(21 Nov 2022, 12:44 am)Bazza wrote So is this a manager cherry picking driving jobs?

I wonder if it was offered to the drivers on the shop floor? One of those could have done it and a manager could have covered his shift.

Not sure why you'd ever take a driver from their shift to cover private hire work, if you don't already have someone to cover that shift? Managers aren't employed as drivers in most of the large operators, so I'd imagine it's not as simple as requesting they cover some service work to relieve someone (who is employed as a driver) to do private hire work.

On the other point, it's fair enough in normal circumstances if the work is known about in advance and in time to offer it out to the depots as overtime. I'd imagine the hires arranged at the back end of last week were due to panic, as well as it being an emergency. At the point I was at Central on Friday, one queue for rail replacement coaches was all the way down to the Orchard Street tunnel, and the other was right back into the car park within the station. Clearly a lot of people to move in very little time.

Even with that, it's still not normal circumstances. Dozens of trips are still being cancelled on a daily basis as far as service work goes, and although it's a lot better than it has been, it's still not good enough. If there's overtime on offer to driving staff, then the priority for that should be service work. Private hires should only be running if they aren't impacting normal service, such as seeking a non-driving staff volunteer to do it.