AIBU to be surprised that the trains don't run over Christmas?

[HeritageQuay]

So I've been invited by friends to their Christmas lunch in central London. Having been on my own for the last few years, I was delighted to be invited and immediately accepted.

I live about 50 miles outside London and so travel by train is clearly the most sensible option. Accordingly I have been ordering presents etc. on Amazon for delivery to my hosts.

So today I tried to look up train times, only to find that there are no trains at all on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. This came as complete surprise to me, is this a one-off or is it a regular thing?

Not quite sure how to get there now as the last thing I want to do is drive through London with all the issues re Congestion Charge / Ulez / Street parking etc., and in any case I wanted to enjoy a few drinks at Christmas!

How do other people travel at Christmas?

It's not about the cost, it's about the unions. No government would be brave enough to try it, although I do wonder if the unions have actually asked their members if they all want to be at home with the in-laws on Christmas Day

Of course it’s about cost. It would be utter madness to operate a barely used public transport system. The subsidy would cost a fortune and the country’s broke.

The problem with this argument is that in order for people to decide whether they want it to happen, they need to understand what 'it' is. Which isn't merely a question of would you like this thing. It requires an understanding of what the obstacles are, that demand doesn't create supply and that for any service to be viable, the money will have to come from somewhere. No part of this can be achieved without understanding the practicalities first.

Also just to be clear, I'm not commenting on which area is more Christmassy. Maybe that's Scotland. But there's no denying the tradition of a public holiday is much longer established in England than Scotland, which has led to cultural and societal factors that don't only affect people who want to celebrate it. Though personally I'd say Northern Ireland is even keener on time off over the period.

We know what the 'it' is. It's a reduced public transport service. You can't cost it till you have an idea of what people need and where. Well, you can, but you may well end up costing up a service that's not beneficial to the people that need it most.

I haven't denied that there was no public holiday until 65 years ago - but Christmas was celebrated before then, despite there being no official day off work. And nobody that would be driving buses or taxis in Scotland now would be likely to remember a time before that.

I’m afraid you’re wrong.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Good Friday and Christmas Day are common law holidays, having been customary holidays since time immemorial.[5]

The first official bank holidays were named in the Bank Holidays Act 1871, introduced by Liberal politician and banker Sir John Lubbock.[5] Under the Act, "no person was compelled to make any payment or to do any act upon a bank holiday which he would not be compelled to do or make on Christmas Day or Good Friday, and the making of a payment or the doing of an act on the following day was equivalent to doing it on the holiday".[6] People were so grateful that some called the first bank holidays St Lubbock's Days for a while.[7]

England, Wales and Ireland
Bank holidays 1871
Easter Monday
Whit Monday
First Monday in August
26 December (or 27th if 26th is a Sunday)
Scotland
Bank holidays 1871
New Year's Day
Good Friday
First Monday in May
First Monday in August
Christmas Day

The Act did not include Good Friday and Christmas Day as bank holidays in England, Wales, or Ireland because they were already recognised as common law holidays.[5]

Cobblers. A handful of drivers already come in on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in order to start up diesel units to prevent frost in the coolant. ASLEF has no objections - it's always volunteers who get a decent overtime rate for doing so.

It's entirely about the cost. The Treasury isn't going to allow a new service to run unless it can be 110% sure that doing so won't worsen the financial predicament the railway is already in.

The 'it' isn't just a reduced service, it's also one that would inevitably cost a lot more, if it were viable at all (nobody has yet solved the logistical issues with trains). You're quite right that we might end up costing a service that's not beneficial to the people who need it most. That's kind of the point. A public transport service running is not the same thing as it being beneficial to those who need it most, and this too would need to be understood.

I haven't denied that Christmas wasn't celebrated in Scotland when there was no day off work. But once again, this isn't only about celebration, it's also about the wider societal impact of cultural traditions. As shown by all the people who don't celebrate Christmas, yet still can't or don't want to work on that day.

Who is wrong?

If you want to use Wikipedia as your source:

Christmas Day was made a public holiday in 1958[12] in Scotland, Boxing Day only in 1974.[13]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_Scotland

Exactly.

So what is the wider societal impact of Christmas in Scotland compared to England?

Other than us having a limited public transport service and England seemingly not? Do you really think that in Scotland we are less likely to want to celebrate Christmas, as that seems to be what you are suggesting? I would love to see your evidence.

It's not remotely what I'm suggesting, no. Bemuses me that you think that, not least because I've pointed out repeatedly that this is about more than whether one celebrates. That not celebrating doesn't remove most of the reasons why a person might not be willing or able to work on Christmas Day.

The wider societal impact of cultural traditions is that in the rest of the UK (which doesn't just mean England) we have a much longer tradition of the day being a public holiday than in Scotland. There is nobody in the rest of the UK who would remember it not being so, whereas in Scotland it's still in living memory for it to be a normal working day. This doesn't only affect people who celebrate Christmas. Which is why it's completely the wrong way to frame the issue.

I'm glad you are bemused by it, as I found it very strange for you to keep appearing to suggest it.

While it is still in living memory, anyone that had to work because it was not a public holiday would be over 80 now. What makes you think it continues to have an effect now? I would love you to provide something more concrete than 'it's different'.

Hopefully we're clear now that there was no such appearance. And that the celebration of Christmas is only one of multiple reasons why a person might not be willing or able to work on the day?

And I'm afraid 'it's different' is the explanation. The other constituent countries of the UK have a longer established tradition of minimal working, and people well south of 80 in Scotland will remember that and have experienced their parents doing it. If you want to use a Scottish example to make a point about multiple other countries with their own traditions, it's for you to explain how it manages to address all of those. And also to explain how it tells us anything about whether national train services across the UK could be staffed and run viably.

My view is that a different approach should be taken. Close large shops on Boxing Day as well as Christmas Day, you have plenty of other days to get so- called bargains at post Christmas sales.

If you were to run trains on Boxing Day, I think you would get little benefit if it was just done in isolation. You would get a lot more if all engineering works were suspended over the whole Christmas period. Train use may be much less between Christmas and New Year than normal, but it is discretionary travel that is the potential train growth market.

I live in a Scottish city. It doesn't surprise me that trains don't run on Christmas Day. All fine and to be expected.
However I looked into attending a family Hogmanay party and was mildly surprised that trains aren't running on New Year's Day either.

Ah, you seem to think that because it want a public holiday, it was a normal working day. It wasn't, not really. On paper, sure. Not in reality, at least not where I'm from.

I can't speak for the whole of Scotland, but I can speak of my parents experiences - Christmas Day wasn't a normal working day, despite it not being a public holiday. If they didn't have to, people would take the day off. The local shop would shut, the crofters would obviously make sure their animals had what was needed, but it was bare minimum. Christmas was absolutely celebrated. 'Santie' visited. Sure, some people would have to work - but to describe it as a 'normal working day' really isn't accurate.

I haven't really spoken much about train provision on Christmas Day though. My posts have been mainly about bus services and train services on Boxing Day. Just so we're clear.

Scotland, afaiaa, is the only country in the UK that has two public holidays for new year. It has traditionally been a bigger celebration here than elsewhere. It's not that surprising that there are no trains on the 1st.

This is such an important point.

Every year on MN there are threads about people having to work Christmas when they'd rather not, and unfair allocation of shifts over Christmas. The fact that employers have to devise some system to make it fair (or really upset their employees) shows that there generally aren't enough people who will voluntarily work antisocial hours, including Christmas. There was even a thread a while back about Sunday working/retail hours, with posters saying surely there's plenty of people who would like to work Sundays, whilst those actually working in those jobs pointed out there aren't and it has to be enforced on a rota system.

When I had to work Christmas/other antisocial hours, it was sweetened by the fact it was as an HCA so providing essential care and trying to make Christmas a bit more jolly for those who needed such care. The idea of having to work in a shop or driving a train doesn't really have that aspect, as it's not essential. (Possibly driving a minibus specifically to get people to hospital jobs may).

It might not be so bad for those who work a short shift/get paid loads more and who have family nearby they will be with at other points during the day. But for those who are not so lucky, it's horrible to make them miss out on celebrations or social time to work in non essential roles. I say this as someone who had to seek work that doesn't do this, after being mentally broken by the isolation caused by being single and childless combined with working antisocial hours.

This subdiscussion started when you responded to a post of mine about why people would work on Christmas Day, specifically. You mentioned a bus service in your village on the 25th, and then said you thought it would be easier to get people in England to work on Christmas Day. That's what you and I have been talking about in our discussion, I haven't checked earlier in the thread.

. But for those who are not so lucky, it's horrible to make them miss out on celebrations or social time to work in non essential roles.

This all has echos of some of the gripes that did the rounds about what was essential vs. non-essential during Covid.

If the group think is that it is really not fair to have Christmas working unless it’s in some sort of caring profession then let’s have a Christmas Day where for example electricity, water, internet and sewage disposal doesn’t run, no body travels for leisure purposes by any means and you also accept that for a day or two post Christmas there are shortages in e.g. pharmacies because the logistics chain is out of kilter.

Thanks for the summary.

I still think that there would be more people working to work in England on Christmas Day. The fact that my mother can remember when there wasn't a public holiday doesn't change how I feel about working Christmas Day now.

In addition there are three times as many Muslims living in England per head of population than in Scotland. There are definitely Muslims that would rather work Christmas Day and be able to take the time off at a different time of year. I used to work with one very vocal guy who hated not having guaranteed time off at Eid, but had to take time off at Christmas.

I guess we'll never really know for sure though.

There certainly exist Muslims who are willing and also able to work on Christmas Day. As they're not all bus or train drivers, aren't evenly distributed across public transport routes and some are working in other jobs on Christmas Day already, that one fact doesn't tell us anything about the viability of running national public transport services on Christmas Day.

I used to work with a Muslim who came in over Christmas too. There was a flexible arrangement whereby she was able to accrue TOIL and others covered during Ramadan. Worked very well for all concerned. To the best of my knowledge she's still doing that, and thus isn't available to drive a bus.

Oh you are absolutely correct. That's just one example of why it might be possible to find enough people in England to work a reduced level service on Christmas Day. I put more examples earlier up in the thread.

'Reduced' obviously has a very wide meaning, particularly when you've been talking about the need for public transport as an essential service. You'd need to be more specific about what that meant. The fewer routes we're talking about, the easier it would be to staff but the less likely it would be to constitute availability of an essential service.

But even then, no, the existence of Muslims who'd be willing to work at Christmas doesn't constitute an example of how public transport could run nationally. Especially not when you again left out the structural factors that might prevent an otherwise willing Muslim from working on the day. It takes more than saying these are people within the population who might want to work.

I live by a train station, the trains never run xmas day and about 15 years ago stopped running on Boxing Day. Do you not want the staff to have a break?