Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) Rebrand?

[Skimble19]

It's rather interesting to hear the experiences and views of staff working for Govia. The opinion of them doesn't seem to be any better as employers than that of their customers.

I think most of us are genuinely hoping that their financial troubles will persuade them to hand it back, although sadly I suspect it unlikely.. Things have certainly gone very very downhill since they took over, and it's only been just over a year! I hear "Bring back FCC" from the customers far too often

 

[WAB]

This franchise is only temporary. GN, TL and SN are not designed to be a single franchise for the long term, only to make the final stages of TL easier. Should all run to time then the next franchise will most likely see GN, TL & SN as 3 seperate franchises again. Infact the main reason FCC was created and broke up the WAGN was to aid thameslink extending services onto the GN.

So the new trains from GN to TL will be operated from a different TOC from the standard GN trains? :-?

Maybe someone should start a petition on the government website to bring back First Capital Connect

I never thought anyone would say that, EVER!

 

[A-driver]

So the new trains from GN to TL will be operated from a different TOC from the standard GN trains? :-?



I never thought anyone would say that, EVER!

It is one option being considered. The only reason FCC was formed as a franchise was to extend TL services to the GN. So the next franchise could be purely TL with the non TL services running on the GN (kings Lynn, Moorgate and additional kings x-Peterborough and Cambridge trains) being a desperate franchise.

Exactly the same that you used to be able to catch a southern trains from Brighton to London or an FCC Bedford bound train from Brighton to London.

 

[bramling]

It is one option being considered. The only reason FCC was formed as a franchise was to extend TL services to the GN. So the next franchise could be purely TL with the non TL services running on the GN (kings Lynn, Moorgate and additional kings x-Peterborough and Cambridge trains) being a desperate franchise.

Exactly the same that you used to be able to catch a southern trains from Brighton to London or an FCC Bedford bound train from Brighton to London.

The best period, reliability wise, was when the service was operated by WAGN, in the time between the West Anglia side being hived off, and before FCC took over. At that time you could set your watch by the trains, although FCC wasn't bad in terms of performance in my experience they weren't quite that good.

Perhaps an open access operator should lease some 365s and run a semi-fast hourly Cambridge and Pererborough to King's Cross service, capitalising on those who don't want to use the 700s.

 

[Barnabus]

At Southern we were told we would receive the same travel benefits as Great Northern/Thameslink staff and get a priv rate oyster card in September, we have heard nothing since.

Moral wise, well we are constantly reliant on overtime worse than ever before. Last March there was a week where nobody worked any overtime and the disruption was epic.

The PTAC cards are being held up by TfL so I am told.
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Presumably you get free travel on all GTR operated services? They surely can't deny staff travel on services operated by the same Company.

Yep, and on South Eastern, and London Midland. Which is nice.

To be fair GTR took over an already demoralised Southern workforce in some areas.

The changes to T&Cs haven't helped but a fair few of my team will be better off than they were (not me sadly), the money problem with GTR stems from the Franchise agreement primarily, the massive amount of change taking ages to finalise is demoralising people who just want to know what's going on. Most of my colleagues accept thing s will change, some for better, some for worse, they just want it to be done with rather than dragging on.