Southern takes over Thameslink

[Lord Bracknell]

Wasn't the whole point of privatisation to provide competition and therefore keep prices down?

(Rather than make money for corporate shareholders as some cynics suggested at the time?)

That won't change, but the spin-off from this decision is at least a more integrated network. Give me integration over competition and "choice" any day of the week.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Anybody able to confirm if 'Nearly 1,400 new electric carriages' is good news or bad news? Certainly sounds like good news on the face of it, but if 'electric carriages' mean trains that run on these shitty overhead cables north of London then that's bad news. FCC seems to be a game of two halves; between Brighton and London they seem to run more or less on time, but between Bedford and London they seem to more often than not run up 15 minutes worth of technical/power supply delays more often than not. Its masked to a certain extent by the sheer frequency they run trains up and down the line, but its far from good.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Here's a map of the future network to be run by this single franchise:-

http://maps.dft.gov.uk/tsgn/index.html

 

[Ernest]

Glad I'm out of it now

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

I'd argue about them being uncomfortable, I prefer the seats on the Gatwick Express trains to those on Southern and FCC, they are comfortable with decent legroom. When I get the train to London roughly twice a week I'd always chose Gatwick Express over the other two for comfort.

I must just be lucky I guess, twice a week on average for the last three years and only ever had one Gatwick Express train cancelled, never broken down and rarely more than 5mins late into London!

Ditto here. Had a really good experience with gatwick express trains over last 2.5 years.

 

[8ace]

I've always thought that should be illegal. All trains and stations should have compulsory decent toilet facilities. It may be my personal agenda, but I'm Not joking.

It shouldn't be allowed on a journey that long - should be half an hour max.