Providing temporary relief to your Thameslink pain.

First Capital Connect advised customers  not to travel and to leave London by 7pm yestersday. Their Twiter status was

Limited service this eve on Thameslink route, don’t travel unless you have to. Advise that you leave London by 7pm. May not be later trains.

Morning commuter services were severly disrupted, by up to 2 hours in some cases,  and nearly all services were cancelled by mid afternoon. A snapshot of the live departure table, submitted by one of our readers shows the extent of the disruption. Continue reading →

Mary Grant has confirmed that Thameslink commuters will receive five free return tickets. FCC spokesman Gavin Beazant also said: “We will be offering passengers these tickets from mid-January. It means they can use them for a week’s free travel or to take four friends out.

It is still not clear how these free tickets will be issued, and how customers will be able to claim them. Stay tuned in to I hate thameslink for more info.

In other news, our friends over at Penalty Fare Appeal have been sent this shocking video of a FCC driver with the door to the Continue reading →

It appears that FCC have hit an all time low by providing an abysmal level of service today on the Thameslink route. I was lucky enough to take today off as annual leave, but have been able to monitor the chaos via twitter. It appears FCC have not only delayed customers for (literally) hours but have endangered lives.

It looks like a train broke down which caused unimaginable chaos. This combined with the bad weather and the ongoing dispute with drivers was just just too much for FCC to cope with.

A selection of tweets are posted below. Shocking. Continue reading →

According to penaltyfareappeal.co.uk and a chap on twitter who ‘knows a man who knows a man’ it looks like Thameslink season ticket holders are to get 5 free days travel. More details can be found on the penalty fare appeal website here. FCC have seen a backlash from customers who feel the current ‘delay repay’ system is inadequate , especially during the recent debarcle with the drivers refusing to work overtime and it looks like FCC have decided to ‘get customers back on side’ by giving us 5 days free travel. Continue reading →

First Capital Connect announced the following on Thursday 10th December;

ASLEF has withdrawn the ballot for industrial action.
The union has considered our revised pay offer and agreed to recommend it for acceptance to members. The offer is spread over two years and includes productivity based increases. We are working jointly with Aslef to encourage our drivers to resume rest day and overtime working, our aim being to provide a full, normal service to our customers as quickly as possible.

Despite this, the reduced timetable is stil in operation. Leaflets were distributed at thameslink stations this morning that state;

Fewer than the anticipated number of drivers have put themselves down to be rostered next week given that they only learned on Tuesday night of the ASLEF decision.

Another poor excuse, and being the betting man I am, I would put m Continue reading →

I’ve asked all those following ihatethameslink to tweet their FCC acronyms. Within minutes I had received a whole bunch and expect more to follow. So if you are on twitter – tweet your FCC acronym to @ihatethameslink (or post them below) and I will publish it on this post. Perhaps I will set up a vote and see which acronym wins the prestigious ‘best FCC acronym’ award…

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 Continue reading →

An interesting tweet was picked up on ihatethameslink.co.uk today, and it led me to an article on the Streatham-Labour website.

Minister Told of Thameslink Anger

Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Streatham has contacted FCC and has met with the transport minister to express his anger over the continued disruption to services as a result of the staff unofficial strike. Continue reading →

In addition to the amended timetable, the following trains will be running / canceled today – lucky us!

Thameslink route

Northbound
- 09:37 Sutton – Kentish Town
- 16:18 Elephant & Castle – Bedford (calls at Farringdon at 16:27)
- 16:04 Brighton – London Bridge
- 17:58 Elephant & Castle – Luton (calls at Farringdon at 18:07)
- 18:18 Herne Hill – Bedford (calls at Farringdon at 18:37)

Southbound
- 08:06 St Albans – Sutton
- 08:54 Luton – Elephant & Castle
- 17:11 London Bridge – Brighton

Great Northern route

Northbound
1312 Moorgate to Hertford North terminates at Alexandra Palace
1332 Moorgate to Hertford North cancelled
1442 Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City cancelled
1552 Moorgate to Stevenage cancelled
1638 Moorgate to Hertford North cancelled
1757 Kings Cross to Welwyn Garden City cancelled
1808 Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City cancelled
1823 Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City cancelled
1937 Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City cancelled
2007 Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City starts at Alexandra Palace
2152 Moorgate to Hertford North cancelled
2241 Kings Cross to Welwyn Garden City cancelled
0106 Kings Cross to Letchworth (Saturday morning) cancelled

Southbound
1232 Hertford North to Moorgate terminates at Alexandra Palace
1343 Welwyn Garden City to Moorgate cancelled
1452 Hertford North to Moorgate cancelled
1544 Welwyn Garden City to Moorgate cancelled
1620 Letchworth Garden City to Moorgate due 1726 will no longer call at:  Letchworth Garden City, Hitchin, Stevenage and Watton-At-Stone.
1659 Stevenage to Moorgate cancelled
1736 Hertford North to Moorgate cancelled
2058 Welwyn Garden City to Moorgate cancelled
2310 Hertford North to Kings Cross cancelled
2318 Letchworth to Kings Cross cancelled
0516 Royston to Kings (Saturday morning) cancelled

Below are the FAQ taken from the FCC website, which I thought you all might find of some interest. I have also added my comments and thoughts in red.