Tony Meolas Loan Spell
Slut Faced Whores
Train back from victoria a DOO. On time and able to leave. Im risking life and limb again. Do I get a medal?
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Southern Rail STRIKE details
- Thread starter Ernest
- Start date
Tony Meolas Loan Spell
Slut Faced Whores
I am aware of that. But those militant idiots (and they are idiots) are not helping themselves here.
I also feel for people who are outside of the Brighton mainline.
In effect its a double whammy as they are being ****ed over by the guards AND "Southern"
However I will maintain they are not striking over safety it is ALL about jobs as they live in 1975. I wish they would be honest about it may actually have a crumb of sympathy.
However if my CEO wanted to introduce something I didnt like that I could see would affect my job and I went on strike it would be a very short conversation indeed. I have been made redundant twice, its not nice but its the world we live in these days. Fact of life. Sadly.
Tony Meolas Loan Spell
Slut Faced Whores
The trains do get a bit busy in rush hr and a bit more often than usual but regular commuters are used to standing all the way home.
But clearly it doesn't have to be, as the unions are proving.
You're still spending an inordinate amount of time slagging off the unions when they represent a small fraction of the problem.
Tony Meolas Loan Spell
Slut Faced Whores
Didnt know you had union chums. I know Ernest does so he sticks up for his brothers.
However the union ARE making a bad situation worse thats undeniable so of course I am going to point fingers. At. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Southern, unions, guards THE LOT
Apart from the drivers.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,315
when the problem is strike action they've called, they represent the problem.
You've been never this quick to blame either Sasta or the government for the absolutely disgraceful level of service we've witnessed for nearly 12 months now. But now the union are striking and have ruined maybe 15 days as opposed to probably 150 days or more of absolute shambles, they're "the problem".
Funny that.
mikeyjh
Well-known member
This is where the race to the bottom comments come in, effectively what you're saying is that you won't stand up to your leaders so neither should they. If you want to accept getting the chop as a 'fact of life' so be it, live your live however you please but don't begrudge those that will stand up for themselves.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,315
i complain about Southern, but as this is the Southern Rail STRIKE thread and not the SASTA poor service thread, i focus on the strike. and on balance, whole days, or 3 days knocked out is a bigger problem than half hour or hour delay here and there.
Meanwhile, the 1749 from CLJ to BTN is short formed and over crowded due to "animals on the track and a bird hitting a unit putting it out of use''
Now either it was an ostrich or something or these new trains can't be up to much.
Who should I be blaming for this?
Now either it was an ostrich or something or these new trains can't be up to much.
Who should I be blaming for this?
Norman Baker suck my lozenge
New member
Well said sir,well said.
Far to often on here people get so bitter because a group of workers stand up and say no,I'd hate to work in an industry where a boss just bullies his/her way through timid staff.
A lot of folk on here with beautiful green eyes.
http://www.aslef.org.uk/news/144778/144785/the_govia___dft_cover_up/
Article from PAUL DAVIES, managing director of a management consultancy, reveals the cosy relationship between Govia Thameslink Railway and the Department for Transport
There is undoubtedly a cosy relationship between the Department for Transport and Govia Thameslink railway but perhaps more worrying are the attempts to cover up this unhealthy alliance – now orchestrated at the top of the civil service and including the Cabinet Secretary,Sir Jeremy Heywood, and the government in the form of the minister for the cabinet office, Ben Gummer. We all have an interest in this – because it appears that the government, and the DfT, are using the relationship with GTR to bully the train company’s staff and, as the service deteriorates, to blame the unions to cover up an unhealthy relationship between civil servants and a private company.
WEB OF FALSE INFORMATION
I started to unravel this cosy relationship, between Govia and the DfT, over what seemed to be initially a fairly trivial matter – the Independent Penalty Fares Appeals service. Parliament required that if penalty fares were introduced, there should be an independent appeals service. But it turns out that IPFAs is anything but independent – in fact it is run as an integral part of Southeastern Trains – owned, like Southern, by Govia. To cover this up the DfT and its Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam created a web of false information including the statement that IPFAs was a separate business unit and then ‘an arm’s length subsidiary’. Even though he knew neither statement was true, Philip Rutnam has refused to respond to requests to correct them.
Nick Bisson, then Director for Rail, eventually admitted that every time a penalty fare appeal is turned down,executives of Govia personally benefit financially – with the blessing of the DfT. A DfT official also admitted that if an appeal is upheld, Govia’s executives still benefit financially as the DfT has authorised Govia to charge an ‘administration fee’.
This is when I started to smell ‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’. Ii seemed to be scratching on the surface of a major scandal – if the DfT were prepared to help Govia’s executives make money secretly here – what else was going on?
I started to dig deeper and found that David Brown, chief executive of Govia, on a base salary of £2,160,000, used to be head of London surface transport – and a colleague of Philip Rutnam. I saw that the contract to run Thameslink wasn’t actually a franchise –but a management contract. This meant that Govia could do what it liked but faced no financial risk – it just got paid.
WORST PERFORMING COMPANIES
Charles Horton, who had run Southern Trains, and then Southeastern, both among the worst performing train companies for passengers, now runs GTR – which is absolutely the worst performing company. Peter Wilkinson, who worked with Govia to win the GTR contract, is now employed by the DfT – on a salary of £265,000 – to manage that contract which is, clearly, a conflict of interest. Wilkinson then set about insulting the staff to exacerbate an industrial dispute as a way of disguising the appalling service that GTR provide. No one outside the DfT, and civil service, believes Govia should be allowed to run Thameslink – but Rutnam is determined to protect Govia,and Brown and Horton, at all costs.
I got nowhere with my complaints to the DfT, so I wrote to the chief executive of the civil service,John Manzoni. He refused to do anything about the falsehoods authorised by Rutnam,on the grounds that this was government policy on the railways, and that my complaints had already been dealt with. I began to see that there was an active cover up of the unhealthy relationship between GTR and the DfT, which extends to the very top.
I wrote to Sue Gray, director general of propriety and ethics in the civil service, who eventually agreed to investigate if Rutnam had endorsed a falsehood to the Cabinet Office and the public to cover up the cosy relationship. I twice had to formally complain about her prevarication – her repeated failures to report back – with no response. She finally wrote back at the end of July rejecting my complaints without mentioning what the complaints were about! Sue Gray, you might not be surprised to learn, has also been at the DfT – and is a former colleague of Philip Rutnam.
I wrote to Sir Jeremy Heywood complaining about the cosy relationship between Govia and the DfT. I received a letter back, on behalf of Sir Jeremy and Mr Gummer, which denied that my complaints had been suppressed. That letter, though, contained no facts. My complaints were not dealt with, just denied.
INDEPENDENT INQUIRY
What I have uncovered is a cosy relationship and a scandalous cover up which means that Govia and its executives profit unfairly, that Govia is allowed to run an appalling train service regardless of the misery inflicted on passengers and staff, and that senior civil servants believe they can act and behave appallingly, without public accountability. meanwhile the reputation of our railway is being trashed. We should all demand an independent inquiry – so we can lay bare the appalling scandal at the heart of this relationship between Govia and the DfT.
(AS PUBLISHED IN THE ASLEF JOURNAL, pp22. NOVEMBER 2016)
Article from PAUL DAVIES, managing director of a management consultancy, reveals the cosy relationship between Govia Thameslink Railway and the Department for Transport
There is undoubtedly a cosy relationship between the Department for Transport and Govia Thameslink railway but perhaps more worrying are the attempts to cover up this unhealthy alliance – now orchestrated at the top of the civil service and including the Cabinet Secretary,Sir Jeremy Heywood, and the government in the form of the minister for the cabinet office, Ben Gummer. We all have an interest in this – because it appears that the government, and the DfT, are using the relationship with GTR to bully the train company’s staff and, as the service deteriorates, to blame the unions to cover up an unhealthy relationship between civil servants and a private company.
WEB OF FALSE INFORMATION
I started to unravel this cosy relationship, between Govia and the DfT, over what seemed to be initially a fairly trivial matter – the Independent Penalty Fares Appeals service. Parliament required that if penalty fares were introduced, there should be an independent appeals service. But it turns out that IPFAs is anything but independent – in fact it is run as an integral part of Southeastern Trains – owned, like Southern, by Govia. To cover this up the DfT and its Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam created a web of false information including the statement that IPFAs was a separate business unit and then ‘an arm’s length subsidiary’. Even though he knew neither statement was true, Philip Rutnam has refused to respond to requests to correct them.
Nick Bisson, then Director for Rail, eventually admitted that every time a penalty fare appeal is turned down,executives of Govia personally benefit financially – with the blessing of the DfT. A DfT official also admitted that if an appeal is upheld, Govia’s executives still benefit financially as the DfT has authorised Govia to charge an ‘administration fee’.
This is when I started to smell ‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’. Ii seemed to be scratching on the surface of a major scandal – if the DfT were prepared to help Govia’s executives make money secretly here – what else was going on?
I started to dig deeper and found that David Brown, chief executive of Govia, on a base salary of £2,160,000, used to be head of London surface transport – and a colleague of Philip Rutnam. I saw that the contract to run Thameslink wasn’t actually a franchise –but a management contract. This meant that Govia could do what it liked but faced no financial risk – it just got paid.
WORST PERFORMING COMPANIES
Charles Horton, who had run Southern Trains, and then Southeastern, both among the worst performing train companies for passengers, now runs GTR – which is absolutely the worst performing company. Peter Wilkinson, who worked with Govia to win the GTR contract, is now employed by the DfT – on a salary of £265,000 – to manage that contract which is, clearly, a conflict of interest. Wilkinson then set about insulting the staff to exacerbate an industrial dispute as a way of disguising the appalling service that GTR provide. No one outside the DfT, and civil service, believes Govia should be allowed to run Thameslink – but Rutnam is determined to protect Govia,and Brown and Horton, at all costs.
I got nowhere with my complaints to the DfT, so I wrote to the chief executive of the civil service,John Manzoni. He refused to do anything about the falsehoods authorised by Rutnam,on the grounds that this was government policy on the railways, and that my complaints had already been dealt with. I began to see that there was an active cover up of the unhealthy relationship between GTR and the DfT, which extends to the very top.
I wrote to Sue Gray, director general of propriety and ethics in the civil service, who eventually agreed to investigate if Rutnam had endorsed a falsehood to the Cabinet Office and the public to cover up the cosy relationship. I twice had to formally complain about her prevarication – her repeated failures to report back – with no response. She finally wrote back at the end of July rejecting my complaints without mentioning what the complaints were about! Sue Gray, you might not be surprised to learn, has also been at the DfT – and is a former colleague of Philip Rutnam.
I wrote to Sir Jeremy Heywood complaining about the cosy relationship between Govia and the DfT. I received a letter back, on behalf of Sir Jeremy and Mr Gummer, which denied that my complaints had been suppressed. That letter, though, contained no facts. My complaints were not dealt with, just denied.
INDEPENDENT INQUIRY
What I have uncovered is a cosy relationship and a scandalous cover up which means that Govia and its executives profit unfairly, that Govia is allowed to run an appalling train service regardless of the misery inflicted on passengers and staff, and that senior civil servants believe they can act and behave appallingly, without public accountability. meanwhile the reputation of our railway is being trashed. We should all demand an independent inquiry – so we can lay bare the appalling scandal at the heart of this relationship between Govia and the DfT.
(AS PUBLISHED IN THE ASLEF JOURNAL, pp22. NOVEMBER 2016)
mikeyjh
Well-known member
Politics of envy, as they say....
pearl
Well-known member
ASLEF are balloting next month
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
then it REALLY gets serious
pearl
Well-known member
and ugly
Arthur
Well-known member
Just to clarify my position this WHOLE nonsense IMO is the fault of the Government. They dropped a massive bollock running the Southern franchise how it is. But that bollock has been dropped and like it or not (and I can't believe anyone does) we're stuck with it for the next 5 years. I'm sure there are things that could be done, like stripping Southern of the franchise or even then getting them to run it like the other franchises. However there would be so many legal hurdles to jump I expect it would take years to get either of those options up and running not to mention costing the tax payer millions.
Southern are awful from the top to the bottom with very few positives in between. Probably the only part of their organisation I can't find fault is the young lad Malachi who puts their in house social media team to shame on twitter and he is a volunteer!! The top management clearly don't give a ****. Their meet the manager events are a load of old bollocks as you get some mongy tosspot in a Marks & Spencer suit paying you lip service saying s/he understands your concerns as s/he is also a rail user. Front line staff there are plenty of good ones but also just as many bad ones. I've had ticket office staff roll their eyes because I've turned up with a ton of delay repay vouchers even when I've gone during the day when I knew the office wouldn't be busy. I have had guards swear at me, clap loudly in front of my face to wake me up, failed to give people enough time at the back of the train to move forward to alight at a station with short platforms twice.
The RMT lead by a dick head who took over from the previous dick head both of which were full of shit piss and wind. They couldn't give a flying **** about passengers. Their snouts are firmly in the trough just as Southern's are it's just a much bigger trough with a lot more smaller snouts. They are only interested in looking out for number one which is all Southern is doing.
Government to blame!
Southern bag of shite!
RMT not helping anyone!
Taybha
Whalewhine
Look no further than your username , when a bird such as a Gull hits the front of the train they have a canny knack of smashing into the coupler area of the train , the coupler is not simply a device for joining one train to another these days it has many functions that control onboard train systems when coupled , they are secured via some sturdy metal anchors but i have seen these bent from simple birdstrikes in the past so the train will be taken out of service then repaired , you may say well don't couple the train but if they did that it would not be long before they wouldn't have any rolling stock to couple as it happens quite a lot . pheasant's are the main culprits , gulls are well ard and even as they are in the last throws of life they will try to eat their own legs in a attempt to free themselves .
Thank you!
You loved the Royal Navy.....