Northern’s new slogan: DO NOT TRAVEL

Sunday 25th September 2022

Weekend rail travel is booming. Fortunately for the rail industry the post pandemic reduction in five day week commuting has been offset by huge growth in leisure travel especially at weekends. In my experience trains at the weekends are now the busiest of the week.

I recall Sir Peter Hendy opining in one of those many online conferences during the latter stages of lockdown that a complete rethink is needed about how and when engineering work on the tracks is organised to reflect this “new normal”.

Which was all very encouraging to hear but sadly there’s not much evidence of a “trickle-down” (to use the in vogue parlance) of the rethink to the actual tracks as it’s still very much business as usual when it comes to closing down the railway for maintenance.

Indeed the nadir of shambolic service for rail passengers has been reached at Northern this weekend where, never mind avoid weekend engineering work, we’re now into avoid providing any replacement bus services too.

I know rail replacement buses are something of a standing joke and never taken very seriously (aside from some notable exceptions – February’s Brighton Main Line blockade for example) but at least buses have always been an option. This weekend across a large swath of the North East and East Riding served by Northern there are no replacement buses at all. The railway is simply closed.

On Friday afternoon the company uploaded a statement on its website claiming “we have been unable to resource replacement buses for the engineering works taking place this weekend, 24-25 October and therefore have taken the difficult decision to ask people DO NOT TRAVEL as not alternative transport will be available.”

What?

Just take a read of that statement again. Aside from the company getting the month wrong in the text (it’s September not October) and the word “not” instead of “no”, can you really believe it?

A train company is advising passengers in bold capital letters “DO NOT TRAVEL” not because of dangerous weather conditions with a possible risk to life; not because of industrial action, not because of unforeseen damaged overhead power cables blocking lines, points failures, embankment slips etc, all things passengers accept (albeit grudgingly at times) as part of the gambit of rail travel; no, passengers are being advised “DO NOT TRAVEL” this weekend simply because long planned (and I mean long; probably at least six months, if not much longer) engineering works on four sections of track served by Northern are taking place with no replacement buses being available (allegedly).

There’s no map to explain exactly which stations are impacted, so I’ve prepared my own.

If you’d looked on the National Rail journey planner for a journey between Goole and Hull (a very popular route) for a train yesterday morning at 09:00, here’s the response….

… one solitary journey at 19:25 taking three hours and 11 minutes heading the wrong way via Leeds for a journey that normally takes around half an hour. Or, you have a choice of two options taking around an hour and a half at 08:30 this morning.

A similar enquiry for an 09:00 journey from Middlesbrough to Saltburn bizarrely offered a bus at 19:50 last night or one at 08:30 this morning. And that’s it.

What a shambles.

I know like train drivers, there’s what’s being called a “national shortage” of bus drivers but I just don’t buy the excuse there are no bus or coach companies anywhere in the north east of England let alone further afield able to provide replacement transport.

This smacks of something much more fundamental, not least when I’m advised by a well placed source within a north east based bus company Northern agreed a new contract last year with its previous owners – Arriva – to provide rail replacement buses for all its engineering work but Arriva are now struggling to do the work itself or find any sub-contractors who’ll work for the “abysmally low rates” (direct quote) it’s offering.

It’s suggested when Arriva bid to secure the contract with Northern last year it didn’t foresee soaring inflation meaning the financial rewards no longer stack up either for it or any other bus or coach company. Operators just aren’t interested and it’s alleged Arriva has a choice of either doing the work itself at a loss, or just not providing a service.

It would seem it’s the latter with the consequence thousands of passengers have no trains nor buses this weekend.

“This is a disgrace”, as once extolled by our esteemed Prime Minister.

All the more so with the ridiculously short notice given about this state of affairs to passengers. Northern only deigned to make this farcical situation public at 16:37 on Friday yet it must have known about it weeks ago. By late Friday afternoon thousands of people will already have made plans for this weekend involving rail travel and have now been left stranded, unable to make important journeys.

Whatever happened to the need to provide rail travel for “essential workers” famously espoused during the pandemic? Post pandemic, it’s tough luck, there’s no service at all.

I’m aware other major engineering works are taking place this weekend in the north east, not least closing the East Coast Main Line between Newcastle and Edinburgh calling for many replacement coaches, meaning many coach operators are stretched. But this situation has also been known about for months. Surely it doesn’t need a retired bus manager who blogs in his retirement to point out to long experienced train planners at Network Rail and the train companies there’s not an infinite supply of buses and coaches so you have to prioritise what engineering work is possible. Nor can you offer “abysmal rates” and expect operators to jump at the chance to work.

And anyway, I can’t see many Goole and Hull based operators interested in rail replacement work wanting to incur mileage all the way to Edinburgh.

There ARE operators out there – indeed one tweeted it had coaches available and offered to help out after my tweet about this on Friday afternoon – and as Southern showed in its February blockade they are willing to work a long way from ‘home’ but remuneration rates have to be right. They clearly need increasing to attract operators and, after all, this element is a very minor part of the rail industry’s overall costs of doing all this engineering work.

And what of this so called contract between Northern and Arriva for the provision of rail replacement buses? It doesn’t look like it’s worth the proverbial paper it’s written on if DO NOT TRAVEL is the consequence. And what’s going to happen when emergency short notice buses are needed for those unforeseen events – a situation I understand isn’t even covered by the contract?

And before any ill informed readers bleat on about “taking it all back into public ownership” …. it is. The Government took over the running of Northern Trains Ltd in January 2022 ousting the previous owners Arriva, in turn owned by DB, in turn owned by the German Government. This isn’t about ownership; it’s about effective management, passion for the business, motivation of staff and inspirational leadership.

Is this an isolated example of leaving passengers high and dry or will it become a trend? Taking a look at GWR’s website I notice some rather non committal wording about the provision of replacement buses.

This reads to me very much like using existing registered local bus routes as a replacement especially for projects like the upcoming closure of the Severn Beach line. I don’t think proponents of modal integration had this in mind.

While I’m in railway rant mode, another niggle that’s come to notice is a widespread trend for train companies to upload revised timetables to the National Rail database in the late evening (22:00) for the next day which have journeys deleted because there’s no staff to run them. This underhand practice means punctuality statistics are not impacted despite services being withdrawn and more importantly passengers have no recourse to Delay Repay compensation because the journey is no longer officially running, so is not classed as cancelled but instead defined as a “short notice change to the timetable”.

When a passenger checks departures online or at a station the journey has disappeared as though it never existed in the first place. I’m told this can even happen an hour before departure. The journey is no more; it’s ceased to be. Rather than being cancelled.

It’s difficult to be on top of all this with examples, but here’s one from LNER (another Government run train company) pursuing this shady practice as this tweet from the late evening of 21 August shows.

I love the idea they advice is “to travel on the next available LNER service” which from Middlesbrough just happens to be the 07:08 the next day, Tuesday 23rd August – unless that was also removed from the timetable on the Monday evening.

As I understand this practice is now quite common I reckon it must be approved by the DfT which just adds to the scandal of it. Why isn’t the Office of Road and Rail on top of it?

Meanwhile on Avanti West Coast the company’s “temporary” reduced timetable introduced in August is set to be more than just a short term fix. It looks like we’re in for weeks more of reduced services between London and the West Midlands and North West with sister company TransPennine Express also in reduced timetable mode.

On top of all this it looks like the dispute between Network Rail, the train companies and, yes, the DfT (they are involved as purse holders) and rail trade unions over pay and “modernisation” is set to continue through the coming winter.

Leisure travel booming …. not for much longer if this shambolic state of affairs continues.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS with occasional Su specials.