First Capital Connect strike - insider speaks out

16:45 - 13 November 2009

A FIRST Capital Connect insider has contacted the Herts Advertiser to
put across their side in the ongoing industrial dispute.

The rail company is currently running around 50 per cent of its normal
timetable because drivers are refusing to do overtime or work rest
days over a pay dispute. They will endeavour to run a normal service
on Saturdays and Sundays.

But following damning comments from commuters unhappy with the
continuing disruption, the FCC driver, who has requested anonymity for
fear of reprisal, contacted the Herts Advertiser with his take on the
crisis.

He revealed: "FCC failed to recruit enough drivers to cover natural
wastage, retirements and the new routes and rolling stock.

"Their training programme was a shambles and wasn't started early
enough. They took money to fund the overtime required to release
enough drivers for training but used those rest day workers just to
cover an already short-staffed situation."

He explained: "FCC said the problems were a result of ongoing training
when in fact all the training had been stopped in a panic measure as
drivers stopped being willing to work rest days.

"They deliberately stalled pay talks from last April because they knew
they were in a mess and now the drivers simply have had enough of
them.

"The drivers bent over backwards to help them with emergency rosters
and working arrangements while being fobbed off month after month."

The insider added: "This company has used every trick in the book to
hide from the facts, using the recession as an excuse to make cuts and
now they have been found out.

"First Group posted record profits and record payments to shareholders
and took £150 million in subsidies from the Government, all on the
back of their staff's hard work, now they say they can't afford a
small recognition of that.

"As the staff have not had a pay rise since April 2008 it is generally
considered not unreasonable to expect something this year."

What do you think? Send your comments to

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:56:20 -0800 (PST), CJB
wrote:

But following damning comments from commuters unhappy with the
continuing disruption, the FCC driver, who has requested anonymity for
fear of reprisal, contacted the Herts Advertiser with his take on the
crisis.

What I want to know is why it's causing short-formings. Is there a
dispute with maintenance staff as well? If not, why don't they just
run everything as 8-car?

When LM have run emergency timetables, the policy has generally been
"everything 12-car" - why can't FCC also manage this to their maximum
of 8?

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:56:20 -0800 (PST), CJB
wrote:

But following damning comments from commuters unhappy with the
continuing disruption, the FCC driver, who has requested anonymity for
fear of reprisal, contacted the Herts Advertiser with his take on the
crisis.

What I want to know is why it's causing short-formings. Is there a
dispute with maintenance staff as well? If not, why don't they just
run everything as 8-car?

When LM have run emergency timetables, the policy has generally been
"everything 12-car" - why can't FCC also manage this to their maximum
of 8?

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Not a problem to explain

Train prep for 4 cars not 8 cars built into the diagrams not to mention
times allocated to driver 'changing ends' takes longer with 8 vice 4.
'Impact minutes" equals points not prizes.

On Nov 17, 9:02*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

What I want to know is why it's causing short-formings. *Is there a
dispute with maintenance staff as well? *If not, why don't they just
run everything as 8-car?


I think the same question - there should be no 4cars coming off depot
and no attach / detach anywhere in service (except failures of
course).

FCC have had enough units since
Mmarch to run the entire am peak with all 8car and all but 3 (slightly
extended period) pm peaks trains as 8car. Thus in theory it does seem
to me if they axe 50% of trains ... and the peaks are cut back as
well ... they have enough stock to run the entire emergency service
8car

However, someone has posted on a other forum FCC have from the
emergency timetable withdrawn all 377/5 diagrams except three 8car
train (six units that head to Ashford/Gillingham that involve SET crew
depots somewhere along the route that don't know 319s).

Alleged this is to allow FCC to run all trains with 319s so all
drivers know them ... part of the reason excessive rest days were
being worked was because of ongoing 377 training, there are still of
lot don't know 377s. ((Its also reported they;ve ceased 377
training)).

But there are only ~20 out of the 26 377/5s actually commossiioned, so
leaving the 6 they are still using thats only ~14 units stopped, and I
am sure that still leaves enough 319s to run 99%+/-1% service all
8car.

So I don't beelive a word of it, that FCC don't have enough stock to
run whats currently advertised as all 8car. I'd need some proof - like
the diagrams - first.

--
Nick

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:08:49 -0000, "12sub"
wrote:

Train prep for 4 cars not 8 cars built into the diagrams not to mention
times allocated to driver 'changing ends' takes longer with 8 vice 4.
'Impact minutes" equals points not prizes.

Seems they need an emergency timetable, then. Or would that be
admitting there is a problem?!

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Nov 17, 9:08*pm, "12sub" wrote:

times allocated to driver 'changing ends' takes longer with 8 vice 4.
'Impact minutes" equals points not prizes.- Hide quoted text -

FCC operates a regular interval servcie.

All the core pattern has the same terminal time at Bedford or Brighton
or Luton be they booked 8car or 4car.

As for train prep diagram thats a complete ******** reason since the
current emergency timetable has special diagrams. If someone
diagrammed them for 4car then thats even bigger ********.

--
Nick

On Nov 17, 9:14*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

Seems they need an emergency timetable, then. *Or would that be
admitting there is a problem?!

The emergency timetable came into force last Thursday.

http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...0timetable.pdf

--
Nick

Any company that has to cancel half its service because drivers will
not work rest days and overtime is clearly not employing enough
drivers.

Interestingly First Great Western where in a similar position with
Guards about 24 months ago. Andrew Haines came in and recruited
enough Guards to run the service. Now if all the guards stopped
working overtime I doubt you would notice any difference.

First Capital Connect are in danger of losing their franchise if this
carries on much longer.

On Nov 17, 9:17*pm, D7666 wrote:
On Nov 17, 9:08*pm, "12sub" wrote:

times allocated to driver 'changing ends' takes longer with 8 vice 4.
'Impact minutes" equals points not prizes.- Hide quoted text -

FCC operates a regular interval servcie.

All the core pattern has the same terminal time at Bedford or Brighton
or Luton be they booked 8car or 4car.

As for train prep diagram thats a complete ******** reason since the
current emergency timetable has special diagrams. If someone
diagrammed them for 4car then thats even bigger ********.

*Are* they actually running 4-cars? I've been rush-hour commuting
mostly on FCC-TL throughout the dispute, and haven't encountered any.

(if they're still running the one evening 317 out of Moorgate[*],
then I can pretty much see why that one might run as 4-car...)
[*] obviously ECS til Farringdon

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Nov 17, 9:44*pm, trainmanUK wrote:

Any company that has to cancel half its service because drivers will
not work rest days and overtime is clearly not employing enough
drivers.

Correct.

The numbers that FCC have been putting out just don't add up.

Quoting the letter to stakeholders ''We have already recruited 38
additional drivers to facilitate the new
Thameslink route timetable introduced earlier this year and we will
have 20
more completing their training during spring next year. ''

The first 38 are a red herring to this issue. Those were for KO0, and
ought to have bee in place by March. If they were not then that
INCREASES the current problem not mitigates it.

If FCC have to cut 50% of the service but need only to recruit 20 more
drivers make up for this, then some simple arithmetic based on that
statement suggests they only have 40 drivers in total.

In other words [a] they are not telling the truth [b] are still not
recruiting enough [c] have not been recruioting over a long period
that allowed the numbers to fall so low.

I would suggest 20 drivers per year is somewhere around their natural
wastage value ... and suggest hese 20 are the bare minimum they can
get away with at maintianing an alereayd below par headcount ... and
are not any attempt to resolve the issue at all.

--
Nick