Thread by @garius

Right. So Northern is WELL outside our London beat. Which is why we're not covering it on our timetable pieces on LR. People keep asking about it though, so here's a basic overview of the issues up there (as we understand it). /1 #NorthernFail #NorthernRail

One of the big issues is similar to Thameslink (although Northern have been more open about it): Drivers. Again, don't just assume that because a person can DRIVE a train they're CLEARED for every route or EVERY TYPE of train. That's not how it works. /2

The new timetable means a lot more services that terminated at Manchester are now meant to be through trains. This was the DfT's idea. Presumably someone over there looked at the history of Thameslink and thought: "Hey we should do MORE of this!"

Cocaine. It's a helluvah drug /3

That obviously then changes (and makes more complex) the driver requirement: you now need lots more drivers trained on the WHOLE route. And, just like GTR, Northern seem to have underestimated the effort required to prepare for that. /4

As with Thameslink, there have also been infra issues and the rollout of new trains, which has only served to sharpen these training issues. Just as critically, there's an ongoing industrial dispute about Driver Only Operation up there. As a result, no one is working rest days /5

That last one is way more of an issue than you might think. TOCs rely on drivers volunteering to work on rest days to make up their numbers. When they're not prepared to do that, suddenly you have big problems. We're talking 20 - 30% short of the no. drivers available you need /6

Where Northern's issues do differ greatly from down south, however, is in the level of responsibility that Network Rail need to accept for the situation. They've failed to deliver several major projects on time, which have caused Northern a lot of grief /7

Delays to electrification at Blackpool, for example, made it even harder for Northern to train enough drivers in time. The biggest screw up, though, has been with electrification of the Manchester - WCML corridor. /8

Manchester/WCML is running about 6 months late. The reasons for that, well, where to begin? Let's start with ground surveys. The original contractor (Balfour Beatty) didn't do as many of these as (in hindsight) they should have done. /9

The old joke is that you ALWAYS pay for ground surveys. Especially when you don't do them, and that was true here. Cue lots of unforeseen issues. Put it this way: we now know a lot more about just how many abandoned mines there are around Bolton. /10 😂

It also turns out that our illustrious railway building ancestors thought that straw and manure was a really good way to fill voids in the Farnworth tunnel. Cheers lads. 👍 /11

Not that our more recent forefathers are entirely innocent. The project uncovered some VERY slapdash work from the BR era (cue howls of denial from the Renationalista Brigade), and that a lot of the fixed assets weren't in anywhere near as good condition as expected. /12

EVENTUALLY, BB fessed up to these issues (and others) and walked away from the project (oh noes!) but luckily another contractor agreed to step in and fill that gap (yay)...

...except that contractor was Carillion. 😭😭😭😭😭 /13

So Carillion then collapse in January, revealing a whole host of EXTRA issues. Add in some terrible weather and flooding for good measure and suddenly NR are having to admit that a whole chunk of the work that Northern's timetable depends on isn't going to be done in time. /14

So all of that, taken together, is why Northern is rubbish, and is going to stay rubbish for some time. They don't have the infra or the drivers, but they can't change the timetable because when they DO have those things they'll need it to be this one. /15

"Oh but just change the timetable back! Or just change it again in August when the work is done!" I hear you shout.

Nope. That's not how the railways work. Timetables are NATIONAL. So - for very good reasons - timetable updates only happen twice a year: May and December /16

And if it's a choice between taking a knife to services on the existing timetable to make it work now, so they can then add those cut services officially back in the moment work is finished / drivers are trained then that's what they'll do. /17

Partly because it does make a sort of brutal sense to do that, pragmatically speaking, BUT ALSO because - rather obviously - TOCs (and by extension the DfT) like money. /18

So they want to be starting to recoup some of the inevitable losses and penalties this will be causing them from the very moment they can. /19

So: short, non-19-threaded-tweet version: Northern is fucked for a lot of the same reasons as Thameslink, but also for some shiny extra ones as well. You lucky, lucky northerners.

And like Thameslink, all those reasons mean there IS no quick fix. /20

If you want further reading on the Thameslink stuff (which talks about drivers and why they matter) our coverage starts here: londonreconnections.com/2018/the-cicad…

For Northern-specific stuff, you'll want to be picking up @RAIL and @Modern_Railways in the coming weeks/months. We will be! /END

By request, I've now done a quick primer on the subject of train drivers. That starts here:

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