Southern trains contract- crowdfunding for judicial review

[Loz]

rahrahrah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The problem is the crazy, failed privatisation model.

What do you think would be a better privatisation model? Or are you just anti-privatisation?

[reddulwich]

Thing is privatisation in transport doesn't work! If you were running several rail lines to East Dulwich and you could get a Southern, a Thameslink or a SE train, then competition would drive efficiency, prices etc. Like water transport is effectively a privatised monopoly.

I'm no Green, but Caroline Lucas has published some quite worrying correspondence , as to why some trains are not safe to only be staffed by a driver.

[Loz]

It helps if you link to such stuff so we can read it for ourselves.

[reddulwich]

As requested!

https://www.carolinelucas.com/latest/letter-to-minister-about-rail-safety-concerns

[miga]

Cardelia Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> miga Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> say that Thameslink never got people's ire to this

> extent isn't correct, it's just that FCC only ran

> a few services through this area of London when

> things were really bad so most ED-based commuters

> wouldn't have been affected by the problems.

OK - I get there's a history of TL problems, and am not arguing its origins, but within a few weeks of Southern services going south there was parliamentary discussion, front pages on the Standard, Sadiq chipping in etc. Thameslink continues quietly appalling - current performance levels are marginally better than Southern at its ebb (say 50% on time vs. 40% on time and 80% vs. 60-70% on the within 5 minutes measure) - but they've been that bad for a long time. I would argue that TL is also *really* bad, but much less noisily so.

[Cardelia]

miga Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> OK - I get there's a history of TL problems, and

> am not arguing its origins, but within a few weeks

> of Southern services going south there was

> parliamentary discussion, front pages on the

> Standard, Sadiq chipping in etc. Thameslink

> continues quietly appalling - current performance

> levels are marginally better than Southern at its

> ebb (say 50% on time vs. 40% on time and 80% vs.

> 60-70% on the within 5 minutes measure) - but

> they've been that bad for a long time. I would

> argue that TL is also *really* bad, but much less

> noisily so.

Daily performance figures for yesterday:

http://www.thameslinkrailway.com/about-us/performance/daily

I know it's a snapshot and not a trend (also not helped by the Forest Hill sinkhole), but it's obvious that whilst Thameslink is really bad, Southern is still worse. Much worse. That's why it's getting all the scrutiny.

[miga]

Yes - I looked at those. Then I looked at the monthly stats. As I said, there's an acute problem on Southern at the moment, but TL is marginally better than Southern's recent worst - all of the time.

[Loz]

reddulwich Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As requested!

>

> https://www.carolinelucas.com/latest/letter-to-minister-about-rail-safety-concerns

Interesting. Surely, though, this is technology that can (and should) be fixed before the trains go DOO. This is the sort of things unions SHOULD be yelling about, instead of trying to maintain out of date work practices.