[Closed] Merry Christmas from Southern

The franchise should be taken off them, all the funding they've received paid back to the government then sack all the employees.

Bunch of cocks.

lol. This is the price you pay for living in the over-populated, over-paid South. Suck it up or move north.

Suck it up or move north

Where the train services are still pretty shit, but at least houses aren't quite as spendy

If the office of rail regulator or whatever theyre called this week could take the franchise of the company running the trains, just who is going to drive and man the trains, the same staff that already do, theyre on a winning streak those staff involved.

lol. This is the price you pay for living in the over-populated, over-paid South. Suck it up or move north.

Nice.

It's destroying peoples family and leisure lives. One of our riding buddies has missed nearly every Tuesday ride since spring. I have a mate who rarely gets to put his kids to bed anymore.

Glad you think they deserve this.

Ask Virgin to do it, again sack all current employees in Southern.. no wait.. make them clean the tracks with toothbrushes, whilst Virgin puts a rail service together.

Bunch do selfish cocks.

Bet more than 51% of the voted Brexit.

and where are virgin going to get fully trained staff on the trains from, and as virgin dont run trains on those lines route knowledge and fares may be a problem.

Pictonroad+1

It is also driving more people onto the road network because there are so many more cancellations etc. More pollution, more delay. It's a total fiasco. Taking the franchise off Southern won't work because the staff would probably transfer to the new operator along with this issue attached - the only difference then being if the new operator had a desire or was ok with reverting to the old system.

lol. This is the price you pay for living in the over-populated, over-paid South. Suck it up or move north.

You really are an unpleasant person.

Anyhoo, I can sympathise for the reasons behind the striking, and completely agree that there should be conductors on trains. However, I can see the complete mismanagement of the system and it should be taken off Southern: That's who my anger is with, rather than the striking rail workers.

It's making my Tuesday trips to Uni rather more complicated, but that's a minor thing. It really is affecting businesses and people's lives.

lol. This is the price you pay for living in the over-populated, over-paid South. Suck it up or move north.

It's actually nothing to do with that. It's a franchise that is badly run, the location is moot.
TFL have transformed the overground into a fast efficient service. I luckily have 3 options to get to my main place of work in the centre of London (one is the overground, another run by Southern) so can avoid using southern services.

It's the people who live in Lewes I feel for, the service there is abysmal. Is that the price they pay for living even further south? 🙄

Just get Virgin to carry on South ?

You seem to be confused, I may have to make it clear.. again ...

bikebouy - Member
Ask Virgin to do it, again sack all current employees in Southern.. no wait.. make them clean the tracks with toothbrushes, whilst Virgin puts a rail service together.

Bunch do selfish cocks.

Bet more than 51% of the voted Brexit.

Can't really be more clear..

Take each word, one after the other..

and again you prove you have absolutely no idea of how the train operating companises work, eg the franchises or the government and all the rules and regulations they must obey every day, and the umpteen pre qualificaton questions they must anwer before being allowed near a train.

Its about de-skilling and running a cheaper lower cost service.

also souuthern dont own the railway tracks theyre publicly owned by network rail who southern pay to run trains on them as well as paying for electric power used.

and why would virgin trains mostly owned by stagecoach group be any better.

Re-nationalise the railways and sort out these dodgy ticket prices, where it is cheaper for me to split my journey into multiple returns such as each side of BHM, instead of quoting inflated prices for SOU to LIV.

If the unions want to get people on their side, why don't they go for the alternative approach - run the trains as normal, but open the ticket gates and refuse to collect any fares? Happy punters and hacked off bosses in one easy move...

I am guessing that would lead to instant dismissal

The dispute revolves around safety /route trained staff on trains, eg guard/conductor, and about their role opening and closing doors, nothing to do with fare collection or evasion.

They really don't care if you have a ticket now. Mate at work has not paid for months

@ stealthcat

Probably because that would be considered aiding an illegal act i.e. travelling without a valid ticket, and would be an instantly stackable offence.

This is a Southern train this morning.

[img] [/img]

It's clear Southern have no ability to resolve the fundamental issues with the service they are running.

The Trumpesque focus on dragging out a dispute with a few hundred conductors to distract from their complete lack of focus on running trains on time and with the correct amount of rolling stock should not prevent them from being held to account.

Which segment are you travelling on was? That could almost be my line (East Grinstead to Victoria).

TFL have transformed the overground into a fast efficient service

Ahahahahaha. Oh wait, you weren't being sarcastic?

TFL overground never runs on time; when it does run it's at weird times by drivers who hate both their passengers and other road users, especially cyclists.

On the bright side, I like the contactless support.

Southern is backed by Government/Taxpayer cash. Even though they make profit and pay the CE just under £2m a year* it still gets regular tax funded cash injections. £20m in September this year.

I suspect that the condition of the cash is that they don't back down to the unions, It's supposition,but something doesn't stack up in all this. The DoT should be dragging Southern's name through the mud, why aren't they?

*Data released earlier in 2016 showed GTR had the worst punctuality in the country over the past year with just 81.5 per cent of trains on time. At the same time David Brown, the chief executive of Go Ahead, which operates three franchises including Southern through GTR, saw his pay deal jump to £2.16m last year from £1.96m the year before.

[i]Which segment are you travelling on was? [/i]

Not me - I work at home. Came up on my twitter feed.

I have the pleasure of being on Southern trains (Ewell East to London Bridge).

Worked in the City for 20 years but have been relying on trains since I was aged 11 (41 years ago) and used to travel to school on the train.

It's one of the reasons I cycle commute to work.

This does seem to reinforce the appearance that the last thing that Southern Rail are actually bothered about is trains, and having them provide a service for getting people from one place to another.

It seems incidental to their true goal of hoovering up taxpayer/government subsidies, to pay to themselves, while seeing themselves as the successors to Murdoch and 'breaking' the print unions at Wapping.

Don't worry it'll all be sorted when they spend over £55 billion making the trip from London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker 😯

that photo isn't really the problem. The trains have always been like that. SWT are like that, FGW are like that, that's a function of the number of people travelling into London, which isn't really Southern's issue/fault.

A more representative photo would've been the hundreds of people crammed onto Gatwick station platform this morning, as multiple trains were cancelled. For the second time in three days I was among them. 40 minutes late this morning, 35 late on Tuesday morning. It's wearing a little thin.

The idea of getting Virgin to miraculously come and sort things is just naive and retarded.

The Unions are fighting a losing battle on this one, the era of needing a conductor is long gone. Surprised it has taken so long considering that they were removed from buses in what the 70's?

[img] [/img]

Oh yeah, the striking guards can go **** themselves.

It's given Southern a great new excuse though, the screens for DOO fail with remarkable frequency (this morning, last Thursday night and Friday morning). Considering they never failed for years on the services which have always been DOO.

MTB-Idle - Member

I have the pleasure of being on Southern trains (Ewell East to London Bridge).

Small world 7.58?

Oh and why was the ticket office/waiting room closed & locked this morning?

[i]that photo isn't really the problem[/i]

It was running late and had half the usual number of carriages. It's at least illustrative of the problem...

Not really. Any train from East Croydon to London Bridge is like that every day from 7:45-8:30. I'd rather be on a train like that than not on a train.

[i] the era of needing a conductor is long gone.[/i]

What could possibly go wrong?

[url= http://www.theargus.co.uk/business/14876232.Southern_driver_only_train__travelled_with_doors_open_/ ]http://www.theargus.co.uk/business/14876232.Southern_driver_only_train__travelled_with_doors_open_/[/url]

Oh.

And the dispute is about 'downgrading' conductors to 'train managers'. The latter have no safety responsibility and are there to only collect fares etc. It's about Southern saving money and compromising on safety, not cutting staff.

Yes, because everyone knows the guards actually use the brakes, thus completely preventing incidents like that 🙄

And the dispute is about 'downgrading' conductors to 'train managers'. The latter have no safety responsibility and are there to only collect fares etc. It's about Southern saving money and compromising on safety, not cutting staff.

You sound like you work for the union?! Plenty of services have operated driver only for ages, and as far as I'm aware, there's not been any train based apocalypse. Sack them all, none of this soft "new contract if you want it" shit.

[img] [/img]

[url= http://www.disabledgo.com/blog/2016/09/southerns-rail-plans-will-breach-equality-act-says-disabled-access-expert/#.WD_7633nCng ]this makes interesting reading[/url] but hey who gives a **** about the disabled.

Biggest hypocrite going. Farage is less of a ****.

this makes interesting reading but hey who gives a **** about the disabled.

This has been done ad nauseum. There's a lot of "might"/"could" in that article, plenty of services run DOO anyway. In exceptional services some services may run driver only, the alternative is to cancel the service, which doesn't really help disabled people either.

The trio – who deliberately did not book any of their off-peak journeys – faced repeated access problems, such as platforms without portable ramps, a train with a locked help point, unstaffed stations, unhelpful call-centre staff, a broken lift, help-point staff who disconnected calls without providing any help, and unsafe ramps, although they also praised some of the support they received from staff.

Yep, all of that is definitely resolved by having a guard on board.

Sack them all, none of this soft "new contract if you want it" shit.

🙄

[img] [/img]

Why not? It's just union bullying. The only people to suffer are the paying customers, like me.

Yes it is about Southern saving money by losing the conductors. No it is not a safety issue. There are many many services in and out of the UK with driver only trains. Not to mention the driverless ones.....

So Southern Railways have not tried to bully anyone? An incompetent shower who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.

So Southern Railways have not tried to bully anyone? An incompetent shower who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.

They're being held to ransom by the union. I do agree they're a bit shit, but I place the blame for all this shit squarely at the feet of the union. Because that's whose fault it is. Simple.