What a mess. They are actually advising their passengers NOT to bother to travel tomorrow even if the high courts find in favour of preventing the strike which has been called for tomorrow. This has been going on for months. One poor woman had an offer of a job pulled because her boss to be, realised she would have to use Southern Trains to get to work.

Thousands and Thousands of their passengers have been inconvenienced, delayed or not even travelled at all due to what's going on there in the dispute about the 'role' of their guards.

Isn't it time to pull the franchise from Southern Trains? They are clearly unable to offer the service they've committed to with all this Bru-Ha-Ha going on. Other TOC's don't appear to have a problem with what their guards do or don't do...... Southern should be no exception. I'll bet there quite a few here who have been inconvenienced more than once because of this action.

I'm not going to work tomorrow as the traffic will be so bad I'll spend all day on the road, rather than actually achieving anything. It's not just the train commuters they are messing with. I'd be happy to see the directors and the union bosses put in the stocks together.

Southern isn't run as a franchise, its actually a management contract, and because of this they're not really too bothered about whether they're pissing commuters off or not.

Also, it is in the government's interest for this to go on, because the Tory ideology is against unionised labour so they can use this ongoing strike to put even tougher strike laws in place, and making it even more difficult for people to lawfully withdraw their labour.


I have to say other than on long distance inter-city type services I have never seen a guard on a train.

Apologies - i wasn't aware of this. Time to pull the contract??

And they say nationalised trains never run on time.
I traveled up and down week after week on nationalised trains and did not find them any different than today.
I dont think it will be any different than it is now when we get HS2.

Just as late, but less time on the train. More time on cold, windy platforms with too few seats

It's clearly in everyone's interests (other than passengers) to keep the action in place or it wouldn't have been allowed to go on for a year. I wish commuters would 'strike' and not buy any tickets for a month. Then they'd sort it out. Someone with influence on Twitter should have a go at setting up mass passenger (in)action and give both sides a taste of their own medicine. Passengers could use the money they're not spending on the train to club together to sort out other means of getting to and from work.

I have had to use an alternative routes all year (which I can do as I have the luxury of living in London which has other train lines). None of the other routes I have used have guards.

Bah, sitting down for too long is bad for you anyway .

Inept train service. So glad I don't have to commute via London Bridge anymore.

Maybe the unions should just provide the service anyway - just don't take any money for fares. Use this as a form of dispute - keep the trains running - and the passengers onside.

I think train disruption and strikes has been going on for donkeys years. I remember Sydney Green, the union man at the time, popping up to announce that he was going to "consult his executive" over some dispute on British Rail
I don't think the separation of rolling stock and track into different companies has helped, one can always blame the other.
The Tory quest for profit is no path to success in splitting companies like this, they are even considering splitting BT and Openreach into two completely separate companies. I am caught in the middle of a battle between these two companies as they are now

I have a feeling that's illegal in this country, although they do it in other countries.

Why don't they just remove all the doors from the trains, and then no one can argue about whose job it is to open and close them?

Can't they give the franchise to ScotRail, who've sorted their similar case?

Though they didn't have a union-bashing government intervening.

Scotrail!? Not the Abellio one - it's trying to rival Southern!

It struck me the other day how easily Scotrail turns into #ScotFail....

OH missed a long standing hospital appointment during one of their October strikes. Could not even get on the train it was so busy. Can't get seen until January now. Just hope they're not having a strike on that day too.

Strike or not I think I'll just drive her and pay whatever the central London parking charges are. At least she'll be guaranteed to attend the appointment.

Southern aren't a good franchise but the fault here is the unions, I can't see any merit behind their arguments for striking.

Govia Thameslink 'Railway' who run Southern, South Eastern and Thamesstink are an appalling company... Even on no strike days their trains hardly arrive or leave on time. they've just been given £20m by the pal Chris Twatling so they can better manage their incompetence.. Nightmare journey this morning.. Managed to get to a station that was served by South Eastern...and the train was late and short formed... A* holes all of them.

London Bridge is being extensively rebuilt as it is not fit for purpose regarding the Thameslink Programme and it will cause some inconvenience while the engineering works are carried out. IIRC, there were only 4 through tracks and when all this is done there will be 6 in order to cope with the 20+ trains each way every hour. It'll be worth it in the long term and it will be all done and dusted some time in 2018. I saw a brand new class 700 train last night and the acceleration of these is simply staggering on 25kV OLE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_700


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thameslink_Programme

Ah the Thameslink programme.. Originally called 'Thameslink 2000'. Shows how late it is.

Indeed. A lot of the delays in the project were due to the 'modifications' needed at Borough Market. But yes, the project has been well delayed.

What I cannot grasp in the calls to bin Southern is what would happen next. Unless a replacement company was willing to abandon the driver door opening role which is at the heart of the dispute, then presumably the unions would just start it all over again against them instead of Southern and the world would be no better off.

It's the usual story of a few hot head militant Trots pursuing their own political agenda, and persuading their fellow workers to act like sheep and go on strike
Thameslink run driver only trains in the same area, with drivers from the same union
Inconvenience the public, stop people getting to work, and some having job offers withdrawn, there must be an answer to dealing with this sort of situation. Maybe sack all those on strike and recruit new workers
I am reminded of Scargill and his efforts on behalf of his political agenda, and where is he now

Exactly. Changing operator will do nothing because the same staff will be TUPEd into the new company, probably including a lot of the senior management. Realistically all that would happen is the trains would be re-painted again and the seats would get different covers.

Bring back British Rail