Southern trains

[Hunting 784561]

So please clarify why Labour didn't reverse privatisation, despite being in power for over 13 years ?

 

[Beach Hut]

Ticketless travel is still a very major issue with SR therefore ticket gates resolve the problem very easily.

 

[Peter Grummit]

Why on earth would nationalised trains be any better ? All you'll do is replace the current lot with non-accountable people who have no incentive to make things better, or work at all. There is no need to go back to the 20th century, move forward and make these companies properly accountable for their service, or take the franchise away from them. I have to say, having commuted Shoreham to London for 22 years, the service most of the time now is much better than it used to be, but when things go wrong it is terrible.

I don't know exactly what the Gatwick problem was but it is most likely an infrastructure problem (signalling, conducter rail etc). This is the responsibility of Network Rail. Southern have been receiving all the flack (and I'm not defending them, the information problem sounds horrendous). And thereby lies the problem of the privatised railway. There are contractual relationships ie legal agreements and financial penalties between the train and the track. Surely an integrated railway would be better placed to cope with this sort of problem.

I've been lucky, was off work yesterday and decided not to chance it this morning, so dealt with my meeting via teleconference and am now tucked up at my computer getting a report done. Tomorrow? Who knows?

PG

PS things must be bad if even Ernest is not sticking up for the railways

 

[FREDBINNEY]

All well and good, but they are always open.
, a
Plus they will have to sell a lot of tickets between the cheaper stations to make up the money they have spent on them and doing up the stations to fit them in plus the new staff they have to man them.

I travel regularly between Clapham Junction and Haywards Heath, I NEVER buy a ticket and get away with it at least 75 % of the time, at Clapham Junction there are barriers but there is also a gate , usually manned by a bemused looking african bloke who you can just walk straight past without even a semblance of showing a ticket, even if you are ticket checked on the train you can buy one from the inspector, at Haywards Heath there are no barriers, now they have been installed i will now have to buy a ticket, so they obviously do pay for themselves.

 

[Beach Hut]

Nationalised Railways would have made f*** all today as trains break down when snow gets in them and not worth the investment for something that happens a few days a year.

Short sighted in my view over the bigger picture but everyone has pressure to cut costs where they can.

 

[Beach Hut]

I travel regularly between Clapham Junction and Haywards Heath, I NEVER buy a ticket and get away with it at least 75 % of the time, at Clapham Junction there are barriers but there is also a gate , usually manned by a bemused looking african bloke who you can just walk straight past without even a semblance of showing a ticket, even if you are ticket checked on the train you can buy one from the inspector, at Haywards Heath there are no barriers, now they have been installed i will now have to buy a ticket, so they obviously do pay for themselves.

And you are the one Tricky subsidises by paying a season ticket - I will resist the temptation to say what I think of you but I am sure others will.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Got the 6.30am to Victoria this morning. Got to Three Bridges at 9am, turned round. By 10am I was back in Brighton. Not bad for 3 and a half hours.

 

[Napper]

So please clarify why Labour didn't reverse privatisation, despite being in power for over 13 years ?

They had a country on its knees to deal with. They changed so many things for the better

Minimum wage
NHS improved
Sure Start tax credits
Education
Serious crime down
The war was the one everyone points to but ask the Iraqis how they feel and they are free, women have rights , they can vote. No more mass murders.

The public transport has improved as Labour pumped millions in.

They turned the country round and will need to do so once Posh boy has f***ed it again

 

[dje shoreham]

The option being looked at now by the Dft is letting the Train Operating Companies run the infrastructure rather than Network Rail - understand the thinking but would be very complicated to set up.

 

[Beach Hut]

The option being looked at now by the Dft is letting the Train Operating Companies run the infrastructure rather than Network Rail - understand the thinking but would be very complicated to set up.

It would cost a lot of money to break up Network Rail so unlikely in these current frugal times.

 

[markw]

They had a country on its knees to deal with. They changed so many things for the better

Minimum wage
NHS improved
Sure Start tax credits
Education
Serious crime down
The war was the one everyone points to but ask the Iraqis how they feel and they are free, women have rights , they can vote. No more mass murders.

The public transport has improved as Labour pumped millions in.

They turned the country round and will need to do so once Posh boy has f***ed it again

And last year it was Labour who told Network rail to save 4 billion in the next 5 years, basically they were going to make these cuts whatever. Network rail have got rid of 2000 staff this year and made massive cuts across the board, so blame Gordon Brown.
Even so it would make little difference to how trains are running, the trains would only keep running in a country that had this weather for a large part of the year and were geared up for it.

 

[blue'n'white]

I left my office just near Monument at 14.15 to get the 14.33 from London Bridge.
i arrived home at 22.30. A journey which normally takes about an hour.
Trains broke down not once or twice but three times. We held every other train up on that line as we were the first one in the queue and had no power. Bloody cold as they turned the heat off too. We were stuck between Purley and Coulsdon South and eventually had to get a train to pull us back to Purley then jump on a train to gatwick and then finally shuttle back on the Reading train to Redhill- absolute f***ing nightmare

 

[Beach Hut]

I left my office just near Monument at 14.15 to get the 14.33 from London Bridge.
i arrived home at 22.30. A journey which normally takes about an hour.
Trains broke down not once or twice but three times. We held every other train up on that line as we were the first one in the queue and had no power. Bloody cold as they turned the heat off too. We were stuck between Purley and Coulsdon South and eventually had to get a train to pull us back to Purley then jump on a train to gatwick and then finally shuttle back on the Reading train to Redhill- absolute f***ing nightmare

That is terrible, really feel for you.

 

[markw]

And with this display of the 5th dahn level of customer service I think we can all understand why commuters feel like they are treated like cattle by the train companies.

So given the problems today should I not bother tomorrow? or the next day or even next monday?

A few little tips to help you along with your travel....

Watch the weather report on tv or check the met office website the evening before, if they advise not to travel then listen to them.
Look out of your window and check the weather before retiring.
Get up early the next day and look out the window, is it better or worse.
Turn on tv and watch weather or go online and check met office.
If advised not to travel then do not bitch if you go against expert advice or do not use common sense.
If possible, take a few days work home with you as you would of known this was forecasted.
Hope that helps.

 

[Gwylan]

Even so it would make little difference to how trains are running, the trains would only keep running in a country that had this weather for a large part of the year and were geared up for it.

But this weather is not exceptional - that's the whole point. I think it got down to -3 in the south-east and a few centimetres of snow, that's not unexpected in winter. If it had got down to -15 or -20 and we had 2m drifts, then, yes, it would be unreasonable to have a go but it's not even close to that.

And I note that no-one has attempted to answer my question as to why train companies could cope with much worse weather 30 years ago than we can now. I suspect that the answer is down to the lack of coordination between train companies and Network Rail but it's a shoddy state of affairs.

 

[Springal]

Any idea on what trains are like now? Thinking of travelling up tonight from Worthing to Victoria ?

 

[crasher]

They had a country on its knees to deal with. They changed so many things for the better

Minimum wage
NHS improved
Sure Start tax credits
Education
Serious crime down
The war was the one everyone points to but ask the Iraqis how they feel and they are free, women have rights , they can vote. No more mass murders.

The public transport has improved as Labour pumped millions in.

They turned the country round and will need to do so once Posh boy has f***ed it again

Labour could have stopped rail privatisation in its tracks when Major's govt introduced it in the 1990s and they were in opposition. All they had to do was say they would renationalise and no rail firms would have wanted to bid for franchises. But they didn't because of wanting to be seen as business friendly - the "Third Way".

Whatever your politics, the railway's real problem was a lack of sustained investment over many years - money matters more than whether it's nationalised or privatised.

 

[ROSM]

A few little tips to help you along with your travel....

Watch the weather report on tv or check the met office website the evening before, if they advise not to travel then listen to them.
Look out of your window and check the weather before retiring.
Get up early the next day and look out the window, is it better or worse.
Turn on tv and watch weather or go online and check met office.
If advised not to travel then do not bitch if you go against expert advice or do not use common sense.
If possible, take a few days work home with you as you would of known this was forecasted.
Hope that helps.

cool thanks

So when I get up at 5 to get to work and I look out of the window and see a dusting of snow (maybe half a centimetre at most) and can walk easily when I take the dog out and the buses are running and southern's website has taken off the real time issues information and only hear that kent has been advised not to travel I should expect to be okay then?

Of course not. Because that's the very same situation you'd have had this morning albeit I wasn't going in anyway and was therefore up at 5 as i was hacking my lungs up.

 

[Napper]

I left my office just near Monument at 14.15 to get the 14.33 from London Bridge.
i arrived home at 22.30. A journey which normally takes about an hour.
Trains broke down not once or twice but three times. We held every other train up on that line as we were the first one in the queue and had no power. Bloody cold as they turned the heat off too. We were stuck between Purley and Coulsdon South and eventually had to get a train to pull us back to Purley then jump on a train to gatwick and then finally shuttle back on the Reading train to Redhill- absolute f***ing nightmare

f kin awful that. Did anyone kick off ?

I hope you were kept well informed, thats the minimum you expect

 

[markw]

cool thanks

So when I get up at 5 to get to work and I look out of the window and see a dusting of snow (maybe half a centimetre at most) and can walk easily when I take the dog out and the buses are running and southern's website has taken off the real time issues information and only hear that kent has been advised not to travel I should expect to be okay then?

Of course not. Because that's the very same situation you'd have had this morning albeit I wasn't going in anyway and was therefore up at 5 as i was hacking my lungs up.

I am glad that helped, the met office and highways agency have advised people not to travel for 2 days now. I would be interested in where you live as i have been out for 12 hour shifts on the railways for the last 2 nights and its far from a dusting of 5mm?