across the rail industry and in a 30-year-old policy left over from National Rail, Sundays are not considered part of the working week. Because 'rest days' are not contractual, it means drivers still have to volunteer to work overtime.
Historically, Avanti says, overtime has kept around 400 services running each week, but that figure has now dropped to 50. Boss Phil Whittingham argues rest day working is ‘necessary’ while they train drivers following the pandemic.
The M.E.N asked Avanti this week how many drivers they currently employ. They said there are in fact 595 - 52 more than in December 2019. However, 76 are in 'various stages of training', which was suspended in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
They accepted the release of these drivers to boost the workforce was 'critical'. But they said 'reform to working practices' to speed up training was also key, while doubling down on their claim about the unions, insisting 'industrial action meant drivers were no longer willing to work overtime'. They apologised to customers.
Aslef, meanwhile, accepts there is a lack of drivers now willing to take on these shifts, but argues the 'unofficial strike action' accusations make no sense following their 'official' walk-out on August 13 over pay. They say Avanti simply needs to recruit more drivers.
A union insider said: “It’s been a glorious summer, there’s been Wimbledon, cricket, European football, not everyone wants to work their rest days, especially when you can’t have any trace of alcohol in your system for 48 hours beforehand."
Adding: “If Avanti had any evidence whatsoever - which it doesn’t - that there was unofficial action then clearly it would have come forward with it. The only obvious inference to draw from the company’s utter failure to do so is that it has no evidence.”
A rail expert added: “There is great scepticism in certain parts about the desire to run a full timetable, but rather than say ‘we’re going to run fewer services to make more money’, it’s much easier to say ‘we don’t have the staff because of unofficial action’.
Government slammed as 'clueless'
Meanwhile, the Government seems to have gone totally off-grid.
When transport secretary Grant Shapps did finally make an appearance last week, he claimed, wrongly, there were four trains an hour between London Euston and Manchester scheduled up to September 10.
It sparked an angry tweet from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who branded Mr Shapps as ‘clueless’. On Thursday, Mr Burnham signed a joint letter with Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London calling on Mr Shapps to withdraw the company’s national rail contract if services are not restored.
Mr Burnham has also asked that Avanti suspend first class restrictions to make more seats available, better communication with customers - and an end to 'inflammatory language damaging workforce relations'.
What do you make of the current situation on the railways? Have your say in our comments.
Some rail insiders argue it’s a shambles of the Government’s own making and that insufficient funding from the treasury combined with a new franchising system which means operators are paid directly but don’t take any profits, has removed an incentive to run a full timetable. They say it bolsters the case for more devolution of power when it comes to the railways.
Rail engineer Gareth Dennis told the M.E.N: “The collapse in quality of Avanti’s service is a direct consequence of Treasury and DfT’s cuts in operator funding. The only lever that the train operators currently have to bring costs down is to reduce salaries and cut headcount through recruitment freezes.
“Passengers are desperate to return to the rails, with ridership on the East Coast being well above pre-Covid levels - yet the restricted timetable and poor service is limiting numbers, which in turn is used by the Government as an excuse to cut services further. At this point, this Conservative government is responsible for cutting more trains than Beeching was.”
Avanti is not the only firm, say experts, to have failed to employ enough staff. But they are the only firm so far to have blamed ‘unofficial strike action’.
As usual, say critics, it’s about costs and profits. To train a driver it takes around £60,000 and 12 months’ effort. With franchising agreements lasting a maximum of five years, it often isn't in the best interests of firms, or their shareholders, to invest heavily in the workforce.
Whatever the reason, Avanti are struggling to run their trains. A spokesman for TravelWatch NorthWest described the service cuts as appalling’, stating that there has been ‘undue reliance’ on rest day working.
A spokesman from the DfT said Avanti were working to recruit more drivers and that the railways needed to be 'modernised' so they didn't need to rely on the goodwill of drivers. They said they 'endorsed' Avanti's reduced timetable to offer 'greater stability' for passengers.
Meanwhile, the cost of living spirals upwards and official strike action continues across industries including the railways, where walk-outs over pay took place in July and August, with more planned for September as staff at 12 firms have now voted to strike in the absence of a better pay deal.
As debate rumbles on about the cause of the staffing shortage, its passengers here who are bearing the brunt of yet another railway fiasco. With TransPennine Express and Northern Rail also cancelling services at short notice, we could be heading toward a commuter catastrophe just as many people venture back to the office amid rising fuel costs and an urgent need to cut carbon emissions and congestion.
It raises some big questions around how best to run our railways at a time when we should be turning to public transport more than ever. And even bigger questions around whether anyone in this Government is prepared to take a break from the blame game to answer them in a meaningful way.
What Avanti say:
"We have reduced our timetable to four trains per hour to ensure a reliable service is delivered so our customers can travel with greater certainty.
"This decision was not taken lightly – but was necessary due to the ongoing industrial action which has seen drivers no longer willing to work overtime. Although we have a sufficient number of drivers (595, more than in 2019), like all operators, we rely on overtime to operate our full timetable.
"When the pandemic took hold, aside from the volume of services being run each day, driver training was the next most impacted part of the business. It was suspended entirely in March 2020 which has seen a backlog of trained drivers. Training has now fully resumed, and we have around 76 drivers in various stages of training.
"To improve the situation, we need to continue this training of more drivers, or see a return of current drivers on the overtime they have historically worked. We understand and apologise for the enormous frustration and inconvenience felt by our customers at the moment. We remain committed to delivering the best possible service for our customers and the regions we serve."
What the Department for Transport say:
“People deserve certainty and confidence that their train will run on time, and while the change of schedule was unavoidable, it should minimise the fallout for passengers.
“It’s wrong to suggest that we imposed a limit on recruitment efforts for drivers. Avanti West Coast is working as quickly as possible to recruit more drivers following challenges recruiting new staff during the pandemic so the issue can be resolved.
“This is a prime example of why we need to modernise our railways, so that passengers benefit from reliable timetables which don’t rely on the goodwill of drivers volunteering to work overtime in the first place."
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