Southern Rail Support Group

[RoseValleyRambles]

Does anyone else need this? I certainly do! Somewhere to vent, grumble, and at least feel someone is listening over the next month of what promises to be hideous travel.

Today I left home before usual time, took a bus because my train was cancelled, say in traffic for 40 minutes, and am now standing on another platform desperately hoping the train in planning on getting isn't totally packed. 1 hour commute is easily going to be two hours. And I get to do it all again at the end of the day...

It's ridiculous. Our MP is the Transport Minister. We can fairly easily get to a SW station and can park at work but with the chaos this is causing it's adding an hour to our travel each way.

It can't even be about guards on trains either really - trains have run without guards for years. It's a political football and the train company needs to be driven out of business due to this.

I have no sympathy for people who are making the lives of others a misery and putting the jobs of others at risk.

The trains haven't always been 12 carriages long though.

It's a shit time of year, it's bloody cold waiting for that non existent train. I'm lucky I can wfh as much as I need but last week I left home one day at 5.50am so I could get to work on time as i had to bexplain i the office. I live less than 10 minutes walk to the train station and I'm in zone 3.

It is bloody ridiculous.

:( it's totally nuts. I think there are lots of sensible augment being made about things like disabled access to trains being maintained, bit they're getting lost in the political nonsense. Dreading the next two days - big meetings in town and my Christmas party, but it's either going to be a massive uber bill, simply hours on buses, or an uncomfortable conversation with manager. Why do I feel like I'm letting people down, when it's the government which is letting me down by not stepping in?

5.50 am is totally NOT cool four. :(

I'm surprised there's not more of us?

They are NEVER 12 carriages on our part of the line. This added to the construction at London Bridge and limited evening trains is a joke!

Probably stuck in that phone/data reception blackspot between Balham and Clapham Junction.

Southern was a factor in my giving up work last year. Now looking to return and very worried about the commute.

The main problem is that the number of users has doubled in 10 years, faster than infrastructure can be improved (my trains have gone from 4 or 8 cars to 5 or10), but are now fuller than before.

The big problem is trying to train more drivers for each route - it's not like car driving where once qualified you can drive on any road - drivers have to learn every route, which means fitting practice in around trains in service and obviously having to retrain all drivers when there's new track or signalling like at London Bridge. It's generally accepted round the world that tracks can't have services timetabled for more than 85% capacity if you are not be able to make up time, train drivers, and avoid bad delays. Most of the SouthEast is around 97%, so any small problem leads to huge knock-on effects.

London Reconnections ' Meltdown Monday is an excellent explanation of the problems.

Can partners of people afflicted by Southern Rail join this thread? I don't even commute myself (or only a couple of times a month) but feel the need to vent on behalf of my husband and the effect it has on the whole family.
My husband commutes Brighton to London and he is spending ridiculous amounts of time and stress just getting to and from work. He's frequently not home until 8 or 9pm and as our toddler is often up at 5am that's when we should be going to bed, not sitting down to dinner! I'd like to have another baby but how would he cope with sleeplessness on top of the stress of commuting? And I'd have to do everything for toddler and baby as he's off early and never home until after toddler's bed time.
And of course we pay a fortune for this 'service'. So aggravating!

The response Caroline Lucas received to raising this in the Commons last week was an absolute disgrace. Dh has to work in London this week, having avoided it as much as possible since the summer. Previously he has relied on Thameslink on strike days but often had his journey interrupted. Normally I'd go to London for the occasional day out or theatre with dc but have avoided it for fear of the journey home, assuming I could even get there. A friend has ongoing specialist treatment at a London hospital but is postponing it. Why is Southern being bailed out by the government to the benefit of its shareholders while its customers are abandoned.

ocean definitely! Family life is being so badly impacted: your more than welcome.

Just submitted my first delay repay of the day. 15 min delay repay is now live, for those who weren't aware. I think this will be the first of many this week...

...and now its not just Southern commuters who are starting to be affected. There has been a significant increase in commuters using buses to get to the tube in our area, directly linked to the Southern service worsening. The tube station is at risk of being closed due to overcrowding at peak times....which will affect many.

If you live in an area with a Tory MP, let them know they won't be voted in again if it continues. Chris Grayling (who recently made his feelings clear about 'handing over trains to Labour MPs') will do little to ease transport problems in areas that traditionally have few Tory voters. He might feel pressured to do more if he thinks it will lose the Tory party seats.

Ds has already contacted our mp this am.

Great stuff lizs. Ours is active, but quite anti union. I'm trying to get my head around all the issues the moment so I can argue about it with him/others properly. :)

Can I join? I can work from home fairly easily and am not even going to try to get in tomorrow, Wednesday or Friday. But my DH HAS to get to London. So it will be twice-daily lifts for him to and from our nearest South Eastern station (which isn't very near at all) because he can't risk not being able to find somewhere to park .

See this Twitter account for a bit of light relief: twitter.com/BadSouthernRail/

Another non-user but badly affected person here.
DH has to commute up to London everyday. He has suffered the years of disruption 'improving' London Bridge. He has suffered the months of the 'revised' timetable due to all the 'staff sickness' and now he is having to suffer endless strike days too. HE has to be in work tomorrow and Wednesday, we don't live near a south-eastern station or underground. Driving is not an option....... Will probably have to fork out for hotel accommodation.
DS also uses the train for school. Whilst he could go by bus, it is a much longer travel time. He was late to school last week because the train he usually gets was the only one running, so ridiculously overcrowded, and 4 carriages short of what it should've been. Looks like I shall have to be driving him into school for the rest of the week.
The whole situation iss ridiculous - it needs sorting now.

It's bloody ridiculous, I don't commute by train but DH does.

I went in once for work over summer. A 45 min journey took 3 hours.

I have spent many an hour over summer heavily pregnant waiting at the nearest mainkine station to collect DH on strike days as our local station was closed.

DH was late for our last baby scan as train cancelled.

The night before I was induced plan was to chill out and prepare. He was 3 hours late home.

Now we have a 4 week old and I am going to have to get the baby up at 6am to take DH to Gatwick in the hope he can get train from there. Will also cost £3.50 in parking to collect him at night.

For those driving, be aware that others doing the same will probably mean traffic is much worse than usual. My bus took ages this morning, and I imagine that was a big causal factor. Leave extra time.

That's true rose. After dropping DH off last week I though I would do the food shopping as baby asleep etc. It took an hour to drive the 20 mins home.

I'm going to be leaving about 6.15 every morning & heading straight to the bus stop.

In theory I could catch the Overground. In practice I think it's going to be brimming over by the time it gets to my station.

I know I'm really lucky that I can just catch one bus but it's still going to take me at least twice as long. I don't care whose fault all this is. I just want them to sort it out.

DH & I are both Brighton to London too. I'm 8 months pregnant. I've spent most of this pregnancy standing on station platforms, not getting a seat on 3 hour+ commutes, paying for taxis from wherever was the closest o could get to home, and stressing about losing my job from being late. I go on maternity leave in a few weeks but DH will still have to suffer it.

a quick, if generic, response. Apparently he is trying to arrange a meeting between mps and Chris Gibb whose 3 month contract to sort this out is about to end. Assume he doesn't have a bonus resting on a successful resolution then. Veiled criticism of Govia as well as unions this time though.

lizs at least he acknowledges it's not all black and white.

I'm running for a reason now to avoid the inevitably madness.

Hopefully the nationals will take more notice this week. We simply can't have it roll on into week long january strikes...

It sounds as if there will be a strong media presence at our nearest mainline station tomorrow am.

Great. This is the sort of thing they're here for!

Fenella, can't believe you've been doing the Brighton route pregnant. It sounds horrendous over there.

Couldn't even get on my train 5 mins before departure. Good luck to those heading home from town tonight.

Place marking as I commute 3 x times a week and have taken to driving to thameslink station.

So sick of being late/panicked calls to sort emergency pick up for DD