Comments on: Weak Government response to FCC petition

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:08:43 +0000

i couldn’t believe it when i got the email yesterday. as ian says, surely a timetable which only offered 50% of service and then wasn’t delivered can only be a franchise fail.
it did make me think of setting up my own train operating company – i have a fag packet that i can write my business plan on the back of and it doesn’t look like i’d need worry about anything when it all goes wrong.
it’ll be interesting to see if all the MPs that now have to commute rather than being able to stay in their taxpayer funded Westminster party pads might bring a difference to the Government point of view once they’ve endured an FCC journey or two.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:53:28 +0000

Can anyone provide a copy of the Franchise Agreement? As far as I am concerned offering a 50% service with a 100% full fare cannot be acceptable.

The statement also states ” FCC is recruiting additional drivers to lessen reliance on drivers volunteering to work overtime and rest days.”. How can this be so? In 2008 FCC claimed to have 700 drivers

Source: http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk/Main.php?sEvent=News&sFileName=News.php&iId=117

Now they have 558 with an additional 46 drivers by 2011.

Source: http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk/Main.php?iCmsPageId=559

FCC has not taken into account retirements nor drivers seeking employment elsewhere.

Its been over a week now and FCC are refusing to comment to the 142 driver short fall in less that 2 years!!!!! So much for FCC MDNeal Lawson and his obsession of customer feedback.
http://www.railpro.co.uk/magazine/?idArticles=243

By: Peter S

Peter S — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:57:28 +0000

Looks like we have to wait till 2015, another petition to ensure First never get another Franchise again? I hope they give the franchise to TfL when it expires.

By: Bernie Corbett

Bernie Corbett — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:04:54 +0000

For about two months FCC had to operate an emergency timetable with many services cancelled and considerable disruption and unpredictability to those that remained. For days on end the Wimbledon-Sutton loop did not function at all. To add insult to injury FCC was unable to cope with the snowy weather. We are entitled to ask: just what level of disruption would be “unacceptable”? Bernie Corbett, West Norwood.

By: davidjwbailey

davidjwbailey — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:44:38 +0000

Predictable. FCC Management made three shocking errors:

1 – relying on undocumented overtime to cover shifts while cutting costs and reducing headcount

2 – not planning for the training needs of the new trains and the impact on driver time

3 – not predicting the utterly predictable S.o.Bs at the Unions would (of course!) strike while they were vulnerable because of 1 and 2

Those are management failures.

The service remains barely acceptable 80% of the time, and FCC are still only running partial services, under coached, late, disrupted and dangerously overcrowded.

Yet still we have regional plans to build 100,000+ homes in Beds and Herts (including Wixhams) which will strain the already poor service to breaking point.

Only central government can fix this. They have to step back in, and soon