Southern Rail STRIKE details

[Bozza]

Yes, I think the club forgets that most peoples journey is not just Brighton - Falmer - Brighton on the trains on match days, Seaford is a bus service from Lewes and trains heading east from Worthing etc will already be rammed with commuters, school kids and students etc before Albion fans get on.

The club have a month now to arrange some sort of contingency plan

No, no they don't. Unless you can prove otherwise...

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

They are actually ruining peoples lives.

That is indeed what it's now come down to. Before I retired a year or two back, I always maintained that the commute was more stressful than the job. And that was working in a pretty stressful job. And that was before the current shitfest. There can be little doubt that this is actually going to end up causing all sorts of mental health problems amongst ordinary people who suddenly have no control over their daily lives other than to remove SASTA from the equation and pack in their jobs at who knows what ultimate expense.

 

[CHAPPERS]

That is nothing other than a complete dereliction of duty by SASTA. It is a scandal.

Train to Lewes, off the train, bus to Seaford. In the middle of the day. Disgusting.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Not even The Beeching Cuts of the Sixties had this much of an impact in this part of the country. Beggars belief really.

 

[ditchy]

Sounds to me that it will have to kick off big time at Brighton station on a match evening for anything to be done . At present you get a small hardcore of commuters protesting on the odd evening . I think it needs to be a few thousand Brighton fans on the concourse having a say ,with TV crews etc there and Lucas and Kyle too !!

 

[The Spanish]

denying London a proportion of its workforce is a scandal, but what is more of a scandal is it being allowed to happen. This cannot go on, the protagonists cannot hold one of the drivers of the global economy to ransom while they sort out their little dispute. the cost to the country, before we even start on peoples lives, must be mind boggling. There has to be drastic action soon. If the board cannot resolve an industrial dispute without costing the British economy a fortune then something must be done. All services must be restored immediately and this dispute be taken away from affecting operations. The financial cost is too high for this to be permitted, no matter what the rights and wrongs of the case are.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Sounds to me that it will have to kick off big time at Brighton station on a match evening for anything to be done . At present you get a small hardcore of commuters protesting on the odd evening . I think it needs to be a few thousand Brighton fans on the concourse having a say ,with TV crews etc there and Lucas and Kyle too !!

 

[Deadly Danson]

They are actually ruining peoples lives. Thats not hyperbole. Thats FACT. More and more stories about people not being able to say goodnight to their kids, threat of losing their job because they just cant guarantee to get into work on time etc.

Absolute ***** of the ****ing highest order. Whats worse is that they can get away with it as well and still make shit loads of cash FOR THEIR SHAREHOLDERS.

True. And lo and behold as the service gets worse and worse, more and more people blame the unions and the staff, more people (see the last few pages) say they are happy to go DOO if it means getting to their destination and bingo GTR have won. People didn't believe it when we told them they were cancelling services that could have run and that this dispute was being engineered as a way of seeing off the unions and which would end up running a service with the bare minimum of staff and safety with a new way of franchising all ready to go for the rest of the country.

 

[Ernest]

True. And lo and behold as the service gets worse and worse, more and more people blame the unions and the staff, more people (see the last few pages) say they are happy to go DOO if it means getting to their destination and bingo GTR have won. People didn't believe it when we told them they were cancelling services that could have run and that this dispute was being engineered as a way of seeing off the unions and which would end up running a service with the bare minimum of staff and safety with a new way of franchising all ready to go for the rest of the country.

People seem to think that if all the guards were got rid of then they would have a perfect, reliable service with no delays or cancellations. They must be living in cloud cuckoo land as once the guards have been got rid of then it's time to get rid of all the drivers T & C's and have them kneeling down cap in hand doing as they're told. As we all know thanks to Peter Wilkinson, it is the drivers on £60k and working 3 days a week that have got to leave his railway.

 

[Hotchilidog]

They are actually ruining peoples lives. Thats not hyperbole. Thats FACT. More and more stories about people not being able to say goodnight to their kids, threat of losing their job because they just cant guarantee to get into work on time etc.

Absolute ***** of the ****ing highest order. Whats worse is that they can get away with it as well and still make shit loads of cash FOR THEIR SHAREHOLDERS.

Could not agree more. They are utterly shameless.

 

[Easy 10]

Sounds to me that it will have to kick off big time at Brighton station on a match evening for anything to be done . At present you get a small hardcore of commuters protesting on the odd evening . I think it needs to be a few thousand Brighton fans on the concourse having a say ,with TV crews etc there and Lucas and Kyle too !!

And kick off it will. I can see it leading to some pretty unpleasant and disorderly scenes at the station if it starts happening regularly. I think people "put up" with it once or twice if there's a screw-up somewhere that leads to big delays, you just have to accept it. But if this actually becomes the norm on matchdays, and you're stuck there with a few thousand angry fans who are going to miss kickoff AGAIN as a direct result of this unholy shambles of a company (despite having built in as much SASTA-time as they possibly could), then its going to get very nasty. Dangerously nasty.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Just watched a video of a fantastic demonstration today in Brighton in support of the Teachers strike and the opposition to the privatisation of education.

And full support for the RMT in their efforts to ensure safety on the railways.

 

[DFL JCL]

I wonder what the commuters who have been completely shafted recently would choose...

1) Having a guard close the doors on each train, but numerous delays, cancellations, short trains and/or reduced service.
2) Taking a bit more personal responsibility when getting on and off trains, but a fuller and more reliable service.

I am one of those commuters and to be honest i think at the price i pay, there should be a guard on the trains. I have had multiple occasions recently where the trains don't stop at Preston Park because the cameras on the trains don't work as a result they can't tell if the platform is clear. I had a train the other day where we were delayed because the doors wouldn't shut and they had to get a passenger to close the door manually at every stop. Besides all that, i think the real issues Southern are having are that they don't have enough staff in general to provide the service that they are supposed to.

 

[Frutos]

They are actually ruining peoples lives. Thats not hyperbole. Thats FACT. More and more stories about people not being able to say goodnight to their kids, threat of losing their job because they just cant guarantee to get into work on time etc.

Absolute ***** of the ****ing highest order. Whats worse is that they can get away with it as well and still make shit loads of cash FOR THEIR SHAREHOLDERS.

This with bells on.

 

[The Albion Roar]

Train to Lewes, off the train, bus to Seaford. In the middle of the day. Disgusting.

Be less palaver to catch the bus from Brighton. If it's before 9am, it's a damn sight cheaper too.

 

[Bozza]

True. And lo and behold as the service gets worse and worse, more and more people blame the unions and the staff, more people (see the last few pages) say they are happy to go DOO if it means getting to their destination and bingo GTR have won. People didn't believe it when we told them they were cancelling services that could have run and that this dispute was being engineered as a way of seeing off the unions and which would end up running a service with the bare minimum of staff and safety with a new way of franchising all ready to go for the rest of the country.

No. People are happy to go DOO because no one has been able to make a case that it represents a significant compromise of safety. The union had a perfect platform to do that today and failed dismally.

Union "DOO is unsafe."
Various others: "But a large part of the network, including some of the GTR franchise runs DOO and you didn't say that was unsafe."
Union: "Ummmm...."

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

And kick off it will. I can see it leading to some pretty unpleasant and disorderly scenes at the station if it starts happening regularly. I think people "put up" with it once or twice if there's a screw-up somewhere that leads to big delays, you just have to accept it. But if this actually becomes the norm on matchdays, and you're stuck there with a few thousand angry fans who are going to miss kickoff AGAIN as a direct result of this unholy shambles of a company (despite having built in as much SASTA-time as they possibly could), then its going to get very nasty. Dangerously nasty.

Trouble is, it's the poor blameless front line staff who have to bear the brunt of customers totally justified rage. Both parties are just cannon fodder for a company who are DELIBERATELY pissing off customers and staff to their maximum ability to maximise their share price and dividend return to shareholders. Total c*nts.

 

[Rugrat]

A colleague at work can now not commute properly from SEAFORD without taking a bus, which doubles his journey time, in order to get his daughter on time.

Absurd and disgraceful.

Absurd and disgraceful doesn't do it justice but I can't think of better.

As a regular user of the Seaford to Lewes line there are going to be countless people put into a unworkable situation. It's a busy line and I have no idea how people that rely on it are going to cope.

 

[The Spanish]

Just watched a video of a fantastic demonstration today in Brighton in support of the Teachers strike and the opposition to the privatisation of education.

And full support for the RMT in their efforts to ensure safety on the railways.

bet it wasnt held at Brighton station

 

[Yoda]

Triffic.

So unless you can get a train that arrives at Brighton at 6.09 (and that's if you CAN even actually get on), fans using the west coastline service will get to Brighton station at BEST 54 minutes before kickoff - and join whatever clusterf**k has by then developed at Brighton.

This is going to kick off big time.

You don't want to look at coming back though. Even worse.