Southern Rail STRIKE details

[bhanutz]

It is reasonable to say that the existence of unions has clearly helped millions over the years, but do you not think that the rest of your post, whilst probably true for a few folk, might just be that shade exaggerated for the vast majority?

These union members would believe anything their Darling leaders fed them with..

 

[Ernest]

These union members would believe anything their Darling leaders fed them with..

And YOU believe ANYTHING those VOICES in your head tell YOU

 

[bhanutz]

And YOU believe ANYTHING those VOICES in your head tell YOU

Evening Ernest... so nice that you care x

 

[Norman Baker suck my lozenge]

These union members would believe anything their Darling leaders fed them with..

Not necessarily,I often find the proof is in My pay packet.My RMT subs are £25 a month,I'd gladly pay quadruple that for what they achieve on My behalf,money well spent.
You won't get Me.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Distinct lack of service westbound out of Brighton tonight and also only an hourly bus replacement service

 

[ManOfSussex]

I'll give the conductor credit on the 1226 Hastings to Brighton service yesterday, as it pulled into Falmer, because he had me in stitches at least:

We'll shortly be arriving at Falmer. For those of you attending the game of association football involving Brighton & Hove Albion this afternoon, please alight at Falmer.

 

[Hastings gull]

I'll give the conductor credit on the 1226 Hastings to Brighton service yesterday, as it pulled into Falmer, because he had me in stitches at least:

Yes, I heard that too. brilliant stuff.

 

[Hastings gull]

Not necessarily,I often find the proof is in My pay packet.My RMT subs are £25 a month,I'd gladly pay quadruple that for what they achieve on My behalf,money well spent.
You won't get Me.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I can fully understand that the weight of union bargaining power will have got you a pay rise, for example, that might not have been otherwise forthcoming, and thus loyalty to a union may well follow, However, to others, what they might have got for you and the other brovers might have come as a result of a great deal of inconvenience to thousands of innocent folk caught up in the dispute. And of course it begs the question as to what you want them to achieve, which may or may not be reasonable.

 

[Hastings gull]

thanks, i certainly beleive you and the guards do care about the service and passengers.

Whilst this may well be the case for the poster in question, and I do not doubt his personal sincerity, my experience on the trains yesterday would call that into question. It is an open secret that if the barrier is up at Hastings, you can go on to the platform with buying a ticket, and the chances of you being asked to show a ticket on the train are very small. I would say that it is probably one in ten. Guess what happens. (I don't by the way!) The conductor spent a great deal of time playing on his phone though was helpful at times on the tannoy to be fair. When the train is not full, before loads get on at Eastbourne, then it is easy to check tickets as some occasionally do.
On the way back, the usual train to Eastbourne did not turn up (may not be the train staff's fault, of course) and I changed at Lewes for the Hastings train. Only when we were just outside Eastbourne Station did the guard then say that the front 4 coaches only were going on to Hastings. A quick check on which coach we were in was not possible, as the indicator board in the train telling you that, was not working, so hundreds of folk had to get out and count where they were. OK -a minor point, but with thought and care, passenger inconvenience could have been prevented. But then, it is service in Britain and who cares?

 

[Deadly Danson]

Can't disagree with a lot of this from Norman Baker:

An Open Letter to Southern

Last Sunday morning, I arrived home in Lewes at 3.35am. My Southern rail journey from London, which should have taken an hour, had taken well over five.

The tragic cause was someone throwing themselves in front of a train. Sadly, especially for the unfortunate drivers, these events do occur and nobody can blame Southern or Network Rail for such incidents or for some delay as a consequence.

But when I was rail minister, a good deal of work was put in to make sure that the inevitable disruption to passengers could be minimised. That work seems to have gone to waste with Southern.

We have learnt in recent months to lower our expectations as to what we can expect from Southern's useless management, but even I was shocked by the total lack of any sort of plan to deal with such an event.

It was decided by Network Rail, probably sensibly, to divert various trains full of passengers to Redhill, but as soon as this decision had been taken, Southern should have made sure there were replacement buses ordered and waiting for the passengers upon their arrival, that their staff at Redhill and on the trains were fully briefed, and that in turn the passengers were made aware of what was being done to get them to their destinations as soon as possible.

None of this was done. The consequence was that literally hundreds of people were told to go to the front of the station at Redhill to await buses which never appeared and had not in fact been ordered, and to await taxis. Taxis! For hundreds of people on a Saturday night. And to go where? Nobody knew if there were trains running south from Gatwick or Three Bridges, which is where the taxis had been asked to take people.

Over two hours later, the people who were still waiting in the cold for a taxi that was never going to arrive (I was told the taxi companies had stopped taking calls) were ushered back onto the very same train they had left. This was the first engagement with those passengers in over two hours. If Southern are incapable of organising replacement buses, they could at least have left their passengers on the train in the warm.

I put on record that the individual staff members I spoke to at Redhill, and eventually Brighton, were helpful and did their best, as did the driver of my train, but they were woefully let down by a failure further up the chain of command.

But this is just one event and there are all too many, daily in fact. It is terrible to see Southern, which was until a couple of years back a friendly and efficient railway under Chris Burchell, deteriorate into what is now by some distance the worst railway service in the country under Charles Horton. And if there is one thing worse than the appalling service, it is the smug self-satisfaction of those who run Southern – who take out crass adverts asking us to “strike back” at the unions, and who insist they are putting passengers first when they are doing no such thing. Only in Southern's parallel universe can a reduction in trains and a lengthening of journey times, their latest announcement, be presented as an improvement in services. They clearly think their passengers are mugs.

If Charles Horton has a scrap of decency left, he will resign from his post and give the company a chance to scrape itself off the floor.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Can't disagree with a lot of this from Norman Baker:

An Open Letter to Southern

Last Sunday morning, I arrived home in Lewes at 3.35am. My Southern rail journey from London, which should have taken an hour, had taken well over five.

The tragic cause was someone throwing themselves in front of a train. Sadly, especially for the unfortunate drivers, these events do occur and nobody can blame Southern or Network Rail for such incidents or for some delay as a consequence.

But when I was rail minister, a good deal of work was put in to make sure that the inevitable disruption to passengers could be minimised. That work seems to have gone to waste with Southern.

We have learnt in recent months to lower our expectations as to what we can expect from Southern's useless management, but even I was shocked by the total lack of any sort of plan to deal with such an event.

It was decided by Network Rail, probably sensibly, to divert various trains full of passengers to Redhill, but as soon as this decision had been taken, Southern should have made sure there were replacement buses ordered and waiting for the passengers upon their arrival, that their staff at Redhill and on the trains were fully briefed, and that in turn the passengers were made aware of what was being done to get them to their destinations as soon as possible.

None of this was done. The consequence was that literally hundreds of people were told to go to the front of the station at Redhill to await buses which never appeared and had not in fact been ordered, and to await taxis. Taxis! For hundreds of people on a Saturday night. And to go where? Nobody knew if there were trains running south from Gatwick or Three Bridges, which is where the taxis had been asked to take people.

Over two hours later, the people who were still waiting in the cold for a taxi that was never going to arrive (I was told the taxi companies had stopped taking calls) were ushered back onto the very same train they had left. This was the first engagement with those passengers in over two hours. If Southern are incapable of organising replacement buses, they could at least have left their passengers on the train in the warm.

I put on record that the individual staff members I spoke to at Redhill, and eventually Brighton, were helpful and did their best, as did the driver of my train, but they were woefully let down by a failure further up the chain of command.

But this is just one event and there are all too many, daily in fact. It is terrible to see Southern, which was until a couple of years back a friendly and efficient railway under Chris Burchell, deteriorate into what is now by some distance the worst railway service in the country under Charles Horton. And if there is one thing worse than the appalling service, it is the smug self-satisfaction of those who run Southern – who take out crass adverts asking us to “strike back” at the unions, and who insist they are putting passengers first when they are doing no such thing. Only in Southern's parallel universe can a reduction in trains and a lengthening of journey times, their latest announcement, be presented as an improvement in services. They clearly think their passengers are mugs.

If Charles Horton has a scrap of decency left, he will resign from his post and give the company a chance to scrape itself off the floor.

Much as Norman Baker was a vocal opponent of Falmer, he's being an equally vocal opponent of Southern at senior management level, while being extremely supportive of the front line staff. In this dispute, he's a very useful ally to have tub-thumping on our behalf against the terminally failed franchise.

 

[Hastings gull]

Can't disagree with a lot of this from Norman Baker:

An Open Letter to Southern

Last Sunday morning, I arrived home in Lewes at 3.35am. My Southern rail journey from London, which should have taken an hour, had taken well over five.

The tragic cause was someone throwing themselves in front of a train. Sadly, especially for the unfortunate drivers, these events do occur and nobody can blame Southern or Network Rail for such incidents or for some delay as a consequence.

But when I was rail minister, a good deal of work was put in to make sure that the inevitable disruption to passengers could be minimised. That work seems to have gone to waste with Southern.

We have learnt in recent months to lower our expectations as to what we can expect from Southern's useless management, but even I was shocked by the total lack of any sort of plan to deal with such an event.

It was decided by Network Rail, probably sensibly, to divert various trains full of passengers to Redhill, but as soon as this decision had been taken, Southern should have made sure there were replacement buses ordered and waiting for the passengers upon their arrival, that their staff at Redhill and on the trains were fully briefed, and that in turn the passengers were made aware of what was being done to get them to their destinations as soon as possible.

None of this was done. The consequence was that literally hundreds of people were told to go to the front of the station at Redhill to await buses which never appeared and had not in fact been ordered, and to await taxis. Taxis! For hundreds of people on a Saturday night. And to go where? Nobody knew if there were trains running south from Gatwick or Three Bridges, which is where the taxis had been asked to take people.

Over two hours later, the people who were still waiting in the cold for a taxi that was never going to arrive (I was told the taxi companies had stopped taking calls) were ushered back onto the very same train they had left. This was the first engagement with those passengers in over two hours. If Southern are incapable of organising replacement buses, they could at least have left their passengers on the train in the warm.

I put on record that the individual staff members I spoke to at Redhill, and eventually Brighton, were helpful and did their best, as did the driver of my train, but they were woefully let down by a failure further up the chain of command.

But this is just one event and there are all too many, daily in fact. It is terrible to see Southern, which was until a couple of years back a friendly and efficient railway under Chris Burchell, deteriorate into what is now by some distance the worst railway service in the country under Charles Horton. And if there is one thing worse than the appalling service, it is the smug self-satisfaction of those who run Southern – who take out crass adverts asking us to “strike back” at the unions, and who insist they are putting passengers first when they are doing no such thing. Only in Southern's parallel universe can a reduction in trains and a lengthening of journey times, their latest announcement, be presented as an improvement in services. They clearly think their passengers are mugs.

If Charles Horton has a scrap of decency left, he will resign from his post and give the company a chance to scrape itself off the floor.

Thanks for this -very frustrating all round. A few years ago a driver friend of mine was stranded at Battle due to a snow storm, and not one person came to his aid, thus meaning he had a six mile walk home in the snow. He was not very pleased.

 

[Norman Baker suck my lozenge]

I can fully understand that the weight of union bargaining power will have got you a pay rise, for example, that might not have been otherwise forthcoming, and thus loyalty to a union may well follow, However, to others, what they might have got for you and the other brovers might have come as a result of a great deal of inconvenience to thousands of innocent folk caught up in the dispute. And of course it begs the question as to what you want them to achieve, which may or may not be reasonable.

Well ,in the 19 years I've worked for LUL I have Never been on strike over pay ,
safety,staff cuts,ticket office closures,night tube ,PPP yes BUT NOT PAY.
Rail operators would love the general public to believe the bolshy Brothers are striking over pay,in fact they even went as far as to lie and say the night tube dispute was about pay,it was not,it was about not having enough staff to safely implement the running of night tube,thanks to the rail unions 984 extra staff have now been employed by LUL to run a safe night tube.I think that's pretty bloody good.

 

[Deadly Danson]

Well ,in the 19 years I've worked for LUL I have Never been on strike over pay ,
safety,staff cuts,ticket office closures,night tube ,PPP yes BUT NOT PAY.
Rail operators would love the general public to believe the bolshy Brothers are striking over pay,in fact they even went as far as to lie and say the night tube dispute was about pay,it was not,it was about not having enough staff to safely implement the running of night tube,thanks to the rail unions 984 extra staff have now been employed by LUL to run a safe night tube.I think that's pretty bloody good.

Exactly this - GTR love trying to fool the public into thinking the RMT, Aslef etc are just being bloody minded and it's all some unnecessary power trip. No business like this is ever made more efficient, safer or customer focused by cutting back staff to the bare bones - especially well trained ones (and in spite of what GTR say - this is exactly what is happening). But what do we know - we are just luddites who can't accept change.

 

[pearl]

The RMT need to move into the 21st century! Time for them to disband I think.... if you are paying to be a member of this union, I feel sorry for you!

disband? They're not a militia

 

[Simster]

Ex-wànker, Norman Baker has written an open letter to Southern, and it's good stuff too:

An Open Letter to Southern
Last Sunday morning, I arrived home in Lewes at 3.35am. My Southern rail journey from London, which should have taken an hour, had taken well over five.
The tragic cause was someone throwing themselves in front of a train. Sadly, especially for the unfortunate drivers, these events do occur and nobody can blame Southern or Network Rail for such incidents or for some delay as a consequence.
But when I was rail minister, a good deal of work was put in to make sure that the inevitable disruption to passengers could be minimised. That work seems to have gone to waste with Southern.
We have learnt in recent months to lower our expectations as to what we can expect from Southern's useless management, but even I was shocked by the total lack of any sort of plan to deal with such an event.
It was decided by Network Rail, probably sensibly, to divert various trains full of passengers to Redhill, but as soon as this decision had been taken, Southern should have made sure there were replacement buses ordered and waiting for the passengers upon their arrival, that their staff at Redhill and on the trains were fully briefed, and that in turn the passengers were made aware of what was being done to get them to their destinations as soon as possible.
None of this was done. The consequence was that literally hundreds of people were told to go to the front of the station at Redhill to await buses which never appeared and had not in fact been ordered, and to await taxis. Taxis! For hundreds of people on a Saturday night. And to go where? Nobody knew if there were trains running south from Gatwick or Three Bridges, which is where the taxis had been asked to take people.
Over two hours later, the people who were still waiting in the cold for a taxi that was never going to arrive (I was told the taxi companies had stopped taking calls) were ushered back onto the very same train they had left. This was the first engagement with those passengers in over two hours. If Southern are incapable of organising replacement buses, they could at least have left their passengers on the train in the warm.
I put on record that the individual staff members I spoke to at Redhill, and eventually Brighton, were helpful and did their best, as did the driver of my train, but they were woefully let down by a failure further up the chain of command.
But this is just one event and there are all too many, daily in fact. It is terrible to see Southern, which was until a couple of years back a friendly and efficient railway under Chris Burchell, deteriorate into what is now by some distance the worst railway service in the country under Charles Horton. And if there is one thing worse than the appalling service, it is the smug self-satisfaction of those who run Southern – who take out crass adverts asking us to “strike back” at the unions, and who insist they are putting passengers first when they are doing no such thing. Only in Southern's parallel universe can a reduction in trains and a lengthening of journey times, their latest announcement, be presented as an improvement in services. They clearly think their passengers are mugs.
If Charles Horton has a scrap of decency left, he will resign from his post and give the company a chance to scrape itself off the floor.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

Ex-wànker, Norman Baker has written an open letter to Southern, and it's good stuff too:

Less of the Ex- if you don't mind.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Sniffles again? 5.40 Lb to Littlehampton and 17.57 LB to Btn both cancelled...

 

[Norman Baker suck my lozenge]

Sniffles again? 5.40 Lb to Littlehampton and 17.57 LB to Btn both cancelled...

Looks like southern still haven't recruited enough staff,you think they'd have their staffing levels up by now?they have only had since June..

 

[CherryInHove]

Good luck to anyone going home from London today. Just got to Victoria and all Brighton and Littlehampton services being cancelled due to electrical fault.