The rail company behind Great Northern has admitted that, despite boosting its training programme, it still does not have enough drivers to run all scheduled services, especially during periods of high annual leave (ie school holidays). And it would appear that planned service enhancements due in December will prolong this problem, as will the need to train drivers for new train fleets.
The article below is taken from www.thameslinkrailway.com (thanks to Donald Smith for drawing it to our attention).
Bringing in more drivers for Thameslink and Great Northern
Sometimes you may see that a service has been cancelled due to a member of train crew being unavailable. We know how frustrating it can be and would like to apologise.
There may be various reasons for a member of train crew being unavailable, for example when the service is disrupted this can lead to train crews being displaced and unable to crew their next scheduled service.
However, one of the underlying factors is that sometimes we do not have enough drivers to carry out both day-to-day operations and the large amount of training required to enable long-term passenger service improvements, without asking drivers to work rest days.
We have been working flat out to address this with the UK’s biggest driver recruitment and training programme.
What are the pressures?
On Thameslink, for example, there is a continuous programme of driver retraining required for new routes around the London Bridge works, for new depots and diversions. This will ultimately transform our service with new and longer trains, greater capacity and new cross-London routes. We also have 30 more services to cover year on year because of changes made to the timetable so there are more services to resource.
The amount of rest day working we need fluctuates, depending on factors such as labour turnover and sickness levels as well as covering for holiday leave and this high level of training.
What we’re doing
We have under way the biggest driver recruitment and training programme in the UK to steadily reduce our reliance on rest day working. This will reduce to a minimum our dependence on drivers working rest days so that we can deliver a more consistent service for our passengers.
How we’re doing
On Thameslink and Great Northern we have 184 drivers in training (89 on Thameslink and 95 on Great Northern)We have doubled the number of driver trainers with more to follow (14 compared to 7 before franchise with one more vacancy to be filled)We have tripled the number of courses being run annually with more to follow (from 4 previously to 13 currently)We have new training rooms at Letchworth and BedfordBetween the start of 2015 and 31 March 2016 we have brought 55 more trained drivers onto the Thameslink route and 55 on to Great Northern
How long will this take?
It takes over a year to train a driver to the high safety standards expected in the industry – that’s a minimum of 240 hours in practical training and an additional 840 hours learning theory – and we cannot train the large number of drivers we need all at once so there is a rolling programme.
Also, while we are recruiting and training, existing drivers retire and leave for personal reasons.
There are also new fleets of trains coming on stream next year on both Thameslink and Great Northern which we will be training drivers to use. Both Thameslink and Great Northern will have a new improved timetable in December which requires more drivers to provide additional overnight services on Thameslink and later services weekdays and weekend services into Moorgate on Great Northern.
As a result, there continues to be a risk of cancellations, in particular during periods of high annual leave – but we are steadily overcoming this. In the meantime we will continue to keep you informed of any possible cancellations via our station screens, app and website. Thank you for bearing with us.
David Burrowes MP has arranged a public meeting with Govia representatives on 9th June. As well as services, this meeting will discuss Govia's plans for stations and station staffing.
The new timetables that come into effect this weekend can be downloaded from this page.
