Thank you for contacting me about Southern Rail. I thought I would provide you with an update as to what I have been doing to address the number of issues residents have written into me about regarding Southern Rail.
On Saturday 13 March 2016, I joined over a hundred demonstrators brought together at Shoreham station by the Shoreham Society to protest at the continued closure of the pedestrian underpass forcing constituents to endure the long delays at the level crossing experienced by drivers. I have been working with the Shoreham Society to put pressure on Southern and Network Rail to move this ahead for the last few years and the recent tragic death of a 20 year old local man at the crossing has reinforced the seriousness of getting something done.
The following Monday, I joined the CEO of GTR Charles Horton on a visit to the Control Centre at Three Bridges jointly run by GTR and Network Rail where they handle all the movements of local trains and deal with delays caused by faults on the track, rolling stock breaking down, staffing problems etc. On the morning I visited there had been a major incident with a signalling fault and they were desperately trying to reconfigure the service to catch-up. I had also been alerted by a constituent earlier that morning to a train which had been cancelled only to be seen 4 minutes later speeding through Shoreham station and I asked for more information on this where it was clear they had misled passengers which only adds to cynicism about why there are so many problems on the service. I then joined Charles Horton in the cab of a train to travel up to Victoria, arriving only ten minutes late.
On 16 March 2016, I joined other Sussex MPs at another debate on the state of the local service following on from the summit held with GTR, Network Rail, the Rail Minister and others back in January. There were no real new arguments only increased frustration with the amount of delay in getting a better service. You can read the full Hansard of the debate here http://goo.gl/DYDcJ8.
On 17 March 2016, I held a public meeting at a packed Council Chamber in the Shoreham Centre where representatives from both Network Rail and GTR took a string of lively questions from the audience. I am grateful to all those constituents who came along and especially to those 2,345 who signed my petition online in opposition to the ticket office closure proposals which I passed on to Southern along with a lot of individual letters and another petition from Lancing organised by councillors Carol Albury and Ann Bridges. The proposals are now subject to scrutiny by Transport Focus and ultimately the Department of Transport. I will update my website when we have further developments.
The overwhelming issue from the meeting was the practice of ‘skipped stopping’ and I have had lots of examples of how this is affecting people trying to get to jobs or students missing lessons etc. It would be useful to have a greater explanation of exactly how often this is happening and whether there are some stations which are being skipped disproportionately on our stretch of the line. I used the example of the allegedly cancelled train on the morning I came in which turned out to be running but which missed out several stations to make up time after a delay caused by the driver at Littlehampton. The key issue from this is that GTR need to be much more honest and transparent with passengers and failure to do so has resulted in a loss of trust. Given the progress they have made on communication through real time social media this is a major downside.
Not surprisingly there was very substantial opposition to the closure of ticket offices and I gather that the unions have attempted to scupper this so if it goes ahead it will be cause great antagonism. There were particular concerns from disability groups represented at the meeting and especially from partially sighted people who really need more help. I am afraid that nobody believed that fewer than 30% of tickets at Shoreham are sold through the ticket office and again people asked for the evidence from data collection which I asked for at previous meetings and which I still have not received. The refund system is bureaucratic and compacted and of course the refund vouchers cannot be used in the machines
There was substantial criticism of the fact that the old fashioned 313 services have been extended along the Brighton-Portsmouth line where there are no loos and where a lot of room is also taken up by people taking on bikes. There were several instances of dangerously crowded trains. There were serious complaints from one constituent at the meeting about the shortfalls in the electronic key system where he appears to be paying well over the odds for his journey. I was promised a response from the GTR representatives to many of the questions raised and again I will post them on my website when I have them and highlight them in future newsletters.
I have recorded a podcast on the meeting which you can see on my website here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilOd6UHrr5U.