First Crapital Connect - Everything that's wrong with Great Britain today

The Tragedy of Thameslink

There are many things I love about living in Mill Hill. One of the less fantastic aspects is the fact that the rail service many of us rely on is run by a company which doesn't seem to know what it's doing. In the "bad old days" of British rail, there were 8 trains per hour to London during rush hour. Four of these were fast and the journey time was approx 10 minutes. The then Conservative government had a brilliant idea. They'd privatise the railways. At least when Maggie Thatcher privatised things she gave people the chance to earn a few bob out of the process by selling the shares to the general public at a discount, so those of us with a bit of spare cash could make a few bob. The rail privatisation didn't even gig such a nod to the owners (ie us). Assets were virtually given away. As a result we got Thameslink. The company operating this services, Govia, did a lousy job. As a result season ticket holders at Mill Hill, used to get a big discount. When the franchise was up, we all breathed a sigh of relief. A new company took over. Thameslink became First Capital Connect. The first thing they did was get rid of the automatic discount for season ticket holders. Now if your train is late, you have to apply for a refund. As this is far too much hassle for most people, they've made a fortune in savings.

They've also brought in penalty fares. Again they are making a fortune on these, because people who don't travel regularly get caught out time an again at Mill Hill because although you can get on a train at many stations with your Pay as you go Oyster card, when you get off you can't use it. As such you either get the full monty for not touching out, or you get caught by inspectors and handed a £20 penalty fare. In other words you get scammed.

They've now found a new way to make your life miserable. I just read this report on the BBC which says they can't even find enough drivers to run a Sunday service on part of the route. Does the managing director of First, Moir Lockhead get fined a penalty fare for every passenger left stranded?


As to it's performance. In February this year, nearly 1 in 4 trains was late (5 or minutes late) and in July more than 1 in 10 was late. What is quite stunning was the fact that whilst I was researching this blog, I discovered that they HAD TO BORROW trains to run their timetable earlier in the year !

Now I don't claim to know anything about running a railway, but come on, if you publish a timetable you should know how many trains you need.

Back to my original point. In the "bad old days" of British Rail, we had 8 trains an hour from Mill Hill at rush hour. How many do we have now - 5. Has the cost of travel got cheaper? Nope, it's gone up in real terms. Is there less overcrowding? Nope, it's got worse. Is it easier to get to? It used to take 3 minutes to walk from Kings Cross Thameslink to the tube. It now takes nearly 10 minutes. The hours at the ticket office have been cut. So you undeniably pay more and get less. Who has benefitted from this awful company running the operation?

I had a look at Moir Lockhead's executive profile. I found that his renumeration package was as follows :-
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ANNUAL COMPENSATION*

Salary	£609,000
Bonus	£160,000
Total Annual Compensation	£769,000

STOCK OPTIONS*

All Other Compensation	£33,000
Exercisable Options	735,853
Exercisable Values	£185,979
Unexercisable Options	297,107
Unexercisable Values	£779,906
Total Value of Options	£965,885
Total Number of Options	1,032,960

TOTAL COMPENSATION*

Total Annual Cash Compensation	£769,000
Total Short Term Compensation	£769,000
Other Long Term Compensation	£33,000
Total Calculated Compensation	£802,000

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I like the way it calls his earnings COMPENSATION. I always thought compensation was what you got from a company that provides a crap service. It seems like the only person who gets proper compensation from First Capital Connect for it's tawdry service is the bloke who runs it. If you want to know what's wrong with Great Britain today, can there be a finer example.