SWR wasn’t fixed within a few months of nationalisation? Shit, time to sell it for £5 to the first non-UK entity that wants it.
> Emily Davies looked anxious as she waited on the platform at Hampton Court station, deep in the London commuter belt, uncertain whether her train would even depart. The theatre manager said she was “furious” about the poor quality of the service run by operator South Western Railway, which had become increasingly unreliable. “It’s worse and worse,” she said of the route into London Waterloo. Her frustration was echoed by others at the station, coming just weeks after what UK transport secretary Heidi Alexander hailed as a “milestone moment” — the renationalisation in May of the South Western operation after three decades of private-sector control.
> Yet the shift to public ownership has delivered no immediate improvement. On July 28, the new operator introduced a month-long “emergency” timetable that cut scores of services from its normal daily total of about 1,600. At times, the Hampton Court line used daily by thousands of people has been reduced from two trains an hour to one. The difficulties at South Western have raised questions about whether its new, public-sector management can turn around one of the UK’s busiest rail networks. The operator was the first since last year’s general election to return to public ownership under the Labour government’s policy to take back privately operated services when their contracts expire. The nationalised South Western has inherited a host of challenges, from regular delays and cancellations to unreliable infrastructure, as well as a shortage of drivers and problems with the train fleet. C2C, the Essex rail operator brought into public ownership last month, and the nine further franchises to be transferred over the next two years, all face some of the same issues.
> Graham Eccles, a retired railway manager with experience of the UK’s privatised train system and the state-run British Rail that preceded it, said many of the problems dated back to the coronavirus pandemic. A decline in traffic during lockdown forced the scrapping of operators’ franchises and their replacement with management contracts, which restricted operators’ choice about which services to offer and prioritised cost control. “I’d probably put it down to money not being invested since COVID, not maintaining train crew establishment, not making sure you have enough drivers and guards,” said Eccles.
> The Department for Transport, which took over South Western from a consortium of train and bus company FirstGroup and Hong Kong’s MTR, said it was working to address the problems on the service, while warning that progress would be difficult. “The issues faced by [South Western] passengers are long-standing ones inherited from previous private-sector ownership, and it will take time to root them out,” it said. At the heart of South Western’s problems is the slow delivery of a fleet of 90 new “Arterio” trains that were meant to enter service six years ago. The effort under the FirstGroup consortium to bring in the fleet was the “most botched introduction of a new train in living memory”, said Eccles, with delays in building the units compounded by problems with their quality when they were eventually delivered. Disputes with unions over their safe operation added to the delays.
> These problems have been exacerbated by driver shortages. One manager at South Western said the FirstGroup consortium, under pressure to save money, minimised the number of drivers employed and introduced schedules that left minimal time to recover if anything went wrong. There was also little time allocated to train drivers on the new Arterios. “We’ve been experiencing some real scrambles to get all of the driver slots filled,” said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that continuing to run the existing 40-year-old trains had also proved difficult. “For the last year, 18 months, we’ve been continually fighting a battle to make sure we have enough trains in the right place,” he said. “That has put a constraint on what we can do to improve customer service and the customer experience.”
> At Hampton Court, there was weariness at the continuing problems. Dayana Stander, manager of the station’s Chain 76 café, said she saw the stress in the faces of her customers, who were “never relaxed”. John Lyons, a regular commuter, complained about paying £15 a day for an unreliable service and has written to local MP Monica Harding to express his frustrations.
“We moved here knowing it was two trains an hour,” said Lyons. “To have that then halved and it being unpredictable — that’s what motivated me to complain.” Neither he nor the other Hampton Court commuters thought the newly nationalised operation would be improved quickly. “Only a fool would believe that changing from a state-controlled, privatised railway to a state-controlled railway company is going to change the service overnight,” said Eccles.
> The South Western manager maintained that progress was being made, noting how 17 of the new trains were now in service on South Western, compared with five at the time of renationalisation, and a “steady stream” set to be introduced. More fundamentally, he added, the relationship between the operator and the transport department had become more co-operative, helped by the removal of a narrow focus on contracts and the need to meet financial targets included in them. “There isn’t that approach of trying to make sure you’re getting the best score you can on the scorecard,” said the manager. “We’re trying to pull together to get this stuff fixed.”
But people on Reddit said greedy private companies was the reason for the high ticket prices ?
I wasn’t expecting anything to change in terms of service and reliability when it is nationalised. But at least any profits go back into the public purse, when before the shareholders were getting taxpayer-subsidised profits
And all the staff were TUPEd over. So the problems move to new operator , and that’s not saying all the staff are problems but if you put a rotting apple in a new barrel it still continues to rot.
It isn’t simply a case of ‘no respite’, the service has degraded.
They slashed the number of services through certain busy stations once COVID hit but then never brought them back even with passenger numbers basically back to pre-covid levels. They also slashed the number of platform staff. The trains are breaking down. They’re grubby and treated like shit by people who went feral during COVID. And all the while the fairs just go up and up and up. It’s a shitshow.
i wonder if the financial times has a bias against nationalised industries
Was anyone expecting immediate respite? It’s the same staff running the same trains over the same track. Meaningful improvement is going to take more than a few weeks.
Labour isn’t giving a massive handout to all the Surrey commuters? Shocker. Not like any more people could get on most of those services anyway, physics is still physics
the article is paywalled but what has pissed me off is they’ve mostly gotten rid of the old class 455s, yet the replacement 450s all have broken or struggling air con… and windows that can’t be opened. they are like ultra ovens.
It will get worse. The unions are rubbing their hands at the piss taking they will be planning
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SWR wasn’t fixed within a few months of nationalisation? Shit, time to sell it for £5 to the first non-UK entity that wants it.
> Emily Davies looked anxious as she waited on the platform at Hampton Court station, deep in the London commuter belt, uncertain whether her train would even depart. The theatre manager said she was “furious” about the poor quality of the service run by operator South Western Railway, which had become increasingly unreliable. “It’s worse and worse,” she said of the route into London Waterloo. Her frustration was echoed by others at the station, coming just weeks after what UK transport secretary Heidi Alexander hailed as a “milestone moment” — the renationalisation in May of the South Western operation after three decades of private-sector control.
> Yet the shift to public ownership has delivered no immediate improvement. On July 28, the new operator introduced a month-long “emergency” timetable that cut scores of services from its normal daily total of about 1,600. At times, the Hampton Court line used daily by thousands of people has been reduced from two trains an hour to one. The difficulties at South Western have raised questions about whether its new, public-sector management can turn around one of the UK’s busiest rail networks. The operator was the first since last year’s general election to return to public ownership under the Labour government’s policy to take back privately operated services when their contracts expire. The nationalised South Western has inherited a host of challenges, from regular delays and cancellations to unreliable infrastructure, as well as a shortage of drivers and problems with the train fleet. C2C, the Essex rail operator brought into public ownership last month, and the nine further franchises to be transferred over the next two years, all face some of the same issues.
> Graham Eccles, a retired railway manager with experience of the UK’s privatised train system and the state-run British Rail that preceded it, said many of the problems dated back to the coronavirus pandemic. A decline in traffic during lockdown forced the scrapping of operators’ franchises and their replacement with management contracts, which restricted operators’ choice about which services to offer and prioritised cost control. “I’d probably put it down to money not being invested since COVID, not maintaining train crew establishment, not making sure you have enough drivers and guards,” said Eccles.
> The Department for Transport, which took over South Western from a consortium of train and bus company FirstGroup and Hong Kong’s MTR, said it was working to address the problems on the service, while warning that progress would be difficult. “The issues faced by [South Western] passengers are long-standing ones inherited from previous private-sector ownership, and it will take time to root them out,” it said. At the heart of South Western’s problems is the slow delivery of a fleet of 90 new “Arterio” trains that were meant to enter service six years ago. The effort under the FirstGroup consortium to bring in the fleet was the “most botched introduction of a new train in living memory”, said Eccles, with delays in building the units compounded by problems with their quality when they were eventually delivered. Disputes with unions over their safe operation added to the delays.
> These problems have been exacerbated by driver shortages. One manager at South Western said the FirstGroup consortium, under pressure to save money, minimised the number of drivers employed and introduced schedules that left minimal time to recover if anything went wrong. There was also little time allocated to train drivers on the new Arterios. “We’ve been experiencing some real scrambles to get all of the driver slots filled,” said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that continuing to run the existing 40-year-old trains had also proved difficult. “For the last year, 18 months, we’ve been continually fighting a battle to make sure we have enough trains in the right place,” he said. “That has put a constraint on what we can do to improve customer service and the customer experience.”
> At Hampton Court, there was weariness at the continuing problems. Dayana Stander, manager of the station’s Chain 76 café, said she saw the stress in the faces of her customers, who were “never relaxed”. John Lyons, a regular commuter, complained about paying £15 a day for an unreliable service and has written to local MP Monica Harding to express his frustrations.
“We moved here knowing it was two trains an hour,” said Lyons. “To have that then halved and it being unpredictable — that’s what motivated me to complain.” Neither he nor the other Hampton Court commuters thought the newly nationalised operation would be improved quickly. “Only a fool would believe that changing from a state-controlled, privatised railway to a state-controlled railway company is going to change the service overnight,” said Eccles.
> The South Western manager maintained that progress was being made, noting how 17 of the new trains were now in service on South Western, compared with five at the time of renationalisation, and a “steady stream” set to be introduced. More fundamentally, he added, the relationship between the operator and the transport department had become more co-operative, helped by the removal of a narrow focus on contracts and the need to meet financial targets included in them. “There isn’t that approach of trying to make sure you’re getting the best score you can on the scorecard,” said the manager. “We’re trying to pull together to get this stuff fixed.”
But people on Reddit said greedy private companies was the reason for the high ticket prices ?
I wasn’t expecting anything to change in terms of service and reliability when it is nationalised. But at least any profits go back into the public purse, when before the shareholders were getting taxpayer-subsidised profits
And all the staff were TUPEd over. So the problems move to new operator , and that’s not saying all the staff are problems but if you put a rotting apple in a new barrel it still continues to rot.
It isn’t simply a case of ‘no respite’, the service has degraded.
They slashed the number of services through certain busy stations once COVID hit but then never brought them back even with passenger numbers basically back to pre-covid levels. They also slashed the number of platform staff. The trains are breaking down. They’re grubby and treated like shit by people who went feral during COVID. And all the while the fairs just go up and up and up. It’s a shitshow.
i wonder if the financial times has a bias against nationalised industries
Was anyone expecting immediate respite? It’s the same staff running the same trains over the same track. Meaningful improvement is going to take more than a few weeks.
Labour isn’t giving a massive handout to all the Surrey commuters? Shocker. Not like any more people could get on most of those services anyway, physics is still physics
the article is paywalled but what has pissed me off is they’ve mostly gotten rid of the old class 455s, yet the replacement 450s all have broken or struggling air con… and windows that can’t be opened. they are like ultra ovens.
It will get worse. The unions are rubbing their hands at the piss taking they will be planning
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