First Capital Connect : London Pride

The BBC reports on a sale of posters from "The Golden Age of Railways". The one featured above caught my eye. This poster was issued by the Great Western Railway to promote travel to London. Featured in the picture is the River Thames and The Houses of Parliament. The modern day successor to GWR is First Great Western, owned by the same company which operates the Thameslink franchise. First Capital Connect has established a reputation as the worst train operating company in Britain. So first off (pardon the pun) lets see what todays commute on this awful railway brings? This was on their website (clearly not updated from yesterday)

Customer information - updated: Wednesday 3 March 2010, 13:45

From approximately 12.25pm all trains will begin calling again at London Bridge following the earlier line-side fire. Delays of around 15 minutes should still be expected and First Capital Connect tickets will continue to be accepted on local bus and Tube services to/from London Bridge.

As this blog previously established, the FCC route is particularly prone to fires due to electricity supply problems. Not exactly reassuring when you are stuck in a tunnel at Farringdon. The route has seen a proliferation of ANTI FCC websites (see the sidebar) spring up. These have allowed commuters to get organised and vent their spleen. Yesterday the Daily Telegraph reported that rail operators are failing to provide the required number of seats set out in their contracts. Do passengers who have to stand due to the company failing to meet their contractual obligations get anything off their ticket? Of course not. The only beneficiaries are the directors and shareholders of the operating companies who make massive profits. It will come as no surprise that FCC are one of these companies operating a shoddy service.

So what can be done. Well as the poster above shows the Houses of Parliament, let me urge anyone who hasn't signed the No 10 Petition to strip FCC of the Thameslink franchise to do so now. we only need another 215 signatures to reach 6,000. This landmark will allow us to remind the powers that be that the problems haven't gone away.

When was the last time that you felt "London Pride" travalling on a train operated by First Group PLC? Many of us see the River Thames from our train in the morning/evening. I'm a very proud Londoner and I passionately believe that London deserves a better service than that provided by First Group. They've had their chance, sack 'em.