We have been contacted by Dispatches who are producing a feature on the UK train operators and want IhateThameslink readers to submit their stories, pictures, and video to them. This really is a great way to expose the shambolic First Capital Connect. I encourage everyone with a camera or smart-phone to take as much footage of their crowded journeys or bad conditions and submit it to Dispatches.
Video – You can upload your video footage to YouTube here, showing the train conditions and your experience of them.
Comments -You can post comments about your experiences directly to the Dispatches website by using the comments box at the bottom of this page. Alternatively you can email your comments and stories to dispatches@channel4.co.uk. Comments and video sent to this email address will not be published on the Dispatches site.
Tweet - You can tweet your stories to Twitter using the hash tag #trainpain
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7 comments ↓
Why are there so many trains to Bedford? Tonight there were two trains 4 minutes apart. St Pancras to St Albans first stop. The next all stopper to St Albans is cancelled. Next train first stop was West Hampstead and then St Albans. Next one St Albans and then onto Bedford. Finally, a Luton train. Crowded so could not get on. Next one first stop St Albans. When will they get the point that some of us live nearer than St Albans? If you have a cancelled train, make the next an all stopper. So what if those travelling to Bedford are slightly late home.
I’m currently on the 12:36 to baldock.
The train is rammed with customers standing all the way down the aisle of the carriages. I believe the train is made of four of these carriages and all are in the same condition.
There has been no apology. There is no Adequate air conditioning. You literally cannot move. It is completely unacceptable. I’m taking refuge in first class. I seem the only one brave enough to ignore the extreme over plastered reminders of first class ticket holders only signs – surely they wouldn’t expect people to ignore empty seats in these conditions!!
It amazes me that in a world where there are so Many innovative technological advances, we still get treated to this level of conditions when travelling.
Well First Crapital Connect strikes again in true form, my train was cancelled Friday 11th 17:23 to Sutton a fault with the signalling equipment again ! Trains not running in either direction through Farringdon. So how is it whilst waiting on the platform being told no trains are running a Brighton service rolls in. The smell of bull wafts in.
New to the joys of commuting this Jan – used to live in London and cycle to work. Today signal failure meant trains 30 minutes late, and I missed an important meeting. Platform staff say not FCC fault, blame Network Rail. Surely NR a supplier of FCC and not the customer’s problem. Total shambles.
Where to start? Firstly, the fare increase. I am currently paying over £3000 a year to NOT get a seat to work. So far this year we have had at least 2 4-coach trains, half the usual 8-coaches, and only a third as long as the super 12-coach trains we have been promised. Because of this the train is packed from the start, full of angry, stressed commuters who have over an hour to spend in the cramped train. The service also calls at Gatwick airport, to pick up all the happy people returing from holiday, and the foreign tourists, who must get a shock with their first experience of British public transport being shoved onto a train, falling over their bags or having them stuck in the door. This morning there was a french lady getting most upset and she was forced onto the train, suitcase still out of the door, then having to get on and off at every stop to allow people off.
My second massive issue is with the ‘late train’ times being measured by delays at arrival. The way FCC seem to have got around this, is when the train is running late, cancel all the small stops in the middle and run the train fast to its destination. Several times this winter I have been kicked off a train, to wait half an hour in the cold for another one, because FCC can’t keep up with their own timetable. Amazingly it is always us foolish customers who suffer most, though as we are without other options, what can we do?
Don’t even get me started on the ‘signalling faults’…nothing is more fun on a packed commuter train, than having to go back to where you came from due to these so-called ‘signalling faults’.
I travel to and from West Hampstead Thameslink to Herne Hill and barely a day goes by where there are not delays to the service, train cancellations, confusing messages and general chaos and discomfort. This morning, I was 30 mins late for work (on the day of my appraisal!) due to ‘electricity failure’ in the City Thameslink station area plus a ‘technical fault’ on my train (which was reduced to 4 carriages). When it eventually arrived, the train was packed and some people, who had been waiting 20 mins or more, could not board; they were told to take the Sevenoaks train (also delayed; allegedly arriving shortly) but this is no use to anyone travelling beyond Elephant and Castle! Not everyone works in the city. Like Liz Davies I have been chucked off (already delayed) trains in the past, as they have been diverted en route, leaving me stranded mid-journey and facing further long waits. It is a shambolic service that puts customers’ needs last. Certain trains (eg the Sevenoaks service at 8.52) appear to be cancelled day after day; nobody can rely on reaching their destination at a particular time, particularly if south of the City. If you have a train to catch from KX or a flight from Luton, you have to set off hours ahead of your real departure time, just to be on the safe side. The apologies come thick and fast over the tannoy system but they really count for nothing as we hear the same apologies and excuses time and time again.
I have just left St Albans station shaking with rage… and frankly on the verge of tears… I had to walk away before I said something that I might have regretted.
Just like every other night, I got off the train and made my way through the gates. As there are a few people backed up to get through the gates I went to the end where an inspector was checking tickets. I duly presented my weekly travel ticket and photocard to the attendent who gleefully (no exaggeration!!) told me that I was being fined £20 becauses I had not hand-written the code of my travel card onto the paper ticket that I buy each week.
To say I was shocked and upset is an understatement. Without fail, I buy my ticket each week for £74, and, without fail, the 7am train I get each morning is late and my return overcrowded and totally unpleasant. For this service I am then treated like a thief / fraudster and charged £20 for an oversight.
I understand the reasons behind it – to stop people from fraudulently using travel cards – but in the face of the overwhelming evidence of my photocard, my bank card matching the details on the ticket and about 8 months worth of old tickets in my travel card holder, there was no reasoning with the ticket inspector.
I could have just waited and gone through an unattended gate – they were not checking all tickets, just picking off decent, hard-working commuters. 1000′s of people must be walking around without the handwriten travel card number on their ticket about to be preyed on.
How much money do they already make from us and yet they still cannot manage to deliver a quality service! At the first opporunity they gleefully rub their hands together and rob their customers through scandalous and unfair fines.
When I asked the ticket inspector how much money they had collected this evening from these dispicable fines he replied ‘enough to pay my wages’.
I left as another man was being fined because his £3,500 annual ticket was slightly faded.
If First Capital Connect applied the same amount of rigour to delivering quality of service, that they do to collecting these unjust fines, then our commute would be worth the £1000′s we pay each year.
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