I’m Stuart, I work in a technical role for the BBC on a freelance basis in London, and commute from one of the often-forgotten stations between Bedford and Luton at all times of the day, week and year. When I’m not starting work at 06:00, I’m finishing at 23:00. When I’m not working on a bank holiday Monday, I’m trying to get some sleep after a 12-hour nightshift. You get the picture.

9-5 commuters may be aware of a little thing called the Thameslink Programme which currently closes the cross-London route for 25% of the week, and 100% of the weekend. This means Farringdon, City Thameslink and Blackfriars stations cannot be reached by using First Capital Connect services, and those needing to cross the river to complete their journey need to get the Tube between London Bridge and St Pancras.  This is scheduled to be the case for at least the next two years, and has already been happening for well over a year.

Sometimes, however, there is even more engineering works at the weekend. To the left is the normal northern Thameslink route (Bedford-London) timetable for Sunday (click to enlarge – my yellow highlighting). We can clearly see the first train leaves Bedford at 0542, arriving St Pancras at 0655. The second leaves at 0612 and arrives at 0725, and both trains stop at all stations along the way.

This Sunday I happen to be on a shift which, for my sins, starts at 0745. My workplace is a 5-minute Tube from St Pancras followed by a 10-minute walk, so both of these trains would allow me to reach work on time.

Now look at the special timetable (left – click to enlarge – my yellow highlighting) for Sunday 22nd August 2010. There is no train service between Mill Hill Broadway and St Pancras until just before 9am due to engineering works. First Capital Connect have provided a replacement bus service – as is standard practice during engineering works – to run to all affected stations.

Look closer though, and serious questions need to be asked.

1) Why do the buses start from Mill Hill (0600) before the first train arrives (0634)?

2) Why does the first proper replacement bus take 65 minutes (0642 to 0749) between Mill Hill and St Pancras when the entire Bedford to St Pancras all-station train journey normally takes only 73 minutes (0612 to 0725)?

3) Most crucially, why does FCC expect passengers north of Mill Hill to accept the earliest possible time they could arrive at St Pancras (0749) is 54 minutes – nearly an hour – later than is published in the normal timetable (0655)?

The last point means that, as FCC will not be starting services earlier than normal to compensate for the engineering works (which they have presumably known about for a while), my journey would take two hours and seven minutes, and I would still be late for work.

It also means that I will be forced to drive instead, costing me much more in petrol and central London parking (no congestion charge, fortunately) than the railcard Super Off-Peak Day Return (£7.90) that I would have bought. I can forget about any compensation – Delay Repay is not applicable as this is a revised timetable.

For the uninitiated, welcome to the world of off-peak railways. Sit down, make yourself comfortable – and prepare for a 12-mile replacement bus journey which takes 65 minutes.

As for me – I’m the one in a semi-permanent state of sleep. Wake me up when we’ve passed Luton – I’ve almost certainly only got 8 hours before I have to be back in work at ridiculous-o-clock.

Visitors to the page since yesterday, 21st July 2010, have been greeted with this message (left):  “First Capital Connect has no more posts.”

This was certainly not the case just 24 hours before, when the page was filled with more than six months’ worth of messages from angry passengers asking – and getting answers to – their questions about FCC’s operations and failings.

Members of the “I Hate First Capital Connect” group on Facebook noticed the missing posts:

That “human-ness” I referred to in my last post? Completely deleted, just like the posts. And I’m taking bets as to how long the page will stay up – anyone want to give me some odds?

The move comes after many negative comments posted on its page since “The Troubles” of late 2009 and early 2010, when the beleaguered train company was running an emergency timetable, citing “Force Majeure” due to drivers refusing to work overtime. The Facebook messages from angry commuters were met with fairly light-touch moderation, and regular – if somewhat “toeing the line” – responses direct from the company’s PR department, who did seem to make an effort to answer some of the more difficult questions.

The staff member (known to regulars as “Miss FCC”) who had been moderating the Facebook page seems to have disappeared, leaving many posts unanswered. Suddenly, before the weekend, changes were made to the Facebook page settings – including the removal of the ability to make new Wall posts – but still no replies to existing messages.

Other changes mean that comments, even to existing posts, are hidden by default – meaning an extra click for each comment thread you might want to read. The comment threads were perhaps where the more vocal complaints were made, so this is a convenient way of hiding – but not entirely repressing – the most negative responses. The discussion board, where users could post longer complaints and queries, has also been removed – presumably with all the previous messages too.

While FCC’s responses to complaints were generally short, simple and corporate, many users appreciated the direct responses rather than going through the website contact form, and forgetting all about their query until “up to 28 days” later, when they would receive a flat response. With these changes to the Facebook page (which could potentially be permanent), a little bit more “human-ness” has been lost from what little was left of FCC’s corporate image.

13 18 19 25 31 34 40 50 funny and creative acronyms below!

1. Failure Consistently Comes
2. Frequent Commuter Calamities
3. Friday Cancelled Commute
4. Failing Commuters Consistently
5. Fairly Crap Company
6. First Cattle Connect
7. Fewer Commuters Carried
8. Feverish Chaos Created
9. Failing Chu Chu
10. Finally Considers Commuters (after executives and shareholders…)
11. Freely Culling Commutes
12. F**king Crappy Connect
13. F**ing Can’t Connect
14. Fine Craftsmen of Cockups
15. Fundamentally Crap Company
16. F**ing Cramped Carridges
17. Farcical Constant Cancellations
18. Fusty, Crusty Carriages
19. Fiendishly Crushed Commuting
20. F**king Clueless Clowns
21. F**ing Cattle Carrier
22. Full Cramped Carriages
23. Four Carriage Crush
24. Flawed Commuter Connector
25. Franchise Can’t Continue
26. First Crapital Connect
27. Foot, Cycle, Cart – almost anything is better than the train
28. Frequently Causes Cancellations
29. Forgets Commuters’ Compensation
30. Farcical Cancellations Chaos
31. Fobs-off Cynical Commuters
32. First Capital Con
33. First Capital Crap
34. First Crap Connection
35. Franchise Change Certainty
36. Feckless Conveyors of Chaos
37. Frequently Chastising Customers
38. False Customer Commitments
39. Failing Customer Communication
40. Farcical Customer Charter
41. F**ing Crap Company
42. Failing Customer Connections
43. Failing Customers Commute
44. F**ing-up Customer Commuting
45. Fantastically Crowded Commuting
46. F**ing Crap Commuting
47. Forlorn, Cranky Commuters
48. Feckless Conniving Cowboys
49. F**king Cheating C**ts
50. Frozen Cattle Carrier

Keep ‘em coming!

'Nervous? If yo’re travelling without a ticket you should be.' No ticket? lethal injection is only fair.

A new FCC advertising campaign suggest that all anyone travelling without a valid ticket will receive some sort of injection as punishment! The advert tells us that we should be nervous travelling without a ticket and features a medical looking person holding a needle in the background. If in fact FCC are not planning to inject us, it still suggests we should be as fearful as receiving some sort of injection which is completely over the top, and I am surprised that this even got past the advertising standards people.

This is probably the worst advertising campaign I have seen in a long while.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think or tweet @ihatethameslink !

*not confirmed by FCC, based on interpretation of poster!

Footage can been seen on the Telegraph website.

The video is very nice, but it does appear to me that Alstom have got a little confused…

Leave a comment, and let us know what you think about the new trains! What is the point in these new trains if they will be as delayed, and with as many cancellations as before?

Shout out to @smiggers for the link via twitter.

They also had another two services in the top 10!

The three FCC service in the top 10 are as follows:

• Claiming the prestigious number 1 most overcrowded service is the 17.45 First Capital Connect service to King’s Lynn which had 352 passengers in excess of its capacity of 494.
• Claiming the number 2 spot was the 07.45 First Capital Connect service from Cambridge to London King’s Cross which had 291 passengers in excess of its capacity of 494.
• In 8th place it was the First Capital Connect 17.23 service from London Kings Cross to Peterborough which had a load of 244 in excess of its capacity of 494.

For a full list of the top 10 overcrowded services go here and for more FCC excuses check out their press release.

Iv’e recently been contacted by a fellow Thameslink sufferer – ‘absinthedude’ who has posted the following clips on Youtube demonstrating how awful the service is….

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7i-Tt5ZygU
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5EuPgVt80
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQUkWpMM5FY&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJl0RZiM91k&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVMsTJ561jg&feature=related

Absinthedude has also been bombarding Thameslink with letters such as the one below;

Good morning Thameslink,

I thought I write to you on this fine day. With the credit crunch in full swing it seems even our lovely rail firm are taking the measure to save cost, and I can just see the memo that must have been sent out to the work force:

1) Lights – keep lights off to save on the energy bill (18/08/09 – 07:35am train from Leagrave, and not the first time it’s happened). It took someone to brave a run to the train driver’s window before he realised.

2) Cancel trains – to save on staff and running costs ((10/08/09 – 10:01am train from Leagrave)

3) Keep maintenance to a minimum – such that trains brake down more often hence saving on running cost (17/08/09 – 45mins delay around 9pm due to a broken train at City Thameslink)

4) Musical platforms – to ensure maximum disturbance for users (hopefully that way they might go else where) (30/07/09 – 07:35am from Leagrave). I think a fellow commuter perfectly summed it the mood up on that day, when he said “how the F*** do you loose a train in a few seconds” – how true!

Well it seems with all these cost cutting initiatives and the INCREASE in rail fare you would be making healthy profits. What joy!! Shame I am not a shareholder.

Oh, when you do remember us, the poor old commuters, then do consider some thought of how we feel. The recent increase in train problems just highlights how poor things are becoming. But would I expect a refund? Doubt it very much.

If anyone else has contacted Thameslink or would like me to post a video or picture,  please contact me.  Also, please remember to link to www.ihatethameslink.co.uk like this –> ‘ Thameslink ‘ on any blogs or website so we can get this website on thie first google page when people search for it!

One love, and one hate.

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