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The Ticket Collector

6 Comments

1. Just thought id say when looking at this blog and god knows how i got here i sense that gner are being given unfair treatment. I say this because First Crapital Connect are appauling. I have experienced more delays, dirtier trains, worse environments, and most recently directions given that involved traveling on a non existant train that meant i was unable to go to the event i had planned to attend and therefore wasted an evening. first crapital connect have also covered up the thameslink portion on a sign at Kings X thameslink, confusing passengers as from the street Kings X thameslink cannont be seen. the trains now look 60 yrs old as they have been scrappily stickerd and bring a disgrace to a service which was previously very well run and maintained. I hope someone has sense to bring back the old thameslink and sack F Crapital C

   Comment by JK — August 28, 2006 #

2. Everyone has there opinions and of course you are very welcome to express them on this blog. Im not the one to edit every comment because it looks bad/good on whoever.
   GNER managment deserve everything they get thrown at them. The ground level staff are the ones suffering because of the incompant management of GNER.
   As for FCC, the only reason they had to cover up anything which said thameslink is because it was a condition of them taking the franchise over to cover up any old trading names, the only quick way to do this was to stick labels over everything.
   Oh and youll love a few years time when the old Kings X Thameslink closes and everything moves to Midland Road Thameslink!!!!!!

   Oh and on a last note most of the “tacky” 319 units are actually owned by Southern!

   Comment by admin — August 30, 2006 #

3. JK,

   I’ve probably slagged off First, National Express and anyone else when I felt they deserved it - but First Capital Connect had certain obligations when taking over the franchise and can’t be blamed for things outside of their control. Thameslink and Wagn had obligations too, which included ‘de-branding’ all their trains before handing over on 1st April (a silly day to do it, as it really was a joke - engineering work meant the Great Northern branch was partially closed with a bus replacement service on it!).

   Thameslink did a pretty awful job (but they also have a confusing range of trains, on lease from here there and everywhere). On some trains, people had taken to blanking out the ‘Thameslink’ station names (e.g. City Thameslink, Kings Cross Thameslink) so it was obviously someone that took the ‘get rid of anything that says Thameslink’ a bit too literally!

   Many trains still kept Thameslink branding on the outside too, but what do you do about a company that has now left and handed over the keys? First covered them up as quickly as they could and now it should be quite hard to see anything saying Thameslink. Wagn, on the other hand, got rid of nearly everything VERY quickly - shame they also damaged the interior of many refurbished 317s in the process.

   Trains are starting to get the FCC livery now, a few ex-Thameslink trains (3 or 4), and at least three on the Great Northern side. I guess they’ll all get done in time, but it means taking a train out of service so it must be a slow process.

   Any problems with services is not down to new management (especially as most faces are the same, having TUPEd over) but long running maintenance issues. I believe the 319s will be getting a complete overhaul in the future (new interiors, information screens etc) and looking further ahead, ‘new’ trains possibly moved from elswhere in the First group. Of course, I know very little about this and will leave it to the elusive ticket inspector to comment!

   Comment by Jonathan Morris — September 5, 2006 #

4. I’ve been travelling on trains from Brighton for some 3 years now & the actions of the two companies I use have simply driven me over the edge.I feel I am losing my sanity because of the lack of understanding displayed by these bastards.

   I mainly use the First Capital Connect service (Formally known as Thameslink) to travel into Blackfriars from Brighton, as mentioned above I have been using this service for 3 years but literally 2 months after I began the problems started…..The delays suffered were horrendous but after several attempts of complaints I soon realised that they were only interested in keeping their investors happy.On many many occasions my trains were over 30mins late but of course unless you had a month season ticket or over, the compensation was nothing.Things improved over the years with the compensation limit being reduced to half an hour for statutory compensation but this is no way improved the service.Even the arrival of First Capital Connect seemed to have a detrimental effect to the running of their trains………

   Where most companies improve when took over because of cash injections, new staff etc First Capital Connect managed to worsen things.They gave the website a new look, gave some trains new livery/seat covers but the main problems of the company remained i.e the Carriages themselves…….The floors are filthy & covered in gum, the walls/windows/toilets have graffiti all over them, the seats regularly come away from their fittings, the windows blow open, the heating doesn’t work, the seats are too small (I have regular battles with people who seem to think I can force my arm into the side of the train, I have even been told to move up!! When there is clearly no space between me & the window) there is no space for luggage etc………It is a total shambles but of course this did not deter First Capital, no they gave the trains a new look, removed the gum(Sort of),removed the graffiti(Sort of) & fitted new windows which stayed shut(Sort of) but the biggest passenger grievance remained, i.e the Trains themselves.

   The problem which affects me most is the inability to take bicycles onto the train.There is a special carriage designed to take bikes which has flip up seats & yet for some reason bikes are still banned between 7-10am(Into London) & 4-7pm(Out of London)…..These hours have not been thought through whatsoever, if you would like to take your bike to work(& not have it stolen from the station like i have)you need to catch the 6.49am train service, start work at 7, work for 8 hours(If you’re allowed to skip lunch) then make it to the 3pm service in time to beat the restrictions for Brighton bound commuters.I do not know anybody who has that flexibility of their work hours.

   When asked for an explanation of these rules I was told that bikers have regularly held up trains with the amount of time it takes them to get their vehicles on & off the trains……?(Even tho the sevice is spectacularly late, my train is 10 mins late evry day without fail) .You have to understand that this is because of the amount of luggage placed in the doorways of the trains, why is it placed in the doorways? because of the lack of luggage space available on these particular trains & also the train is relatively full when it reaches Gatwick so people understandably don’t want to move further down the carriage as they will be away from their luggage & this in this day & age, with terrorism on everybody’s lips & the risk of theft, it makes even more sense.

   I raised this point with one of their Customer Relation managers, his response was…..’There is no provision for bikes between the hours stated, there is space for luggage in the luggage racks’……End of story.He did not want to hear my complaints about the problems with luggage storage at all, even tho they contravene health & safety regulations for public carriage & safe entrance exits etc.

   I am hoping to report them for breaches of the Health & Safety rule governing the emergency exits/entrances of public transport.

   Comment by ben roberts — September 22, 2006 #

5. I didn’t think any of the 319s had been properly refurbished yet (ignore the external re-livery)? Any improvements were probably down to Go-Ahead, and hopefully the FCC stuff will be quite substantial (but still 3+2 seating).

   They’re adding more luggage areas too, but for bikes I’d have to say I’d rather see folders. You can’t lift the restrictions if you can’t accomodate more than 1 or 2 bikes. Would you be happy to gamble whether you could get on the train with your bike or not?

   Comment by Jonathan Morris — September 23, 2006 #

6. FCC are still running peak time trains with 4 carraige sets only and this leads to overcrowding and passengers unable to board the trains at some stations.

   I phoned the customer relations line to complain about this and got a response justifying the packed trains but also mentioning that those people at Southern have the extra 319 class trains FCC need to run a better service.

   Of course it wouldn’t occur to FCC that if they restored the fast trains to Kings Cross from Mill Hill or vice versa we wouldn’t have so much overcrowding. These were taken away from us by Thameslink prior to the KX closure last year and have not been restored since, leaving Mill Hill commuters with long gaps between services at peak hours and overcrowding when the trains finally turn up.

   Comment by Richard Logue — October 4, 2006 #

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