| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Recruitment freeze - 4450/8218 Written by tonya on Monday, 15th October 2007 Following the early termination of a Cardiff Westbury train at Bristol because of driver shortage last weekend, the guard became apopleptic and explained to us that 50 trains are cancelled by FGW each day and that the main reason for this is their shortage of drivers as FGW refuse to recruit. He aslo said there is a shortage of guards for the same reason. Maybe other staff members of this forum would like to confirm or deny this remarkable claim. If it's true, this is another reason FGW should lose their franchise. Re: Recruitment freeze - 4450/8222 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Tuesday, 16th October 2007 My understanding is that the franchise was awarded based on overoptimistic availabiity assumptions for both staff and trains. Then during the following 9 months they concentrated on merging the organisations at management level, reducing staff in those areas by 10%. I'm not entirely sure at what point they said "oops - we may have a problem" for December '06 - official line is that it was early which is why they did all the consultation, but there are no hints that they were recruiting drivers and guards at that point to be putting them through training to come on line during 2007. Have a look at the various posts I've put up - re: Andrew Griffiths and Julian Crow's talks last week - you'll find Andrew came up with some figures of drivers/guards currently in training, and extra drivers/ guards being recruited. Of course, you must expect the "strong on the positives" line from FGW - it's called "Customer Relations". In summary, I would believe ... * Two years ago, First were planning to operate without recruitment but with natural wastage if they won * A year ago at this time, there probably was a recruitment freeze but perhaps just ending * Today there has been a lot more recruitment but the staff aren't on line yet Although things are being put right, I would be suprised if much slack is being put into the system ;) Re: Recruitment freeze - 4450/8224 Written by WyvusArconius on Tuesday, 16th October 2007 [quote author=tonya link=topic=4450.msg8218#msg8218 date=1192482110] Following the early termination of a Cardiff Westbury train at Bristol because of driver shortage last weekend, the guard became apopleptic and explained to us that 50 trains are cancelled by FGW each day and that the main reason for this is their shortage of drivers as FGW refuse to recruit. He aslo said there is a shortage of guards for the same reason. [/quote]# I wonder if you had the same guard that I did on Monday... I was travelling back to Portsmouth from Bath and the guard spent much time berrating FGW's management of the trains, cheifly I suspect because his train was on time at Bath but was stuck behind a late running stopper service for southampton. To this end our train was half and hour late into Portsmouth. I have every respect for the guard in question (I do know his name but im not sharing it). He was trying to do the best he could to make his service run on time in adverse conditions... its just a shame that the operating company he works for were the cause of those conditions. Daniel Re: Recruitment freeze - 4450/8226 Written by Industry Insider on Tuesday, 16th October 2007 There are several Driver training courses currently on the go for a variety of depots including Bristol, Reading and Paddington. Some have only just started though and the total training time ranges from 10-14 months, so expect problems for a while to come! A friend of mine has just started on one of them, having been kept waiting over 2 years from originally passing all his pre-qualification tests due to FGW decision to 'undertake a review of training requirements'! Re: Recruitment freeze - 4450/8319 Written by aik4on on Monday, 22nd October 2007 It's nonsense. FGW has recruited 40 additional guards and 60 extra drivers over the last few months. I think it is fair to say that the staffing levels in the original franchise bid were wrong and that's why additional frontline staff have been recruited recently. link to index of articles |
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Save the Train was the campaign to bring an approriate train service back to and through Melksham. Most big contributors are still around writing at the Coffee shop forum where new members are very welcome. The train has been saved - sort of - we have stepped back up from an unusable service to a poorish one but it's doing very well. We did that through setting up the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. That fulfilled its early objectives; it has been taken over by local and regional government types who are now doing medium and long term work. The team from this forun can also be found at the Melksham Rail User Group (which was the Melksham Rail Development Group at the time these articles were written and we had no users. We mustn't loose sight, though, that the train service remains poor and needs our community support in marketing and campaigning to keep it going in a positive direction ... and all the more so when we're expecting to find a different normallity once we get out of the Coronavirus Pandemic and head for zero carbon via the climate crisis. Yes, it's saved ... it's now a key community facility ... the need for enhancement and the strong and near-universal local support remain, and the rail industry and goverment remain slow to move and provide the enhancements even to level us up with other towns. Please support the Melksham Rail User Group - now very much in partnership rather than protest with the rail industry and local government, including GWR, TransWilts and unitary and town councils. And please use the trains and buses, and cycle and walk when you can. -- Graham Ellis, (webmaster), February 2021 | |||
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