Boris has poked his head up to make his somewhat muted Night Tube
announcement although in
contradiction to earlier reports he claimed that Night Tube
will start running “towards the end of July”. I suspect that not for the first time he’s misunderstood how things work down here, in order to run the Victoria and Jubilee
Lines overnight on Friday 5th August the new timetables and rosters would be
introduced on Sunday 31st July so maybe he didn’t understand the difference. The reports say that Boris made his announcement at the controls of a train simulator being used by some of the new bods and there he is, sat at what is easily
identifiable as a mock-up of an S Stock cab.
Of course S Stock works the Sub Surface Lines and Night Tube won’t be
introduced there until 2018 at the earliest so highly unlikely any of the
part-timers will be trained on that particular simulator.
The London Buzz – 20th December 2024
19 hours ago
TFL are now saying that all-night services will be introduced on London Overground. I wonder if they negotiate from the start this time or will there be another 3 year dispute? I think some LO drivers aren't even contracted to work Sundays!
ReplyDeleteIn February last Boris said that he wanted LO to start running overnight in 2017, obviously the big difference between LO and LU is that LO don't own the track, its all Network Rail. There have been big changes on the contract side at LO recently, I'll ask my contacts to see if Sunday working is till voluntary.
DeleteNetwork Rail will kindly tell LO to buzz off - they've not got enough engineering access as it stands.
DeleteSorry to hijack but can I ask what the power fult that lasted 3 days was?
ReplyDeleteDoubtless ASLEF shrugged will give a more detailed explanation in the fullness of time, but it was a rectifier / transformer fault, meaning only a certain number of trains could run without tripping out the power.
DeleteMore info on District Dave's forum http://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/26562/unspecified-power-failure-on-central
I was off work for the first two days, just caught the end of it on Wednesday but it's pretty much as Tim said, there was a fault at the Bow sub station which meant there wasn't enough "juice" in that section to run the usual number of trains, too many trains and we'd trip the power out completely. Running a normal service on the rest of the line and terminating the required number of trains either side of the area would have just led to overcrowding at those stations so we reduced the number of trains overall.
DeleteI did hear that some of the kit down there is so old that replacements aren't available, apparently we had to take one out of Roding Valley sub station where its less busy, swapped that with the faulty one at Bow and sent it off to be repaired, when its fixed it will go to Roding Valley.
Hi, I came here to see if you'd written something on the Picadilly line strike on Thursday (24th March). Noone seems to really know what it's about, besides in general management bullying and old, faulty trains. I heard something about messroom talk that Picadilly drivers weren't being allowed to take toilet breaks as part of management bullying. But didn't hear much more. Could you explain it please?
ReplyDeleteThe strike seems to have been pretty solid on P'dilly, but I don't understand why RMT only called one line, when there must be issues common to others. Was there pressure on them from P'dilly drivers? Did they explain the concrete issues to other drivers?
Hi, I came here to see if you'd written about the Piccadilly drivers strike this Thursday (24 March). What were the issues? The RMT said something general about management bullying and faulty trains. I heard about some messroom talk about P'dilly managers getting on the drivers' back for going to the toilet. What else is going on?
ReplyDeleteAlso, why was it only P'dilly drivers who were balloted for strike? Aren't there issues common to all drivers?
Other drivers didn't seem to really know much about the P'dilly drivers' strike, and the P'dilly drivers didn't seem to be going around discussing it with the others. Unless I got the wrong picture, which would be great!
PS: sorry for posting twice, I didn't see it posted the first time around.
ReplyDeleteRegrettably I have to moderate comments before publishing them as last year someone was being a bit of an arsehole. I've not spoken to any Piccadilly TOps so here's what I've managed to find.
DeleteThe reason RMT balloted the Piccadilly only is that the issues are specific to the Line, management over there are breaching agreements that apply to the whole Combine and using their own rules for dealing with attendance at work or SPADs, not helped by the poor performance of the brakes on the 1973 stock.
We had a similar thing with management on the Central Line in 2014 which led to ASLEF holding a one day strike and there have been similar single line disputes in the past. ASLEF members at Arnos Grove were on strike last week but the media seems to have overlooked that detail.
There’s also individual issues at the depots, an RMT TOp at Acton Town has been sacked because he had his mobile phone on while in the cab doing CDP at Northfields although all three witnesses testified that he didn't answer the call until he was in the saloon and 6 TOps from Arnos Grove (3 ASLEF, 3 RMT) are facing disciplinary action over something to do with booking on at Oakwood station.
There are also issues over Cockfosters depot, problems with the designated walkways, the discovery of asbestos and big disagreements about the rosters. I’ve not heard anything about PNRs
RMT website 'London Calling' for London Underground workers gives a a explanation,about the issues involved behind the Piccadilly strike.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for the reply.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if any of the issues were resolved with the 1-day strike, or whether there is more action planned? Also, were ASLEF drivers on Piccadilly also on strike?
What was the outcome of the Central line strike in 2014?
Haven't heard anything further from the Piccadilly Line, if there's a another strike you know that the issues haven't been resolved. As I mentioned ASLEF TOps were on strike at Arnos Grove but I don't know if they crossed the picket lines at the other depots.
DeleteAfter the Central Line strike in 2014 management stopped messing about and stuck to the agreements
Ok there are others planned:
ReplyDeleteTuesday 19 April, 1200hrs to Weds 20 April, 1159hrs
Thursday 21 April, 1200hrs to Friday 22 April, 1159hrs
Just wondering about the rostering problems you mentioned. Do they have to do with the Night Tube being brought in, and staff being spread to thin the rest of the shifts?
On asbestos, have you seen a documentary called The Navigators?
I don't know the exact details about the roster problems but as far as I'm aware its about the current roster rather than anything to do with Night Tube which isn't due on the Piccadilly, Northern and Central until September.
DeleteThe Navigators, 2001, dir. Ken Loach isn't a documentary, I've not seen it but I seem to remember I saw a play on the same subject at the Bush Theatre many years ago. Of course my memory isn't what it used to be......Alzheimer's
the rosters are due to the split of anros grove due the opening of cockfosters train crew depot which is apparently on may the 15th but nothing official yet although its got at least 3 dtsms and a tom twiddling there thumbs up there since January and they seem to be keeping the duties and rosters pretty close to themselves still only a couple of weeks before they have to display the sheets
Deleteand no diver turned up for work on entire line on the strike day
*asbestos on the Underground, that is.
ReplyDelete