Given up with Southern Rail.

[V8 Fettler]

tight5 said:

V8 Fettler said:

What percentage of goods are carried by rail in the UK? 10%? And most of that starts and ends on the road network.

Expert on freight trains, now !

Merely asking the question. If it is around 10% then it's barely significant.

[Nik da Greek]

For anyone who still has a sense of humour about Southern, maybe it's worth checking out the mildly amusing Southern Rail Tycoon game? The aim being to cancel as many trains whilst making as much profit as possible.

http://games.ramjam.co.uk/srt/

[Uncle John]

No one mentioned the planned 5 day strike from August 8th?

Tossers!

[schmunk]

I'm on holiday, so suck it, train-nannies.

[Artey]

I haven't read through the whole thread but doesn't DOO apply to local routes only? Thameslink have been DOO for years between Bedford and Brighton on 12 coach trains and apart from drivers being s and departing early (apparently timetable exists so that it can be recycled and reused as toilet paper) I don't recall any major issues linked to DOO. Despite Thameslink being a disaster regardless of who owns the franchise.

[Uncle John]

To resurrect the thread, it's all still business as usual at Southern Fail.

Took me nearly 2 hours on Monday morning to do Salfords to East Croydon (14 miles) as each train just went straight through the station to catch up time..... eventually went out to Gatwick and back in again.

1 and a half hours for the return journey last night, electrical problems, trains cancelled, got to Redhill where the train divides and they could not find the conductor. Eventually stole the conductor from the Reigate train. Head office not answering the phone apparently, people shouting 'You should all be sacked' at the platform staff, utter shambles.

This morning, usual train cancelled, 4 carriages instead of 8 on the next one, extreme overcrowding. Actually got a proper shove from someone on the way out. Gave him a mouthful as it was completely uncalled for.

Next strike on Friday and Saturday, now targeting the public and public events, namely the firework displays,and primarily the big one at Lewes which people rely a lot on the trains.

Read in the Standard last night that the parent company are on course for profit.....

The whole thing is just getting worse and worse.

It is descending into anarchy and no one, absolutely no one, is doing anything about it......!!!

[Stedman]

No strikes and still chaos. What does that say?

[basherX]

Uncle John said:

To resurrect the thread, it's all still business as usual at Southern Fail.

Took me nearly 2 hours on Monday morning to do Salfords to East Croydon (14 miles) as each train just went straight through the station to catch up time..... eventually went out to Gatwick and back in again.

1 and a half hours for the return journey last night, electrical problems, trains cancelled, got to Redhill where the train divides and they could not find the conductor. Eventually stole the conductor from the Reigate train. Head office not answering the phone apparently, people shouting 'You should all be sacked' at the platform staff, utter shambles.

This morning, usual train cancelled, 4 carriages instead of 8 on the next one, extreme overcrowding. Actually got a proper shove from someone on the way out. Gave him a mouthful as it was completely uncalled for.

Next strike on Friday and Saturday, now targeting the public and public events, namely the firework displays,and primarily the big one at Lewes which people rely a lot on the trains.

Read in the Standard last night that the parent company are on course for profit.....

The whole thing is just getting worse and worse.

It is descending into anarchy and no one, absolutely no one, is doing anything about it......!!!

I've posted on this thread before but until last December I was a commuter on Southern's Uckfield line (from Uckfield itself) which is very much the ginger step child of the Southern network. I eventually got worn down by the effect it was having on me/my family and transferred to SouthEastern's Hastings line even though this was considerably more expensive.

Now that my season ticket is coming up for renewal I have the following choice:

Back to Southern from Uckield: £3,776 (inc zone 1-6)
Stay with SouthEastern from Stonegate: £5,368 (inc 1-6)

So, is £1,600 (£3k pre-tax) too much to pay to avoid the Southern clusterfk?

[Looks at current press coverage of Southern]

Nah, of course not. I'd pay much more than that not to regularly find myself waiting for a bus at Oxted.


Which is odd when you think about it: the same companies own both Southern and SouthEastern.

[TLandCruiser]

Don't the government have a 50% stake in the franchise with southern or something?

[basherX]

TLandCruiser said:

Don't the government have a 50% stake in the franchise with southern or something?

My recollection is that Southern receive an operator fee and the government receive the gross ticket revenues which was intended to be a structure that protected Govia from the adverse effects of the London Bridge re-work, something viewed as outside their control.

However when I asked both Southern and the DfT for a simple guide to the franchise structure (so I could understand what, if any, penalties and reimbursements were in place for poor performance) all they did was point me to the entire franchise agreement which, IIRC, was a few hundred pages long. The Government don't have an ownership stake in the franchise or its owner.

[RemyMartin]

Stedman said:

No strikes and still chaos. What does that say?

Exactly. Noticed another metro advert the other day about it even though they were inundated with complaints about the last one.

fking st stirring s. This will end with the staff winning. Damn right too, flaky fkers, everything that is wrong with private owned rail (I don't have an issue with private rail normally)

[tight5]

All part of a bigger government plan.

link

[spats]

tight5 said:

All part of a bigger government plan.

link

What a muppet. 3 day weeks, fire breaks? what on earth is he basing that on?

[valiant]

I asked my depot manager if I could have my 15 years worth of 'fire breaks' backdated and that I'd see him after Christmas.

I was told to fk off.

My reply that one of the chiefs at the DfT said it so it must be true.

I was told once again to fk off.

Typical management...

[Nik da Greek]

tight5 said:

All part of a bigger government plan.

link

Interesting bloke, Peter Wilkinson.


...the same Peter Wilkinson who was instrumental in the Govia proposal that won them the GTR franchise. The same Peter Wilkinson who now works in the DfT on a cosy 265,000 pa salary. The same Peter Wilkinson whose role at the DfT is managing the GTR franchise. Nooooooo, no conflict of interest there then...

...in much the same way as Charles Horton (Currently Chief Exec at GTR) also has a seat on the supposedly independent organisation the Rail Safety and Standards Board. That would be the think tankl responsible for monitoring and applying industry-wide safety standards then. And yet has a non-executive director's role for the Chief Exec of the worst-performing rail franchise in the country... and said Exec has been involved in several discussions at the RSSB about the irrelvance of guards in the modern railway environment. So, no conflict of interest there either...

Strangely, Charles Horton presided over the previous collapse of the Connex-run South Eastern and Southern franchises before, when they failed so appallingly that the Government was forced to step in and run S/E until it could stop coughing up blood. Most people "in charge" of such a public and comprehensive debacle would, you'd think, be proscribed from holding such a post again. But in the rail industry, it's still very much who you know, not what... and who your patrons are to insulate you from culpability.


on which subject, if you need the stink in Denmark to be even more pungent, Horton and Govia's Chief Exec David Brown (a mere £2,160,000 basic salary for that worthy) were both also involved in the London Surface Transport committee... and thus also close collaegues of the now Permanent Secretary of the DfT, one Philip Putnam. Thameslink is not actually a franchise as such, but a management contract and is thus one of the few passenger rail organisations that retains passenger revenue irrespective of performance. Hmmmm, could it possibly be that this influences their decisions to impose saff cuts and thus save money? Surely not? What, just because this would even further increase their expense-to-revenue ratio for the shareholders to gloat over? No, it couldn't be, could it? Not in the face of the inherent safety issues associated with single-manned trains?


Government will continue to prop up the increasingly toxic public face of GTR for as long as it takes and the puppet masters hding in the shadows will waltz away once the dust has settled with their vast pensions and massive golden handshakes intact... payoff from their unaccountable Government bureaucrat chums for taking the bullet of public opinion. They don't give a dman what you think about it or how bad a service you have to tolerate. They know you have no choice but to use the trains, and put up with whatever state they actually run in.

Or maybe this is all just ficticious consipracy theorist garbage?

[Uncle John]

Thanks Nik. The whole clusterfk now makes sense.

[RemyMartin]

spats said:

tight5 said:

All part of a bigger government plan.

link

What a muppet. 3 day weeks, fire breaks? what on earth is he basing that on?

I'm so angry after reading that I'm shaking....

[Chrisgr31]

Whilst there is no doubt the RMT are concerned about the loss of their members jobs there is a lot more about this strike than just closing the doors. The last few posts have demonstrated this. The reality is the DfT want to get rid of the Guard and this is a mangagement contract so the train company dont need to worry about the impact on fares.

The other issue is one of safety another website handily details incidents involving doors investigated by the RAIB: -

Of the incidents involving dispatch that have been investigated by the RAIB, here is a list of the method of dispatch involved.

DOO self dispatch CCTV

Huntingdon
Brentwood
West Wickham
Hayes & Harlington
Tooting (London Undergound)
Holborn (London Underground)
Warren Street (London Underground) - Doors open in traffic.

DOO self dispatch Mirror

Jarrow

DOO dispatch by platform staff

Kings Cross
Charing Cross
Liverpool Street - Doors open in traffic.

Guard self dispatch

Liverpool James Street
Newcastle Central

There are clearly more incidents involving DOO trains. Its worth being aware that in the 2 cases involving guards they have both been charged and one is in prison. In his case he saw the person leaning against the train and assumed they would move, they didn't. Its not known what the other guard did wrong.

In a number of the Driver only cases, the RAIB determined that the driver should have seen the passenger but didnt.

[V8 Fettler]

Nik da Greek said:

-
-

They know you have no choice but to use the trains, and put up with whatever state they actually run in.
-
-

Build more roads.

[RemyMartin]

Chrisgr31 said:

Whilst there is no doubt the RMT are concerned about the loss of their members jobs there is a lot more about this strike than just closing the doors. The last few posts have demonstrated this. The reality is the DfT want to get rid of the Guard and this is a mangagement contract so the train company dont need to worry about the impact on fares.

The other issue is one of safety another website handily details incidents involving doors investigated by the RAIB: -

Of the incidents involving dispatch that have been investigated by the RAIB, here is a list of the method of dispatch involved.

DOO self dispatch CCTV

Huntingdon
Brentwood
West Wickham
Hayes & Harlington
Tooting (London Undergound)
Holborn (London Underground)
Warren Street (London Underground) - Doors open in traffic.

DOO self dispatch Mirror

Jarrow

DOO dispatch by platform staff

Kings Cross
Charing Cross
Liverpool Street - Doors open in traffic.

Guard self dispatch

Liverpool James Street
Newcastle Central

There are clearly more incidents involving DOO trains. Its worth being aware that in the 2 cases involving guards they have both been charged and one is in prison. In his case he saw the person leaning against the train and assumed they would move, they didn't. Its not known what the other guard did wrong.

In a number of the Driver only cases, the RAIB determined that the driver should have seen the passenger but didnt.

The Hayes one, Driver was proved to be on his phone and was fired as a result. Although the DOO cctv monitors at Hayes aren't brilliant and people still board when the hustle alarms are going on the door...FFS.

My thing now is to embarrass said people once I have received opened and shut doors by singling them out on a PA announcement. tts.