First can I say thank you for responding to my earlier post asking for your questions. I am afraid that I didn't get any direct answers - to anything.
Unfortunately I arrived late, which was not a good start. I managed to talk to 2 managers.
Mike Gibson - Public Affairs Manager
Effectively blamed the the Government for our huge fare rises as increased public funding has been fixed. Poor service on Network rail because they don't make adequate resources available allowing them to run a proper timetable. He did manage to put his hands up to communication failures, however even then that was mitigated with Network rails 'complicated' information interface.
Kevin Goodman - Head of Service Performance Delivery.
He put the failures down to the weather forecast. They were not told about the significant snow until it arrived on the Tuesday. He admitted that Crisis command wasn't convened until Wednesday - too late once they realised everything had gone to hell. The emergency timetable took 24 hours to put into operation as stock wasn't in the right place until Thursday.
So in summery. I asked questions and I got flannel and spin in response.
Southeastern has performed poorly in managing the recent weather disruptions from the boardroom down to stock control. There seems to be no incentive for them to put the customer 1st and their corporate responsibility is to maximise their margins whilst doing the bare minimum to keep within franchise contract.
I think we can see now that the privatisation of the railways is ultimately a failure and how quickly the cracks in the system are getting exposed.
It came clear quite quickly that the meet the manager event was nothing but a PR event and that the managers were there for our opinions and not to give out any information contrary to the company line. For that you can get it from Southeastern’s letter to MP Bob Neill.
I can recommend anyone to go to these events. A great opportunity to let them know how you feel. But don't expect any sensible answers.
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