This is something you don’t hear that often. Or rather thank you to the Southern Rail workers in Brighton station who found my suitcase this morning that I had stupidly left behind on the train yesterday evening on route to Labour Party conference. Read more…
Unions aren’t to blame for the Southern Rail situation. They’re trying to help.
After much delay (it was completed in December) the DfT have finally published the Gibb Report into the causes of and solutions to the problems that beset the Southern Rail franchise. The report is complex and covers a huge amount of territory in its 1…Read more…
No Mr Grayling, the #SouthernStrike is very much about safety
Chris Grayling and Southern Rail are trying to convince us that the Southern strike is not about safety. They insist that extending driver only trains, which is at the heart of the dispute between…Read more…
Spinning the railways
UK passengers spend up to six times as much of their salary on rail fares than commuters using largely publicly owned railways in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We have the most expensive commuter fares in Europe – and it’s no coincidence that out of those countries listed, we’re the only one…Read more…
Southern Rail – it’s about time you listened to your passengers
Meet Chris Hogg, a 36 year old lyricist from Sutton in Surrey. Every week Chris travels by Southern Rail, taking the train from Sutton to Ashtead to attend his music class. Chris is a wheel chair…Read more…
Is Southern Rail putting savings before safety?
Last week Southern Rail’s attempts to blame its shambolic running of the franchise on its staff and the RMT monumentally backfired – with passengers taking to Twitter to tell Southern what they…Read more…
#SouthernBackOnTrack – Safety spun in numbers
Southern Rail – having seemed to have learnt nothing from their disastrous social media campaign yesterday with #southernbackontrack – have come back for more of a metaphorical kicking….Read more…
Keep guards on trains
For many years’ train travel was a no-no for certain groups of disabled people, even when accompanied. Today as the system becomes more accessible, albeit slowly, disabled people are facing the prospect of new barriers replacing those that we had broken down. Gone are the days when the only way for…Read more…
Southern Rail, ScotRail and red herrings
It’s often said that it takes two sides to make a dispute; it certainly takes two sides to end one. Last week during talks at ACAS, the RMT offered to suspend strike action at Southern Rail if the…Read more…
The Today Programme’s dodgy rail strike maths
This morning’s Today programme covered the industrial dispute at Southern Rail. Justin Webb talked live to his correspondent Ben Thompson at Victoria station (Listen at 47:38), who expressed…Read more…