Have you been hit by Southern’s emergency timetable?

I am not sure that the Office of Rail and Road, as the Regulator of the train operating companies, can do much for passengers when the root of the problem lies mainly in strike action by employees.

Introducing an emergency timetable that can be reliably delivered is a good move, replacing the haphazard disruption that has gone on for months as trains are cancelled or their stopping patterns changed unpredictably according to who turns up for work for each shift. A reduced number of longer trains is not a bad emergency solution. It will also reduce the potential for compensation claims.

Another point is that Southern is operated by Govia Thameslink Railway under a management contract for the Department for Transport and is not a franchise. There is therefore no breach of a franchise agreement to take action against through penalties. There is probably a contractual breach, but perhaps the DfT takes the view that this is a dispute worth the pain of resolving the hard way. The DfT can hardly take away the contract, and although there is the theoretical option of transferring the contract to the government’s own shadow operating company, Directly Operated Railways, the same people would be employed, the dispute would remain, and passengers would be no better served. It could actually inflame the situation.

As I understand it no staff positions will be removed, guards would become train conductors assisting passengers but with no loss of pay, and drivers would be responsible for opening and closing the doors which is normal practice in most parts of the railway system. Outside of the strike implications, staff shortages and engineering work have been cited as causes for service disruption. On their own these would not normally cause acute operational difficulties for a prolonged period; staff shortages can to a degree be addressed by the proposed train crewing arrangements. The railways are heavily dependent on train-crew undertaking voluntary rest-day working, which attracts premium rates of pay and is prized by the trade unions having been fought for long and hard under British Rail. The withdrawal of the voluntary turns by some employees leads to cancellations. Changing to fully-covered rosters would require an increase in establishment that would be just as controversial [through reducing current earnings of existing staff] as well as impacting on operating costs and therefore fares.

The Intro suggests that consumer law is being breached. I am not sure that is the case with the railways which are governed by the National Rail Conditions of Carriage which guarantee very little in return for the purchase of a ticket, and certainly not that a particular train will run, that it will call at particular stations, that it will run according to the timetable, and that it will carry every passenger that wishes to board it.

It has been suggested that the Southern management have acted in a harsh way with the dispute which has hardened attitudes in the trade unions. For instance, staff’s leisure travel privileges were peremptorily removed early in the dispute but I read that these have now been reinstated thus removing one bone of contention and hopefully easing the way to a negotiated settlement. As usual in any service industry it is the customers who suffer and in the case of the public transport services there is usually little alternative and, understandably, the trade unions use that for leverage.

A reduced number of longer trains? Really? The experience on Southern is that they have been running more and more short trains.

As a regular traveller on Underground services where the abuses of Unionised staff are infamous at holding the travelling public to ransom, I do not feel inclined to have very much sympathy with railway staff.

Thank you Brian. I read somewhere that the sickness rate among train crew on Southern had risen significantly. There are plenty of good sickness management practices available to employers and they should be deployed, if only out of fairness to other staff who have to compensate for others’ absences. Managerial intervention in sickness absence and referral to a doctor would be a good step and I am surprised that isn’t routine in such a large employer with an obligation to provide a reliable train service with all crew positions properly covered. I believe the average sickness rate in the UK is 3-4 days a year. Given that a number of employees require extended absence for certain medical conditions or treatments, that means that the vast majority of the staff have to have no sickness absence at all in order for the rate to be at that level. Once a month is nine days a year too much.

This is clearly a complex and deep-rooted problem with both sides staking a lot on prevailing. There is usually no progress in these disputes until Good Will turns up at the negotiating table, then the lawyer Solomon Binding wraps it all up in a legal agreement. Until then the passengers will continue to suffer disruption and inconvenience.

In the NHS if you take more than a specified no of sick days or are off sick for a specified time you have to meet with HR/OH & your manager. Its meant to be a chat to discuss how to improve things not to be punitive, but that depends on the people involved I guess. On return to work you normally stagger it.

I suspect that the staff sickness is due to low morale.

The Gatwick line once had trains designed specially for the route, with ample baggage racks and wide sliding doors, but the last time we travelled there those trains had been replaced with unsuitable carriages with narrow doorways and poor provision for luggage. Longer trains, better designed trains for the traffic presenting [with more luggage space and accessible toilets] – these are all on the agenda somewhere but they never seem to arrive on time.

There was a big fanfare on the Cambridge to London Kings Cross line when they extended the platforms at Cambridge to take longer trains. The extra carriages sit in sidings all day and the trains are as packed as ever. It seems that no designers or managers had noticed that many people visit Cambridge, travelling in the off-peak with their bicycles, double-basses, portmanteaux, and world-travel rucksacks. The only baggage provision is narrow overhead luggage racks and some small shelves. Luckily the trains are non-stop between terminals so the vestibules are used as storage compartments.