Train passengers visiting family and friends over Christmas could have their journeys disrupted by crew shortages, especially on parts of the railway network subject to engineering works, the rail minister has warned.
Peter Hendy told MPs that the government is concerned about staffing at train operators over the festive period and officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) would continue to look at the issue before Christmas.
These shortages are likely to be “exacerbated by the fact that inevitably the closures close parts of the railway and put more pressure on others,” Hendy told parliament’s transport select committee.
Britain’s rail network is completely closed each year on Christmas Day, while only a limited service operates on Boxing Day. Some routes are closed for longer over the festive period, as Network Rail carries out engineering work.
Hendy, who chaired Network Rail from 2015 until he was appointed a minister in the Labour government, said: “Christmas is a good time to do major engineering work because the demand is lower over several days.”
The warning came just hours after it was announced that train managers at Avanti West Coast will strike before and after Christmas in a dispute over rest day working.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union plan to strike on 22, 23 and 29 December, and customers who have tickets for the strike days will be able to use them for alternative services on different days.
News of the action will be concerning for many rail passengers, who had been hoping for a smooth Christmas getaway, following the decision earlier this year by rail workers at the RMT and Aslef unions to accept pay offers by train companies and Network Rail, which was seen as reducing the prospect of further strikes.
Britain’s railways have been “over-reliant on overtime work of the train crew”, said Alex Hynes, director general for the rail services group at the DfT.
“That’s a risk, which may be worse at Christmas time than other times. And therefore we need to make sure we’ve got the infrastructure and the trains and the crew to operate those additional services, that may or may not be the case,” Hynes told the committee.
Sunday working is not included in the working of many train drivers and other crew members, meaning that several rail operators rely on volunteers to work additional paid shifts in order so they can run timetabled services on that day. Lack of staff can often lead to the cancellation of hundreds of trains across Britain on Sundays when many people want to travel.
Hynes added that DfT officials have been reviewing forward bookings for the Christmas getaway at several rail operators, and believed they were “well placed for the Christmas dash”, partly because 25 December falls on a Wednesday this year.
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Network Rail has previously said the number of passengers travelling over the seven days between Christmas and new year typically drops by 50-60% compared with a usual week in November or early December.
Hendy said it was vital that Christmas engineering work finishes on time, recalling Christmas 2014 when overrunning works delayed the reopening of London’s King’s Cross station and led to severe disruption
The rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), found that overrunning engineering works affected more than 115,000 passengers travelling into or out of London’s King’s Cross and Paddington stations on 27 and 28 December that year.
Hendy said “the lessons of that were very severe”, adding “the railway industry and Network Rail, in particular, has worked extraordinarily hard not to replicate that again, because it was disastrous and disastrous for passengers”.