First Group wins the West Coast.

[johnd]

53 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Trenitalia isn't.

 

They keep that quite that Italian state railways are involved.

[melmerby]

19 minutes ago, johnd said:

They keep that quite that Italian state railways are involved.

Not at the time.

Much was made of the Italian "Avanti" branding.

[woodenhead]

33 minutes ago, johnd said:

They keep that quite that Italian state railways are involved.

30% of the company is Trenitalia, 70% First group.

[johnd]

9 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

30% of the company is Trenitalia, 70% First group.

 

Yes but still involvement and with a company run from above the border that started with buss's

[Revolution Ben]

44 minutes ago, johnd said:

They keep that quite that Italian state railways are involved.

 

Yes.  Naming themselves the Italian word for 'Let's go' is an exceptionally cunning double bluff to conceal the Italian involvement.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Revolution Ben said:

 

Yes.  Naming themselves the Italian word for 'Let's go' is an exceptionally cunning double bluff to conceal the Italian involvement.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

I just thought they were fans of the David Tennant Doctor....

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Revolution Ben said:

 

Yes.  Naming themselves the Italian word for 'Let's go' is an exceptionally cunning double bluff to conceal the Italian involvement.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

The adverb "avanti" can mean "ahead" (of something) i.e. First in line

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/italian-english/avanti

Edited November 5, 2022 by melmerby

[hexagon789]

46 minutes ago, melmerby said:

The adverb "avanti" can mean "ahead" (of something) i.e. First in line

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/italian-english/avanti

It was mentioned by AVC at the time, that it was intended to mean forward.

 

 

[lmsforever]

Virgin might have been crowded but they provided a consistent service  I dont remember to many late runs but obviously they happened as it does all the time now .Personally think that Virgin made great headway with inter city in the UK certainly staff service was a much better experience than with Aventi or on many franchises now.

[hexagon789]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Really?

All I remember was overcrowded trains running late.

And Virgin relied massively on RDW to make the VHF timetable work.

 

It has been argued in some quarters that that overreliance, some 13 years long, is why Avanti has been in a generally worse situation than ost other long-distance TOCs.

 

 

[hexagon789]

20 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Virgin might have been crowded but they provided a consistent service  I dont remember to many late runs but obviously they happened as it does all the time now .Personally think that Virgin made great headway with inter city in the UK certainly staff service was a much better experience than with Aventi or on many franchises now.

They had the worst punctuality of all the InterCity TOCs until the mid-2000s.

 

While I think it is true to say that no other TOC provided such a step change in service, nor perhaps left such a mark on the modern railway they were not without their faults.

 

The overuse of Rest Day Working is arguably the legacy most felt today, it is at the core of present issues with staffing on the WCML.

 

The fact that so many staff retired at one time as well, compounds issues. 

 

How true it is, it is difficult to say, but I have seen more than one report of Euston depot losing nearly 40 traincrew practically overnight to retirements and resignations.

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, lmsforever said:

I think back to when Virgin ran the WCML  reliable services happy staff certain people did not like Branson and tried every dirty trick to get rid of him and finally did leaving us with appalling services.Avanti should have been kicked out and an operation like LNER   brought in at least the money would go to the right place and not abroad and the staff treated properly Scotland has taken a big step forward in nationalising the network and I think it will work as it is a relatively small country .Having used Scotrail many times the staff seem  happy and will I am sure find life better under the new regime.  Lastly I remember traveling to Scotland not long after Avanti had taken over , what a difference in first class gone friendly happy catering staff replaced with young people who looked scuffy and had no idea of customer service if this was progress no thank you.

The only question I would ask is what happened to the WCML section of the pension fund during the Virgin/Stagecoach tenure on the WCML?  I think the fact that they refused to accept the pension liability requirement when the franchise was up for renewal and were therefore banned from bidding tells us an awful lot in retrospect.

 

And as far as on-train staff were concerned Virgin were not exactly hot when it came to staff training.  I was ona trainwhic h ground to halt just north of Bushey when teh brake went in very suddenly and you could hear the air rushing of the system from the coach I was sitting in.  eventually the Giard arrived - inside the train - and i told him that the leak appeared to be on the next vehicle - he hadn't a clue.  Eventually he called on the Driver to deal with and when I was leaning out of the window as the Driver passed me walking in what had once been the cess his comments about the Guard and his lack of operational safety knowledge didn't bear repeating in polite company knowledge.  

 

Very shiny customer service but really all mouth and trousers with Virgin plus the separate fee for using the brand name going straight to an offshore bank account.  We had a minor invasion of them at the operating company where I worked and basically they weren't any cleverer than the people they replaced.  And one of them hurriedly resigned (before he was sacked and threatened with prosecution) after considerably abusing his company Amex card (which was only meant to be used in an emergency).

 

They weren't bad on Cross-Country but the trains were poorly specified and built down to a price which didn't really measure up to what was needed on some of the routes.  but loads og surface gloss and fancy uniforms.  Good at teh 'customer' facing bit but that isn't all that's involved when trying to run a service.

 

[Mike 84C]

What happened to recruiting loco crew to alleviate rest day working? In my 9years at Banbury & Bescot I never worked a rest day. Yet at other depots it happened regularly. I suspect that the TOC's just played into the hands of the NUR & Aslef for short term gain.

 After I left BR I did try to get re employed as train crew in the West Midlands where I had worked. At 28yrs I was too old.  Aslef agrement !

  When I worked for the Festiniog Rly several of my volunteer firemen and drivers, all having got good degrees went work as drivers with various TOC's!

[The Stationmaster]

2 minutes ago, Mike 84C said:

What happened to recruiting loco crew to alleviate rest day working? In my 9years at Banbury & Bescot I never worked a rest day. Yet at other depots it happened regularly. I suspect that the TOC's just played into the hands of the NUR & Aslef for short term gain.

 After I left BR I did try to get re employed as train crew in the West Midlands where I had worked. At 28yrs I was too old.  Aslef agrement !

  When I worked for the Festiniog Rly several of my volunteer firemen and drivers, all having got good degrees went work as drivers with various TOC's!

Rest Day working (RDW)was very strictly against ASLEF policy for many years.  If Br local management approached the staff side of the LDC with a view to introducing even very limited RW DW the staff reps on the LDC were forbidden by union policy from agreeing to it,  The were supposed to take it to a branch meeting to get the support of the branch membership and if that was given the branch then had to write to ASLEF HQ asking for a decision.  That decision could only be made by a meeting of the union's executive and on one occasion when the General Secretary wrote back to a branch approving something it had asked for (not to do with RDW) he was censured - to yse the polite term - by the executive which left Mr Buckton with a rather red face.

 

Officially the union's policy was that if it agreed RDW it was to be carried out equally by all Drivers at that depot - no selection was allowed and the only people who could be excluded were those who stated they did not wish to work their Rest Days.  Good discipline on the union;' side and it no doubt stopped quite a few managers doing a quickie to cover up staff shortages they'd probably created themselves.

 

There's no doubt at all in my mind that ASLEF - very much in the shape of Lew Adams the then General Secretary - more than got the better of a number of somewhat inexperienced managers in a number of TOCs.  The usual trick of the managers was to go for some nice headline grabbing quick savings by getting rid of Spares and the staff side agreed to this with a proviso that the savings would be shared (usually a higher rate of pay and established status) and volunteer RDW would be used to cover what the spares would have covered.  In some cases the staff side drove a harder bargain and also got Sunday turns made 100% voluntary - hence the shambles that emerged a year or two later in the West Midlands where drivers were quite happy to have Sundays off because they didn't need the money a Sunday would bring in because their basic pay had increased quite nicely (I could tell you which  manager created that mess but it didn't seem to do her any harm as she later was in charge of an operating company😮).  I also knew of another one - now I understand somewhat distrusted by the staff side at the negotiation table - who created a similar mess at another TOC although at least that one didn't result in lots of train cancellations on Sundays, just weekdays.

 

I also found ASLEF reps, and their District Officers absolutely dead straight to deal with and when you made an agreement with them you knew it would be a good sold and lasting agreement.  Similarly Lew was a really good bloke to deal with and, again, as straight as a die and he wouldn't attempt to pull the wool over your eyes.  So I'd hardly suggest that ASLEF were in any way to blame or behaving in a dodgy manner in all of these various agreements that gradually left the coverage of Driving turns in turmoil in various TOCs but they aways made clear what the price would be for any cuts in Driver numbers.

[Sir TophamHatt]

On 06/11/2022 at 11:51, The Stationmaster said:

And as far as on-train staff were concerned Virgin were not exactly hot when it came to staff training.  I was ona trainwhic h ground to halt just north of Bushey when teh brake went in very suddenly and you could hear the air rushing of the system from the coach I was sitting in.  eventually the Giard arrived - inside the train - and i told him that the leak appeared to be on the next vehicle - he hadn't a clue.  Eventually he called on the Driver to deal with and when I was leaning out of the window as the Driver passed me walking in what had once been the cess his comments about the Guard and his lack of operational safety knowledge didn't bear repeating in polite company knowledge.  

And yet they were hotter than at least two other TOCs I know of.
One week of "Virgin" one week of basic railway terminology and systems for everyone before specialised training in the role they were going into.  Drivers down to whatever the bottom rung is, everyone went through the same two week course.
Not many TOCs do this - many ticket office staff wouldn't know what the Up or Down line is, the 4ft or other basic terminology.  Everyone on the railway should know some basics (except those who work in office roles that aren't on stations).

 

These days, despite what Drivers want, Guards have PTS training but not training on how to fix problems.
The drivers barely know now as all they do is call their maintenance and quote a fault number from the Train Management System, who then walks them through some fault finding steps before the next stage.

 

The fact you've said "leaning out of the window" suggests this was nigh on 20 years ago - things are a lot different now and certainly in the last 10/20 years of Virgin's tenure.

[Wheatley]

On 07/11/2022 at 18:03, The Stationmaster said:

There's no doubt at all in my mind that ASLEF - very much in the shape of Lew Adams the then General Secretary - more than got the better of a number of somewhat inexperienced managers in a number of TOCs.  

 

Absolutely. Privatisation created an internal labour market which only ASLEF members were able to exploit, at around the same time as the TOCs decided that 'Old Railway' needed shaking up by importing a lot of shiny new managers from other industries (notably retail because BR regarded passengers as self-loading freight) and then wondered why it all went wrong. The simple truth was that ASLEF were more experienced and better at negotiating than most TOC HR teams. 

 

As a very senior analyst in a foreign-owned TOC once observed in an unguarded moment (you need to do an Antonio Banderas accent to get the full effect):

 

" They come in and they change everything. But they don't change if because is broken, they change it because then they can write on LinkedIn 'Look I change everything and is better'. Is not better, is ****ed, but they gone somewhere else by then to change something else which don't need changing". 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Wheatley

[lmsforever]

Some very interesting and experiences in the above notes but I think that all companies involved in rail franchises have problems in the way they run their operations.  But I still think that Virgin staff were the best I have encountered on the WCML . The current staff seem to be fighting a lost cause as the company has a great deal of catching up to do and sadly they wont and will lose the franchise as to what will follow is anybody's guess .

[hexagon789]

1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

Some very interesting and experiences in the above notes but I think that all companies involved in rail franchises have problems in the way they run their operations.  But I still think that Virgin staff were the best I have encountered on the WCML . The current staff seem to be fighting a lost cause as the company has a great deal of catching up to do and sadly they wont and will lose the franchise as to what will follow is anybody's guess .

There is no franchise to lose.

 

Franchises have been abolished; COVID did that.

 

Regardless of whether the GBR project goes ahead or not, most TOCs are basically being operated as direct management contracts.

 

Avanti West Coast operates under such a contract.

[Mike 84C]

Thank you Stationmaster for an interesting in depth view of Aslef and RDW, certainly widened my knowledge! I was refering to the 60's/70's but I expect the criteria were the same.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

Thank you Stationmaster for an interesting in depth view of Aslef and RDW, certainly widened my knowledge! I was refering to the 60's/70's but I expect the criteria were the same.

Mike I was managing traincrew at depot level in the '70s and '80s then deeply involved in certain aspects of it, but particularly working and rostering conditions, for the second half the '90s as a senior manage in a TOC.  That was the good thing about BR - you had toi start somewhere and generally by starting at local level you learnt without making too many serious mistakes so that by the time - if ever - you got to dealing with such things at a senior level you had some ex0erience and very often knew, or knew a lot about, the people involved (and they knew about you because union branch and LDC secretaries were supposed to send information about you to their equivalents in your next management post when you moved on).  

 

ASLEF, in particular. also ran a sort of career progression system at one time when there was strong control of the union by one particular group.  While  elections were 100% open and completely fair various people were, in some ways prepared and supported for high office if they showed promise in their early days.    Hence I knew that Lew Adams was being destined to be GS of ASLEF long before he was elected to the position.

 

21 hours ago, Wheatley said:

 

The simple truth was that ASLEF were more experienced and better at negotiating than most TOC HR teams. 

 

I loved that bit.  I of course had been involved in dealing with staff of all the traffic etc grades at LDC/local rep level from way before then plus occasionally dealing with District Officers - especially from ASLEF.  Thus when my Director asked me to go and sort of something directly with Lew Adams at ASLEF HQ level it was no different except we were talking TOC senior management level to union HQ level and Lew and I got off to a good start because I knew more about his union history (from LDC level onwards) than he did about me although he knew my name from within the industry.  So good down to earth talking and agreement reached in a nice atmosphere with bot of us satisfied with the result.

 

But HR had insisted in sending one of their people with me and he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights although fortunately I'd told just to introduce himself and then do or say nothing more but to leave the talking entirely to me.  He asked me after we'd left exactly what we had agreed so I simply said something that suited exactly what I wanted and something which suited exactly what Lew had wanted - and he wrote to the branch accordingly.