‘No way to run a railway’: How the Sunday blues have depressed Britain’s weary train passengers

The system ‘can’t be right, and it never has been right’, says expert, as the government promises to reset relationship with the rail industry

Train services can be significantly reduced on Sundays (Getty Images)

Relying on staff volunteering to work weekend shifts to keep trains running on Sundays, as well as the regular need to fall back on voluntary overtime to cover absences, has been blasted as not sustainable for a healthy, functioning railway in the UK.

Transport expert Graham Eccles, who during his career was the managing director of South West Trains before being appointed as the head of the railway division at Stagecoach, told The Independent that reliance on overtime work is “no way to run a railway” and has always been outdated.

“We don’t have enough people to cover that train [service] seven days a week, and that can’t be right, and it never has been right,” he said.

‘Sunday work’ and rest day working for train drivers and other rail staff has long been a polarising issue in the industry, causing widespread disruption in recent years. Last Sunday on Great Western Railway, for example, the effects of Storm Darragh were compounded by dozens of cancellations due to staff declining – as is their right – to work on their day off.

Train managers working for Avanti West Coast who are members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union had announced industrial action around Christmas due to “inadequate proposals on rest day working arrangements” after rejecting a proposal made to them by the company – though in better news for passengers, the strikes were called on of 13 Decemeber after the union received an improved offer from Avanti.

The Sunday rule varies between companies, with some operators relying on employees volunteering to work extra paid shifts to run timetabled services on a Sunday, as this day is commonly negotiated to be “outside” the working week in the industry.

Voluntary overtime is different, such as rest day working, and is used by train operators to cover absences due to vacancies, sickness or when staff are required to undertake higher than usual levels of training, such as new fleet introductions or major timetable changes.

Government-owned Northern regularly urges passengers in northwest England not to travel on some routes on a Sunday. While Sunday is “inside” the working week for staff east of the Pennines; for those based at depots west of the Pennines, it is optional.

Simon Calder, travel correspondent of The Independent, has warned in his Christmas round-up of public transport: “On train operators including Great Western Railway and Northern, expect significant numbers of cancellations due to staff shortage on 22 and 29 December. Not all train crew working for these firms are required to work on Sundays, and it is likely that many of them will prefer to spend time with their families rather than doing overtime.”

While some operators have candidly admitted that they sometimes rely on workers picking up extra shifts to cover their full schedules, the introduction of a new system that would mean a more reliable network for passengers has been slow.

Due to the way Sundays work in the rail world, train services can often be without a reliable force to operate trains on weekends, around Christmas and the New Year, or during special events. Hundreds of rail services across Britain were cancelled at short notice on the Sunday that England played Spain in the Euro 2024 final, as many workers chose to spend their free time watching the match instead of picking up extra work.

At the time, Great Western Railway (GWR) conceded the “optional Sunday” agreement was the reason behind the mass cancellations.

The operator said “sickness and England reaching the final of the Euros (is) likely to reduce the number of colleagues available for overtime shifts”.

Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, told The Independent: “Train companies don’t employ enough drivers to deliver the service they promise passengers, and government, they will run.”

“That’s a consequence of 30 years of privatisation during which the companies have plundered the public purse to make a private profit at public expense.

“And that’s why the new Labour government is bringing Britain’s railways back where they belong – in the public sector. If the companies employed more drivers – enough drivers – they would not have to cancel services.

“The railway should not be run on overtime – which is, of course, voluntary.”

Rail veteran Mr Eccles said that from a passenger’s perspective, train tickets have surged in price, and no one enjoys getting their train cancelled on top of that, but the reality is that train staff are not going to ensure a full seven-day service just off their own “goodwill.”

He believes that improved salaries since the introduction of privatisation has taken away the incentive for train drivers to accept overtime work as some no longer need the extra cash. He also feels that other factors, including an overall sense of a work-life balance after the lockdowns, also have influenced not feeling the drive to pick up extra shifts.

“To get from where the railway is today, to where it needs to be, to have that seven-day railway, is going to take a couple of years and a whole lot of cash, and the government have to make that decision as to whether or not they’re going to spend that cash to get to where they’d like to be,” Mr Eccles added.

The Department for Transport told The Independent that it is committed to “resetting rail industrial relations” and “overhauling” the railways to modernise working practices such as less reliance on overtime.

“Our urgent priority is to reset workforce relations and put passengers first.”

Louise Haigh, who was transport secretary until her resignation at the start of December, had called for a seven-day working week for the railways.

“We obviously want to get the railways to a seven-day week, we want to make sure that we have the most modernised practices and that they are fit for Great British Railways of the 21st Century,” she told The Standard.

Finalising rest-day deals with unions hasn’t been easy, with an agreement between RMT and Northern falling through in November.

Northern said RMT members rejected an enhanced four-month pay offer for conductors to work on Sundays during a recent referendum vote - an offer that would have seen them double the money they get for working on Sundays.

Small changes are underway, such as Great Western Railway transferring newly recruited drivers to contracts that included a commitment for Sunday working in 2018.

However, “without a further trade union deal this will take some time to work through [the] whole driver population,” it admitted, adding that “in line with most of the rail industry we do rely on paid overtime.”

The train company added that this is not a case of not having enough staff, but rather that employers’ contracts contain terms and conditions that mean GWR are “reliant on a number of colleagues volunteering to work overtime to cover our timetable on Sundays”.

ScotRail said that it is currently recruiting 160 drivers each year – the most, it says, of any UK operator.

“This will progressively reduce reliance on rest day working,” they added.

A spokesperson for Rail Delivery Group, who represents rail companies across the UK, said: “Staff will sometimes be required to work overtime, particularly during the weekend.

“Train companies are always looking to attract new people to the industry, and operators are working tirelessly to recruit and train as many staff as possible.”

“We know how important reliability and punctuality is to customers. On a typical weekday, our staff are deployed across the railways to fulfil the national timetable of running over 21,000 trains per day during the week.”

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