Southern Rail STRIKE details

[Guinness Boy]

Joke this morning. Had a 9am meeting in Canary Wharf. Normally the 6.26 from Portslade will make that with a bit of contingency for some breakfast thrown in. Thought I'd better get up 10 minutes earlier than normal for that one and check my National Rail app just in case and, guess what, BOTH direct London Bridge trains were cancelled, necessitating a sprint to the station to get the 5.50. For a 9AM meeting.

Headed back at lunchtime, had a half day booked for my son's football awards this evening. Chaos at Victoria as every Gatwick Express and Brighton train was cancelled or delayed due to MGE (Mass Guard Ebola) and nothing was going coastway west due to the suicide. Heard a driver and guard behind me as I was checking the screens. The driver was incredulous at his schedule. He had FOUR minutes to change trains at Brighton and was due to be driving out the one that was just showing as "delayed" and then had a whole ONE MINUTE to connect with his next job after that at Eastbourne. Suicides and MGE or not these poor bloke's shift schedules appear to have been written by Stevie Wonder.

 

[Ernest]

I got the option of a weeks extra leave or some crap gift when I reached 30 years service

I got a TV

 

[Beach Hut]

I got a TV

Took the leave option, watched the pre-season tour in Portugal

 

[Lower West Stander]

Plumbed new depths tonight.

That is all


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[yxee]

Utter shambles

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Twitter is alive with it. Robyn from talk sport is going after southern tonight. She is stuck in London with no trains going south.

 

[Lower West Stander]

This is as bad as its been for a very long time


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[Hamilton]

Southern as an organisation have been running the show since 2003, I have my letter from 2005 congratulating me on my 25 years of service SINGED by Charles Horton. They can't blame anyone as the same managers etc been around more than 10 years now

I don't think that's true Ernest. I believe only 3 of the board were on the old Southern board.

Regardless of all that SASTA and its staff have excelled themselves tonight with their appalling service.

It's untenable. Horton should be made to resign.


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[Frutos]

I notice on Twitter that Lewes MP Maria Caulfield has been going after them as well - this after they suggested that passengers use B&H Buses to travel between Lewes and Seaford due to the lack of trains...problem being that B&H Buses have no such route.

 

[Ernest]

I don't think that's true Ernest. I believe only 3 of the board were on the old Southern board.

Regardless of all that SASTA and its staff have excelled themselves tonight with their appalling service.

It's untenable. Horton should be made to resign.


Sent from my iPhone in a non-Calde world :-(

I said managers not directors

 

[Springal]

I had a lovely day. Went into the office 62 miles away in Berkshire involving the M25 and M3 which has had roadworks & 50mph limit for 2 years now ...

1h20m this morning, 1h35m this evening

 

[Hamilton]

I said managers not directors

I see.

But you'd agree that the directors have a huge responsibility for all this.

I feel that Southern was a better outfit before this mega franchise was agreed and the new leadership came in.


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[Ernest]

I see.

But you'd agree that the directors have a huge responsibility for all this.

I feel that Southern was a better outfit before this mega franchise was agreed and the new leadership came in.


Sent from my iPhone in a non-Calde world :-(

Managers run the day to day service , many of the directors date back to a while back too, some go back to Connex days

 

[Lower West Stander]

I got to Victoria at 520 and I'm still not home. Quite frankly I don't care whose fault it is any more. I'm sick and tired of listening to petty squabbles between guards, drivers and managers, directors or whatever you want to bloody call them.

The whole rail network is a bloody shambles and everyone responsible for its running and operation should resign.

Thank you Southern for a bloody great start to my weekend


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[Frutos]

Quite frankly I don't care whose fault it is any more. I'm sick and tired of listening to petty squabbles between guards, drivers and managers, directors or whatever you want to bloody call them.

The whole rail network is a bloody shambles and everyone responsible for its running and operation should resign.

Couldn't agree more, the whole thing is a farce and an embarrassment.

 

[Ernest]

I got to Victoria at 520 and I'm still not home. Quite frankly I don't care whose fault it is any more. I'm sick and tired of listening to petty squabbles between guards, drivers and managers, directors or whatever you want to bloody call them.

The whole rail network is a bloody shambles and everyone responsible for its running and operation should resign.

Thank you Southern for a bloody great start to my weekend


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Everything was fine 'ish until they decided to make too many changes, get rid of people and basically stick 2 fingers up at their workforce. If you ran a company and you pissed off everyone who worked for you then no doubt your business would be suffering the same as the railways are.

The government could step in right now and say enough is enough, they hold the purse strings and dictates the policy so that is where your anger should be directed at

 

[AK74]

Last Stand of the Old Guard:

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/last-stand-old-guard/

WARNING: long article, but with some interesting points for those (like me) who aren't intimately acquainted with railway history and processes.

 

[The Clamp]

I had to train it in and out of Brighton today, the train in was a total shambles, having to station hop to get into Brighton for what should be a 15 min train ride at most. I dodged a bullet on the way back and benefited from a delayed train from earlier which was delivering a cargo of poor souls further down the line to another town where the train was to terminate and then the passengers, well the passengers had to find their own way on to their onward journey.

The few Southern staff that can be bothered to do what theyre paid for who are dealing with customers don't even have the decency to offer travel advice or an apology. Just a shrug was all I saw most paying customers getting.

Rail staff from top to bottom should be ashamed of this debacle. A two fingered salute to the poor ****ers who pay their wages. The whole lot, top to bottom want sacking and replacing with people who have a bit of ****ing pride in the rail system, at one time the best in the world. Now a shambles due to pure laziness and profiteering.

 

[Deadly Danson]

I see.

But you'd agree that the directors have a huge responsibility for all this.

I feel that Southern was a better outfit before this mega franchise was agreed and the new leadership came in.


Sent from my iPhone in a non-Calde world :-(

For me the change in Southern since the new franchise started is enormous. Never had a huge problem with them prior to that (although there were plenty of issues) but it's like the Nazi party have taken over since the change. Led by the Dft they are hell bent on decimating the service, sacking as many staff as they can get away with, royally pissing off those staff that are left, making the service as unsafe as possible and making incident recovery even worse than it used to be. It's no coincidence that trains are less reliable- they have been cutting back on the staff that maintain the train. They are trying to squeeze the maximum amount of work from each driver and guard on every diagram - no one is scared of hard work but it only takes a few mins delay on one service for the driver or guard to be unable to make their next service and thus the service gets worse and worse and the inevitable "service delayed due to waiting for a member of train crew" is heard making it sound like our fault. Again, if everyone on here who rely on the trains complained to their MPs and signed the various petitions to strip Southern of the franchise it might, just might make a difference.

 

[Frutos]

Everything was fine 'ish until they decided to make too many changes, get rid of people and basically stick 2 fingers up at their workforce. If you ran a company and you pissed off everyone who worked for you then no doubt your business would be suffering the same as the railways are.

The government could step in right now and say enough is enough, they hold the purse strings and dictates the policy so that is where your anger should be directed at

EVERYONE involved in this appalling ****ing mess ought to be ashamed of themselves - whether it's SASTA, the RMT, the Government or whoever else, their ****-ups and squabbles are impacting the most important people in any service industry: their CUSTOMERS.