Richard recently hosted a meeting in Biggleswade between members of GTR's management team and representatives of the local Rail Users Groups, covering a number of topics of concern that have been raised by constituents.
Speaking afterwards, Richard Fuller MP said:
We were presented with statistics that suggested that the service on this line has slightly improved however the view from commuters and other rail users is that it remains wholly unreliable and is an enormous barrier to working successfully in the capital.
A recurring theme is the level of driver cover at the Peterborough hub and I tasked GTR to conduct a feasibility study to better understand the financial implications of increasing this cover in order to add resilience to the service.
As always the meeting was positive and constructive and I'm very grateful to GTR management for continually 'fronting up' to the issues they face and always agreeing to make themselves available for interrogation. Equally, the thousands of local commuters are extremely well served by their representatives on the Rail Users Groups who work tirelessly and tenaciously to hold GTR to account and strive for improvements on the line.
GTR have acknowledged that the service throughout Autumn and now heading into Winter has been worse, despite some improvement over the summer. At the meeting GTR confirmed the following reasons for the disruption:
- Strikes and other industrial action
- An increase in the amount of the annual leave being taken at this time
- Storm Ciaran and the associated blanket speed restriction across the row
- Route-specific incidents including:
- Track related incidents such as issues with the overhead cabling
- Seasonal trend of illness among the staff
- Local safety incidents
GTR will soon be writing back to Richard to outline the possible business case for hiring and training more drivers so that they can examine a staffing model less reliant on staff overtime and rest day working. Part of this review should also examine why Thursdays are generally the worst days for service delays and cancellations. GTR will also look into the 8am golden train (a service which should never be cancelled) from Biggleswade which the RUG have advised has been cancelled on a few occasions. The RUGs also presented GTR with a list of questions collated on behalf of commuters, which GTR will be responding to in due course.
Richard will be organising a follow-up meeting next year and will provide further updates here when responses are received to the issues raised.
