Recruitment
“John looks after the Short Term Train Plan for Transpennine Express. The past year has seen an unprecedented level of change which John has managed to navigate. Transpennine Express’s three new train fleets were supposed to have staged arrivals, but difficulties have led to delay and they are now entering service virtually simultaneously.
This has meant for John, almost continual amending of the Long Term Plan as entry dates for new stock is missed, and the Long Term Plan is no longer tenable. This involves either removing paths, creating new ones for driver training for example, or often significant reworking of the Unit Diagrams. These often included amending ECS movements, at the ends of the day, where scheduled cyclic maintenance of the network means often the same plan can’t be used. This has meant John finding creative ways to make the plan work. The reworking of the Long Term Plan at late notice has also caused further headaches as John has had to sift through the plan with a fine toothcomb to make sure that all data is correct.
If this wasn’t enough, the near collapse of Toddbrook Reservoir at Whaley Bridge lead to the closure of the Hope Valley Route. John along with others in the team, implemented an innovative way of maintaining through trains between Sheffield and Manchester (for which the road connection is very poor) by extending the hourly Manchester – Huddersfield stopper through to Sheffield via Moorthorpe. There was widespread praise for this plan.
Despite all this, John has managed to impeccably keep a completely clean sheet in terms of delays and cancellations for well over a year!
Looking forward to the December 19 timetable change, when all new fleets should be in place, John has been investigating ways to ensure customers are kept moving, whilst dealing with some hefty pieces of engineering work. He has also needed to create a new midweek overnight strategy, for new fleets that must be fuelled every night and have very strict rules compared to the Class 185s. He in an asset to Train Planning.“
“Thank you so much for inviting us to the Awards and for doing the raffle for Railway Children. We were absolutely delighted with the amount that was raised and it was great having the opportunity to promote our Great Rail Challenge. It certainly seemed to be a fantastically well organised event and well done to you. We really appreciated all the help we got from you. We get so much support from you all at RailStaff and I hope you are now enjoying a very well deserved rest!”
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