Worst Crapital Disconnect

I am sure that by now most interested people are aware that this year First Group will receive a subsidy of approximately £140m from the Government (i.e. us). This is due to clauses in their franchise contracts that mean the Government (i.e. us) cover up to 80 per cent in any shortfalls in anticipated revenue. This is across all rail lines currently operated by First Group. (See here for the Guardian story.)

Now, I must at this point declare an interest. I am a regular commuter on the Thameslink line of First Capital Connect, so have been subject to the recent cancellations, delays and disruption on that line. It is therefore clear that on this topic, I might have an axe to grind.

I find it absolutely horrendous that we are still passing on government (i.e. our) money to this organisation, despite an inferior level of service and massive disruptions over the past two months. It is saying a lot that since they took over the service in early 2007, it has gotten worse. The old Thameslink franchise holder was not perfect by any means but the current lot make them look like operators par excellence.

All of this is against a background of increased fares too. My season ticket last year increased from £345.60 to £374.40, a rise of 8.3 per cent. This was against average increases (because the TOCs are allowed to aggregate the rises!) of 6 per cent. To be fair to FCC, they have said fares will either remain the same or fall in 2010 (here.)

And finally, we get to the current problems. On Thameslink, First Group have been operating on the assumption that they can rely on the goodwill of their drivers to work overtime and on their rest days to run the level of service they propose. This has recently been exposed as a sham, as drivers have refused and FCC have been forced to decimate their services.

In this instance, I do have a lot of sympathy for the drivers. Management are to blame for this, not having trained up more drivers, knowing (or at least I hope they knew) that something like this could happen, owing to current staffing levels. Perhaps they could have put some of the £51m profit they made in 2008 towards hiring and training more drivers?!

So, in short, I hope the government (i.e. us) finds some way to punish First Group for their incompetence and recoup some of the millions they (i.e. we) are chucking down their gullet. God knows we commuters, who have very little choice when it comes to how we get to work, are paying too high a price at the moment.