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my understanding from rail forum and a man in the trade is patches upon patches going back decades. systems are upgraded piecemeal and spliced together, then years later a new system replaces a different part and so on. in some cases just poor maintenance, and apparently wildlife.

and salt in the wound is he wouldnt have paid for first class.

didnt mean to be patronising, just attempting to dispell the apparent prejudice from the original posting. i dont know why factory inspections are needed to acknowledge quality of output, but there we are.

you're suggesting addtional lines? as i understand, there's plenty of capacity if you renew the signalling to handle more trains and make it more reliable. current system is hodge-podge of part replacment and patches knited together. maybe part wishful thinking, though if the government had...

see your Apple iPhone? very well constructed and made in China. along with an awful lot of good quality kit. they make tat too of course, but then so do the UK, European, US factories. the difference is in QA process applied and thats down to the company selling a product, not where it comes...

i always advocated a second runway at Gatwick on the basis/condition that the rail network would have to be improved, and there certainly would be the funding to do so (from Gatwick, not public)

if they are sourcing parts from China, so what? if the part meets specification, its as good as from a British, German, Italian factory. China has a lot of rail itself and quite capable of manufacturing to spec.

c. the billions needed to renew large parts of the infrastructure. seems the case this time, though do normally run trains between bits working, i.e. Victoria to Gatwick/ThreeBridgesHHeath then you pick up the train south from there (its usually during the evening). also run trains via Lewes...

signal failure at Streatham. so most the local urban services will be knackered as well.

thats where the coaches are, they escaped.

yes, so you see the point being made?

nationalisation will fix it all, right? including the signals?

well there's the crux of the matter. and its not a recent problem, Southern driver shortage and indutrial dispute aside, in the 00's often had to take alternative routes due to signal failures. seems to me the capacity can only just cope with the number of trains, the back up system/process...