Context in numbers
From the Scottish Daily Mail today:
As readers will have come to expect, the article is entirely free of any figures by which readers could gauge whether 1000 was a high number or not. So as usual, we’ll have to do it for them.
ScotRail runs close to 760,000 trains a year:
So if 1000 are cancelled, that’s 0.13%. If you make a return train journey every single day of your life, you’ll suffer slightly less than one cancellation every year to either your outward leg or the return one.
Which will doubtless be a pain, and might make you a bit late, and you’ll probably be a touch hacked off about it, quite reasonably. But compared to the number of times you’d be held up in traffic jams or suffer a breakdown if you went by car or bus instead, it’s not exactly a national scandal. Which is why the Daily Mail doesn’t want you to know that 99.87% of scheduled trains do in fact run.
When there’s an obviously pertinent fact missing, readers, there’s always a reason.
Brilliant as ever. Most of us regular readers of this blog already do look askance at screaming headlines and assume they are wrong The headline is always wrong, as you say, or misleading, or deceptive, or a simple lie.
Getting the message out to the information starved millions is a necessary task.
Rightly or wrongly of how Scotrail operates rest days etc, staff shortages have been caused by the union saying no to overtime. Therefore, over Xmas drivers didn’t receive the extra £300 and guards £120 for working rest days and the public were massively inconvenienced. Although the RMT says they are unaffiliated, another Labour inspired stunt?
Coincidentally this was the lead story of BBC in Scotland lunchtime news programme.
It was portrayed by the BBC as some kind of Scottish shame. But then again we should be used to this kind of anti-Scottish government propaganda by now.
Pretty sure Wings covereds this point just a few months ago! Do the Mail Staff not read wings ? 🙂
It’s also worth pointing out that the “packed, congested” platform pictured is in fact just a normal amount of people waiting for a train.
Distraction alarm – Scottish tumbleweed.
Sigh. Another day, another misleading headline.
The Brexit Express speeds out of control, towards the buffers, and yet all the DM wants to talk about is 0.13% of Scottish trains being cancelled. How many cancelled trains south of the border, I wonder?
You have to admire all this BritNat creativity as they scratch their heads to come up with another SNP BAD story. Desperate stuff. They are bricking it, for sure. 🙂
As ROS said up thread BBC vichy Jock land took grrreeeaat delight in putting their spin on the incompetence ( their view ) of Scotrail , then to show THEIR UTTER INCOMPETENCE AS A BROADCASTER THEY COULDN’T PLAY THE CLIP , I nearly wet myself , they then continued by how shite and short doactors are in jockland
Do these TWATS really think the people of Scotland don’t see their bias , come indy these arsewipes join the dole
If it’s only “one cancellation every year” then I am extremely unlucky to have experienced one or two cancellations a week for the past few months on the Fife circle… what are the odds of that?
Heard them discussing this on GMS this morning and I was getting angry and shouting “42 tains a day, but what’s the contexT!!!!” at the radio (clearly alert reader brain kicked in).
I don’t know if 42 train cancellations a day is horrible, or actually a tiny fraction. That’s your job, journalism! If you’re reporting “X number of trains cancelled this year” you better do some minimal leg work. I expect the story to contain:
1. How that compares to previous years.
2. What proportion of all trains that is.
3. Whether a unique even this year could be responsible, or whether it is likely to be a recurring issue.
If you don’t provide that you’re literally just rehashing a press release without any input, and should be fired for proving your own irrelevance.
Also shameful- the Frank McAveety show (sorry, BBC news story) about the Glasgow Airport train link. Huge SNP BAD puff piece which fails to mention
1. The McAveety proposal was binned because it was found to be a terrible option that closed Central Station.
2. They’re still looking at alternatives
3. Glasgow City COuncil have to pay £500 million to hundreds of women that Labour fought in the courts to prevent equal pay.
4. Glasgow airport is in Renfrewshire so why is it GCC that is being solely attacked?
In this case, no statistics but still damn lies.
“That’s terrible” said my old wifie Daily Mail reading acquaintance at the other table this morning about the trains.
It was therefore inevitable that within a few hours of this story in the headlines, plus the shortbread news blurb, that WoS would be on the case. 🙂
The ‘context’ is that we are in Scotland and Scotland cannot be seen to be competent at anything useful so it must be trashed by the MSM on a daily basis.
Tomorrow is another day….of the same! 🙁
Whenever I see a ludicrous anti SNP/Scotland headline on the front of the Mail on the newstands (most days) I adopt my “turn over a new leaf campaign” and turn the paper to the sports on the back page. We dont want passersbys being brainwashed ?.
So basically less than 3 trains a day are cancelled.
Of course we know a certain German gentleman, wonderfully supported by the D Mail, managed to get the trains to run on time. Or was that just propaganda?
Still not that simple, other pertinent facts are, where they are canceled and when they are canceled. Try living on the Fife circle and being put off the train at Thornton ( the middle of nowhere transport wise ) in subzero temps to wait for an hour with a young mother and her baby because the circle train was delayed 10 mins on the outward leg of the journey!
I’m very fond of Liverpool who have great citizens just like Glasgow.
I wondered how their CITY train service cancellations compared to SCOTLAND’s?
There was a wonderful piece in the Liverpool Echo I found on-line.
Dated 1st June 2018.
“Over 200 Trains CANCELLED TODAY”
The previous day was much better with only 65
Trains Cancelled.
Regrettably with problems they knew where coming over 1,000 Trains
Were CANCELLED IN LIME ST STATION OVER A FEW SHORT WEEKS!
Congratulations to our wonderful SNP Government and our Scottish Rail workers!
Running a Nationwide Rail Service supporting 10 X the population of Liverpool and having
Similar cancellation rates over 50 weeks as opposed to their 5 weeks is quite astonishing!
The Daily Mail really is a Fascist Rag fit only to hang in sheets on a Railway Toilet
Confused, if things are so bad in Scotland why are so many English moving up here, even as far as the far-flung islands.
frogesque
I always thought it was Mussolini who made the trains run on time and yes, it was propaganda.
Bravo, Stu, bravo.
Luigi, sorry old son but don’t you remember there many days over the same period where there were no trains at all in many “English” rail operators areas.
Well done,the daily mail caught lying by omission again.
Pity the poor fools that pay good money for this trash.
[…] Wings Over Scotland Context in numbers From the Scottish Daily Mail today: As readers will have come to expect, the article […]
@Auld Rock
Aye! Well remembered and there are so many if you google.
This is the 1st on the list.
May 2018:
Fury as train delays and cancellations in UK enter second week
link to archive.is
I may be wrong – but there was a comment, possibly on here, that RMT had objected in the Summer to recruiting 100 or so extra drivers because existing drivers would lose overtime payments –
and then RMT objected in the Autumn to making existing drivers work their rest days. The combination prevented cover being in place on time.
I have been waiting for years to see the improvements that Scotrail were expecting this Christmas , while wondering how they could be stymied, because it would never do for them to go ahead without grief.
There are several factors. WABTEC Doncaster failing to deliver refurbished HSTSs on time or at all, with proper toilets, Hitachi failing to heed the lessons of the Clacton Electrics and the Glasgow Blue trains, both of which had issues with curved windscreens in the 1960’s. I knew this – why did a professional design team not know?
I suspect there are political reasons for the RMT’s approach, which coincidentally suit Slab, without any need for specific, open collusion. Both know what was needed.
“Reporting Scotland”, as ever – just does SNP Bad as this article highlights. No real attempt to find out real background in case it shows up that manufactured grievances are partly to blame.
I knew as soon as I turned radio shortbread on this morning, it was trains again this week.
Yep, you have us all well-trained now Stu. Heard this tosh on GMS this morning and thought, bet that’s a tiny figure. And what do you know..?
And the bbc still wonders why we do not trust them. They make believe they are impartial – only they believe that and even then only with their eyes closed and fingers crossed.
Yup. Ask my South-eastern using colleagues who get a daily dose of privatised Tory hell.
Journalism is now found on the Internet and not the MSM.
Leask and Co. have lied and distorted data about Scotland for decades and they still try to claim the mantle of the professional source. More and more articles prove their true purpose – negative propaganda
What can you expect from the BBC, they are still livid they had so little time to prepare a negative story about Nicola Sturgeons US visit.
And the Tories are also livid about the trip, they believe they could have made better use of the cost of this trip by diverting the money to the DUP.
frogesque says:
5 February, 2019 at 3:23 pm
So basically less than 3 trains a day are cancelled.
Of course we know a certain German gentleman, wonderfully supported by the D Mail, managed to get the trains to run on time. Or was that just propaganda?””
He was Italian – Mussolini – who supposedly got the trains to run on time.
There’s a very similar story just appeared in the Scotsman, not about trains but about Police Scotland.
Huge shock so it is.
The number of Police Scotland officers fell in the past year despite looming concerns over Brexit.
Figures from the national force show there were 81 fewer officers (17,175) on 31 December when compared with 2017.
Well at least they have put the fall into some context and they even manage to include a quote from Humza Yousaf.
Mr Yousaf said: “Police officer numbers in Scotland remain significantly above the level in 2007, with an increase of over 900 since March 2007. This contrasts with a reduction of almost 20,000 officers in England and Wales.
link to archive.fo
If you have more than 17,000 police officers then numbers will of course vary month on month. People retire or change career, the numbers are not set in stone and it could just as easily have been a rise of 81 officers in comparing Dec 2018 with Dec 2017 I would have thought. Is it a crisis though?
Of course not. This is NOT even a story and speaks volumes about the state of Scottish journalism, Labour of course are given the opportunity to spout off some more gibberish about how the SNP are letting down Scotland.
Scotland’s media is not fit for purpose. It’s beyond ridiculous now, they should be ashamed of what they believe to be their “profession” It is far from that judging by their output.
I love it when the news tries to blow this kind of non-story out of proportion and interviews whinging customers. It makes me want to smack them over the side of their heads. Shut up, dears, there’s worse things going on in the world than the fact your train was late or cancelled.
@John Alexander Ferguson
They want their freebies, that’s why. Free uni education, free prescriptions, no bridge tolls, help with elderly care. Then after getting all this they complain about that dastardly SNP and vote No to keep Scotland tied to the motherland.
Many of them have an imperialist mindset. But to be fair, if I was English, I’d move up here too. You couldn’t pay me to live down south.
Meanwhile BBC Radio Scotland mentions formation of a committee in Hollyrood tolook into how the SG handled the Salmond thing – which cannot do anything till after Salmonds trial – in order to avoid mentioning Nicolas latezt, and very interezting, comments on Brexit and IndyRef2.
My distrust in msm confirmed, reinforced. Sack all msm journos in an IndyScotland, the ("Tractor" - Ed)s.
Lots of English & Welsh folks are moving up to Scotland right now to help us with indy and together escape Brexshit.
Aye the Britnat Media wie the one Train of thought arrives on time to rubbish Scotland .
A proper broadcaster or newspaper would always compare the performance of current government with their predecessor’s record or nearest neighbour so that issues can be seen in context.
On Workplace Parking Levy for example. This was introduced by Labour to England under the Transport Act 2000. It was kept by the Lib-Dem/Tory coalition in the “Red Tape Challenge” consultation 2011 and still in place under the Tory Gov in 2019.
Under the Tories in England Council Tax can be increased by 5.99% next year. So much for only hammering Scottish middle earners.
Yet same Tory press and politicians complaining about not giving Local Authorities enough powers.
Interesting figures from the ORR.
Cancellations or significant delays.
Great Britain: 4.6%
England and Wales: 4.7%
Scotland: 3.7%
Then we can look at some disasters!
GoviaThameslink: 6.5%
LNER: 9.0%
Trans Pennine Express: 11.7%
Hull Trains: 12.2%
They are all on the document Wings posted. Why no comparison with country or regional stats? The media have an agenda and the reporters are lazy so with no attempt at fact checking.
@Proud Cybernat
Not enough. Figures show most rUK residents who live here voted N. I don’t see that changing. This is “their” island after all. Cant have one of the regions breaking away can we?
Voted No*
For God’s sake, bloody typos. I’d kill for an edit function.
Dave Robb says:
5 February, 2019 at 3:59 pm
“”I may be wrong – but there was a comment, possibly on here, that RMT had objected in the Summer to recruiting 100 or so extra drivers because existing drivers would lose overtime payments –
and then RMT objected in the Autumn to making existing drivers work their rest days. The combination prevented cover being in place on time.””
You are sort of right but the chronology is a bit off.
When Abelio took over the franchise in April 2015 they created 100 new drivers’ jobs. I think they got about 1500 applications. One of the reasons for taking on and training the additional drivers was because Abellio had ordered new trains just the month before taking over the contract to run Scotrail.
The RMT union threatened to strike when the announcement about the new drivers was made because they could see their members overtime earnings being cut. Another reason Abellio wanted more drivers because they wanted to reduce the overtime worked as much for safety as for financial reasons.
There was no strike but the drivers did take industrial action leading to an overtime/rest day ban so disrupting the service for a time. I think the official reason for the industrial action was something to do with driver-only trains.
Fast forward to August 2018 and Abellio announced it was going to take on 140 additional staff, conductors/guards, to try to reduce overtime/rest day working.
Cue for vote in September on industrial action. This industrial action started in October and lasted through to early December. Ostensibly it was about the guards etc wanting paid £300 a time for working rest days which is what drivers get.
This led to widespread cancellations and has held up the training of new staff and training of drivers on the new trains.
The RMT seemed to be quite pleased with the disruption they were causing.
Hitachi, who has the contract to build the trains, delivered them late and with a sightlines fault. Hitachi’s plant in England does not have a very good record when it comes to delivering trains on time and fault free. Other Train Operating Companies have also had problems.
A democracy sans balanced reporting, and an engaged, informed electorate, isn’t a democracy at all.
A new name is needed for the system we currently endure.
Kleptocracy is almost right.
Meritocracy is an ironic misnomer. Shorthand for neo-liberal. Anyone below middle class is the ‘other’. Interchangeable, irrelevant, and disposable.
And how do you facilitate engagement?
How do you overcome the manufactured apathy, hopelessness and despair, which leads to those who stand to gain most, being the most likely to ‘drop out’ of ‘the system’?
Yes was on the right track, i’d venture.
If ‘the system’ is designed correctly, nobody needs be left hindmost.
Thepnr They never mention Police Officers in training at Tulliallan
Scottish Steve:
Type in “Grammarly”. Slightly Americanised, tho.
Ahh but is it 1000 trains out the one station? That would be a bit shit right enough.
I’d be more interested in how politically infiltrated train companies are nowadays. My application/ Induction testing consisted of a long Q&A about political afilliations and views on privitisation and government*.
Do they still pull that shit? Anyone been through the testing recently, perhaps thats why they can’t get the staff.
*Yes the meagre 1% who managed to the pass the stringent aptitude tests in my intake all got bumped. We assumed for exactly the above reasons. Me? Bitter? haha.
Ok yes, a bit, but it was a long time ago lol!
CHURNALISM, nothing else.
Sorry, Steve. Meant download.
Where would the Union suggest the extra trains came from? Taking trains from one service to another would still create complaints. People going to the rugby also had the option of making other arrangements, like say earlier trains, go by bus even use the park n ride facilities around Edinburgh.
@Fraser A Reid says: 5 February, 2019 at 2:34 pm:
” … Pretty sure Wings covereds this point just a few months ago! Do the Mail Staff not read wings ?”
Ah! Now there’s a thing, Fraser. There is a bit of a difference between reading the words and comprehension of what the words actually mean.
There are rather a lot of Westminster’s unionist written words that do not actually correlate with what Westminster means by the words they have written.
Why then a surprise when their propaganda wing follows the Westminster standard abuses of the written word?
Here are a few examples of Westminster written words that do not correlate to the facts:-
The United Kingdom is two Kingdom in a union of equally sovereign Kingdoms but Westminster thinks it is a union of three countries under English rule.
Westminster also thinks that the United Kingdom is a united country called the United Kingdom.
Westminster thinks that the two kingdoms that have different legal sovereignty as their Rule of Law are all superseded by Westminster’s sovereignty even while Westminster itself is named, “Her Majesty’s Government”.
Westminster believes that the two parts of the country of Ireland are two different countries even although it was Westminster itself politically partitioned the two parts of the geographic country of Ireland, (The Irish Free State was not ever actually free as it was legally always a British Empire Dominion with the British Monarchy as its head of state).
Which exposes the other anomaly. Westminster claims it is the British Parliament but Westminster is only, “A”, British Parliament for Westminster has never governed the whole of the British Isles. Jersey, Guernsey and Man are under the crowns Protection but not ever governed by Westminster.
They are, though, parts of Her Majesty’s personal United Kingdom as was Scotland from 1603 until the Treaty of Union in 1706/7. There never was a Union of The Crowns except as a personal united kingdom for the Monarch him/herself.
Westminster lives in a fantasy world where things only mean what Westminster says they mean even when they don’t.
A bit like how the Queen of Hearts told Alice things in Wonderland were in the novel, Alice in Wonderland. Nothing at Westminster is how it seems. Westminster claims the Queen of England is sovereign but then the Queen of England must have Black Rod knock the door and request the Commons permission to enter. Westminster is a crazy old place.
My wife has suffered several train cancellations THIS YEAR already on trains running to/from Edinburgh. It’s February 5th. She’s received several ticket refunds already. The trains are so overcrowded that people are sharing standing space in the toilet. Many times people can’t get on the train and they don’t even try, so effectively the train’s cancelled for them. Or it runs through the station. So that’s an effective cancellation too. Ticket inspectors can’t move through carriages so many people don’t bother buying tickets any more if they’re not checked at the exiting station. That’s what the trains are like, whatever the numbers say to people who don’t use them.
Many of the delays are caused by railtrack – run by Westminster. Daily Mail obviously forgot.
STV taking its news lead from the Daily Mail – triffic!
All @ 5.21
You make some good points that’s worth taking note of..
Edinburgh is an emerging Capital City, (as in it’s time to come to global prominence has arrived) we should take note that it’s rail service does and will need improving!
But that’s not what’s happening here,it’s another diatribe of the same old Holyrood more incompetent than it would normally be, because the SNP are in charge of it.
It’s a rotating theme usually to set up the British Nationalist parties questions at FMQs.
I notice the BBC do not broadcast Nicola’s speech. It must have been really good
I am sure call Kaye will broadcast it soon – ha ha ha
BBC employees should be ashamed of themselves they are a complete and utter disgrace to those who founded the service
Good for you Stu
You are remarkable for highlighting the truth
I always thought UKIP was a spook operation – the deference Farage – a nobody from fucking nowhere, always got – very suspect. And all those invites to Quesion Time. The peoples pal, the block in a pub, the golf club bore – some fucking tit with no credentials whatsoever, the voice of middle england. You can whiff the astroturf.
Kangaroo last night was mentioning some conspirological stuff and so I went back for a deep dive to one of the few “conspiracy” sites I have any faith in – Joel van der Reijden – and he had an interesting update on “Le Cercle” … loads of information here, too much to digest, but here’s a link to a bit about UKIP
isgp-studies.com/le-cercle-pinay#great-britain-brexit
isgp-studies.com/le-cercle-pinay#euroskeptics-ukip-mi6
I wonder if the former editor of The Daily Heil is enjoying his retirement on his estate near Ullapool. Not too many late or cancelled trains to worry him there!
Nicola’s latest speech just started PLAYING LIVE on Indy Live Radio.
Scotland, Brexit and the future:
link to indylive.radio
STV is becoming worse than BBC and should be under furious attack. Next demonstration should be against it.
The longer we wait the worse this will get. They are emboldened as they find they are getting away with these huge distortions. We do not have any significant control of the media so it is starting tohurt
We do not have time.
OT
McGills, Dundee.
Main reason for failure, non/late payment of outstanding bills.
NAME & SHAME LATE-PAYMENT COMPANIES INVOLVED.
One line in England last year had over 2,000 cancellations. Twice the number of all of Scotland.
link to bbc.co.uk
Can someone archive that link please?
Yep, Radio shortbread banging on about Nicola’s FAILURE to be met by Trump whilst in the US, “despite his Scottish links”. Was never the purpose of her visit!
Today, how Scotland’s trains are a FAILURE – again like the Rev points out with the Mail – no context.
As I write this it’s raining, so wouldn’t surprise me if Radio shortbread leads tomorrow with SNP’s FAILURE to organise dry weather. There’s enough negativity around, without paying the BBC to put us down day after day.
I remember the old days, when their propaganda was quite subtle – now it’s the equivalent of someone on the roof of Pathetic Quay, with a megaphone shouting, “you’re all shite”
Hmmmmm: I can exclusively reveal The Daily Mail is 100% crud and dreck.
Jackie Bird off and running with the Scot gov / SNP bad agenda . Scotrail cancelling 46 trains a day over festive period. 2nd item GP’s new contract SNP bad in rural areas. 3rd item SNP bad college lecturer strike . More bad news HMV store closures. 5th item Scot gov bad Holyrood enquiry into FM conduct convener selected from SNP obviously “ bad “ choice. Usual Britnat Pathetic Quay ongoing agenda from “ reporting North Britannia/ Jackie “ Devo Max” Bird show.
Meanwhile in Wales: Trains.
link to archive.is
Also links into the next thread. 🙂
@Benhope – he’s not living here all the time is he? That will lower the tone of the neighbourhood…
Talking of Abellio, there were 80+ jobs at Fort William when they took over. Now there are 19 AND Abellio want to close the Fort Wm operation completely – see Ian Blackford’s FB. Please God, let Scotland regain control.
@sandy
I’ve considered downloading it as I’m a writer. I should write all my comments into Microsoft Word in future before posting. I dislike clogging up the board with corrections.
Apparently there aws some disruption on trains with people standing and that on Saturday, rugby day at Murrayfield.
Penalty and a yellow card 🙂
@ Tam fae somewhere at 6.22
link to archive.is
OT – defence
Royal Marines preparing for an Arctic exercise, romping through the fjords of Norway
link to ukdefencejournal.org.uk
It’s taken a long time but the UK is at last it seems, facing up to the new Arctic “battleground arena”.
What’s interesting is that the marines and craft are being transported by MV Hurst Point
link to en.wikipedia.org
which are basically ROROs (I think PFI funded, with 2 already having been “released” to private from memory).
This is where I think iScotland would be advised to have very early talks with Calmac, and have input into the design phase at an early stage. No reason why some defence spending shouldn’t be dual purpose, hence money efficient.
North chiel says:
5 February, 2019 at 6:44 pm
Jackie Bird off and running with the Scot gov / SNP bad agenda . Scotrail cancelling 46 trains a day over festive period. 2nd item GP’s new contract SNP bad in rural areas…””
I watched the report on Reporting Scotland about the ‘new’
GP contract and how it was not working for rural GPS BUT no where did they say what it was about the contract that was adversely impacting on rural practices!
The contract is a year old. It was negotiated by the GPs elected leaders and accepted in a vote of all GPs. It was only after that that some rural GPs said it was not working for them. Why not pipe up during the negotiations? Were there no rural GPs on the negotiating body?
But of course none of that was in the report and as I said above no mention in the report about what was wrong with the contract when it came to rural GPs. Just an excuse for SNP bad.
What’s any of it got do with Scotland? ScotRail is Dutch.
God knows what we would do without Stu exposing these distortions of the truth.
It staggers me that people is Scotland still buy this poisonous rag whose only purpose is to run this country down at every possible opportunity.
Legerwood @ 5.01pm;
Need to put you right on a couple of things there, Legerwood, I think your sources are a bit off balance and over simplified.. I’m ex RMT, retired now…
Generally the RMT does not represent drivers – the right wing ‘union’ ASLEF represents them. RMT generally represents Guards, station staff, signallers and track/power maintainance staff. Overtime is voluntary; anyone can opt to work extra or not – and rightly so. You can’t call a strike because there is a reduction in overtime. The RMT is not in favour generally of overtime working anyway as it reduces the number of permanent staff and the employers love that – less holiday pay/NI payments and it works out much cheaper for them. The RMT action was about trying to keep a trained guard (or conductor) on each train for public safety reasons. The RMT (which in it’s early history founded the Labour party) disaffiliated itself from NuLabour during Tony Blair’s time while Bob Crow was in charge, as the Red Tories were doing nothing for the railways or their staff.. Bob also supported Scottish independence and gave the union’s Scottish membership a vote in 2013 – and if it had been up to our vote Scotland would be independent now. Alas after the tragic death of Bob Crow in 2014 the next General Secretary Mick Cash appeared and he is pro-NuLabour. So while the union itself is not affiliated its leader is unfortunately. Get yourself in behind the rail workers for Independence banner at the next march? Regards.
Daily mail’s not the only one at it…
“Huge breakdown in service”, “widescale disruption”
link to commonspace.scot.
Tam fae somewhere said at 6:22 pm last night:
“One line in England last year had over 2,000 cancellations. Twice the number of all of Scotland.
link to bbc.co.uk
Can someone archive that link please? ”
Happy to help. 🙂
link to archive.is
Despite the reputation of Swiss Trains I understand that as a percentage of the total service trains are cancelled more frequently than in Scotland
@ Paul Miller, 5 February, 2019 at 2:21 pm
You do realise that train drivers are not, and should not be, obliged to work overtime, for fairly obvious reasons? It is a highly stressful job, demanding intense concentration and involving shifts of up to ten hours, constantly changing and starting at any time of day or night. There is no leeway for error: a train driver must always do the job 100% correctly or his career and possibly his life are in jeopardy.
It is incumbent upon the operator to employ the number of staff necessary to provide the contracted service, and they are failing to do so. Blaming their employees for failing to do work that they are not obliged to do doesn’t cut it.