East Midlands Railway agrees short-term rest day driver agreement after series of Sunday cancellations

Drivers’ union ASLEF has signed a temporary new rest day working agreement with East Midlands Railway (EMR) two months after the previous arrangement ended, leading to numerous cancellations.

There are concerns across the rail industry about a shortage of train drivers in the next five-ten years.

ASLEF had said it wanted to help train more people up but accused EMR of failing to renew the old agreement, which allows staff to work voluntary overtime, despite talks.

Disputes over rest day working have previously affected services on other train operators, including Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and TransPennine Express.

An EMR spokesperson told RAIL: “Further to discussions, we can confirm that East Midlands Railway and ASLEF have agreed to a short-term Rest Day Working arrangement with immediate effect to enable negotiations to continue and run to a conclusion.

“We continue to remain committed to finding a way forward that enables us to provide the best possible service for our customers.” 

While EMR did not provide details of how many services have been cancelled due to the old agreement expiring, RAIL obtained figures from two routes in north Lincolnshire – the Lincoln to Grimsby/Cleethorpes service and the Cleethorpes to Barton-on-Humber line.

The latter had 28 cancellations due to a lack of drivers between April 5 and April 22 on a line which only has a train every two hours each way, Monday-Saturday.

On April 8, all afternoon and evening services on the line were cancelled due to the shortage of drivers.

Tom Irvin, who chairs the Friends of the Barton Line group, told RAIL that passenger numbers are still down following rest day working disputes when the service was run by Northern using TransPennine Express crews based at Cleethorpes. That arrangement ended in May 2021 when EMR took over the route.

“It causes a loss of confidence. You don’t know the day before whether your train is running or not. At 9 or 10pm the night before, it can come up as cancelled. It’s a lot easier to lose passengers than it is to win them back again.”

However, Irvin said the signing of a short-term agreement was a “massive step in the right direction”.

ASLEF’s Assistant General Secretary Simon Weller said the union “looks forward to getting people trained. We want younger drivers coming through who are representative of the area they’re from”.

RAIL understands the agreement means drivers will be paid at 1.75 times their normal pay for agreeing to work on rest days, and it’s likely a longer-term agreement will be signed in due course.