This really is my last comment before I disappear for a fortnight.

I^m glad some of you find FGW^▸ (First Great Western) kinder to its passengers, and more flexible than SWT^▸ (South West Trains). That is exactly our experience. I have recently on two occasions seen FGW staff take no action against passengers with Advance tickets who had caught the wrong train. Two passengers who did the same thing on SWT were charged ^170 on top of their ^9 fares.

SWT, through its general attitude, does engender strong feelings. Passenger Focus called its 20% surcharge on morning off-peak returns to London an ^Abuse^ which would particularly hurt families (see RAIL). This applies from Southampton and Winchester, for example, but not from Basingstoke whence passengers have the choice of going to Paddington via FGW.

The latest personal attack against me on your website and speculation about how Hogrider started is frankly quaint. If you really want to know the truth, here it is:

BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) axed most of the Totton stops of the semi-fast off-peak Waterloo-Poole trains at a time when Totton was officially Britain^s fastest growing town.  Totton was seeing increasing number of London commuters and some people were very inconvenienced. Commuters may need to use off-peak trains on occasions for all sorts of reasons: medical, domestic, medical. At the request of some fellow commuters who knew I was interested in railways, I put together a (two-page) newsletter which I copied to them, to local MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) and Councillors, to the then RUCC^» (Rail Users Consultative Committee - about) and to the managing director of what is now SWT, Peter Field.

At first, Mr Field didn^t want to know, but he did eventually offer us a meeting at Southampton Central with himself and other senior managers. This broke the ice and led to a second meeting at which there was so much friendly discussion that one manager held the Totton train for a couple of minutes so that we could finish talking. Mr Field thought we should form a rail user group, as he saw such groups as playing a significant role in the future.

An immediate result of these contacts was a later service from Waterloo to Totton. Restoration of the axed off-peak Totton stops followed later.

We did not form a group immediately because of the time restraints on long-distance commuters. When we did, it was because we impressed Carlton as a well-knit, knowledgeable group that they wanted to do a programme about us. In the meantime,  I circulated more newsletters, which included updates on franchising. I copied in Brian Souter, who wrote to me on 9 January 1996 saying, ^Thank you for your letter and franchise newsletters of 8th December. I found the contents useful and informative and would appreciate if you would keep me on your mailing list.^

We expected that some kind of friendly relationship might continue:  ^We want responsiveness to passengers^ wishes. We want, in the railways, all the characteristics of the best of British industry. The Sainsburys of this world respond rather well to their customers^ changing demands without any help from the state, thank you very much. We want some of that responsiveness for the railway too^  [Dr Brian Mawhinney,  Secretary of State for Transport, in speech reproduced in DETR leaflet January 1995]


But Stagecoach doesn^t work like that:
^When we buy a business, we look at management structure, then administration, then engineering staff, and the last one we look at is the traffic. --- Once we have rationalised the network, we know exactly whether we are making money or losing it.^ [Barry Hinkley, former Stagecoach Director, quoted in ^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar].


^----there is a fundamental defensiveness about Stagecoach^s attitude to the press, borne of an arrogance and deep conviction that the company is right and everyone else is wrong.^ [^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]


Awarding the franchise to Stagecoach was really taking the fight to the enemy --- It was the most aggressive decision we could take, and if we had tried to dress privatisation in its most acceptable form, it would have been better to award it to almost anyone else.
[Steve Norris, transport minister, quoted in ^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]

 ^Thousands of commuters today faced delays and train cancellations as the decision to axe 71 drivers by one of the first rail companies to be privatised turned into a fiasco."  [Evening Standard 17/2/1997]

^We are going to be an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, late for work but there is not much I can do about it.^ [Commuter Brian Church, quoted in the Evening Standard 17/2/1997]


^The South^s watchdog, the Rail Users^ Consultative Committee, said customers were confused and angry.^
[Southern Daily Echo 18/2/97]


 ^It has not taken long for rail privatisation to come off the track. Barely a year after being handed a ^54 million subsidy to run South West Trains, Stagecoach is cancelling 39 trains per day and receiving no more than a light tap on the wrist from the regulator^
[Daily Telegraph, quoted in ^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]


^South West Trains have broken their privatisation pledges, leaving passengers cheated of the travel information and rail services they were promised a year ago.^ [Andrew Smith, Labour Party^s transport chief, quoted in the Evening Standard 17/2/1997]


^People have been ringing us feeling very confused and insecure. They still don^t know what^s going on.^
[Mike Hewitson, Secretary of the RUCC for Southern England, quoted in the Southern Daily Echo of 18/2/1997]

 ^We cannot be held to ransom over the needs of the present and the future by any company that fails to perform along the franchise grounds to which it signed up. The growing disenchantment of the operation of the franchise has only been added to by poor management and other decisions.^
[Councillor Mike Roberts, quoted in the Hampshire Chronicle o 21/2/97]


^We have the misfortune to live in the part of the country served by the worst single example of rail privatisation ^ South West Trains. Anybody who has travelled on the service recently will know that the whole system is in chaos, added to by South West Trains^ recent decision to scrap more than 190 of its services in a week. The problem arises through treating a public service as if it were just another marketing exercise.^
[Alan Whitehead, prospective Labour Parliamentary candidate for Southampton Test, quoted in the Southern Daily Echo, 8/3/97]


^After a few days of cutting services in a random way, which meant some much-used Portsmouth-Salisbury trains had been cancelled, prompting a host of complaints, Cox went to the franchising director, John O^Brien, to get his blessing for a programme of planned cancellations.  They agreed a plan by which SWT cut 39 trains per day, 2.6% of its 1,500 daily total, in addition to the 1% or so unplanned cancellations that result from route mishaps such as sick drivers or breakdowns. John Watts, the Transport Minister, could hardly contain his anger, calling Stagecoach^s management ^inept^.
[^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]


^SWT have until the end of April to convince me they are operating a proper service and will continue to do so. Otherwise they face a fine of a million pounds with the possibility of further sanctions, including franchise termination.^
[Franchising Director, John O^Brien, quoted in ^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]


^We in the Conservative party were very happy at the way rail privatisation was going ^ new investment, new ideas, new services. --- SWT instantly unwound all that. It was so obviously a grave error of judgement, so obviously to the disadvantage of passengers, and so clearly an act committed by a private company. It left a bad taste instantly in people^s mouths about SWT. Even now, the intelligent non-transport buff will remember SWT and it will take years to get SWT out of the political lexicon.^
[Steve Norris, quoted in ^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]

^A total of 28,000 complaints were lodged by passengers last year against the privatised South West Trains. That is more than 500 complaints a week and does not include the massive travel chaos in February and March this year after the company got rid of too many drivers to save cash and did not have enough left to run all the trains.^
[Evening Standard, 24/4/1997]

^Souter poured petrol on the fire by suggesting that some of his customers had nothing better to do than to write letters of complaint in office time and wondered whether their bosses knew they were doing this.  --- Cox did not help by saying that ^critics were fully paid-up members of the hindsight club.^
[^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]

I agree that Hogrider is robust. So is this:

^Souter was so ecstatic about his purchase of Porterbrook that soon after the deal, he regaled a bunch of railway bigwigs with the following ditty sung to the tune of the Teddy Bears^ Picnic, poking fun at Sir George Young, the Transport Secretary, who was based in Marsham Street in Westminster:
If you go down to Marsham Street, you^ll never believe your eyes;
If you go down to Marsham Street, you^re sure of a big surprise.
The Porterbrook sale was never expected,
Poor Sir George is feeling rejected,
And Mr Watts will never be re-elected.^
[^Stagecoach^ by Christian Woolmar]

Some five years later, Stephen Byers was threatening Stagecoach with loss of the SWT franchise for dreadful performance. So had SWT started listening to passengers? Hardly, they launched the powerful PR^▸ (Public Relations) document ^e-motion^ which included articles by the Passengers Panel, supposedly independent, though the articles were increasingly penned by Stagecoach Director Sir Alan Greengross, contained only the most anodyne criticisms, and used set phrases like ^SWT to their credit^.  One article even attacked MPs who spoke up on behalf of passengers. I note that the FGW version of the Passengers Panel actually gives contact details of local representatives. SWT is much too centrist and controlled for that. Hogrider at least collects the comments of many people. It may surprise you that state departments do watch for trends illustrated by ongoing anecdotal evidence. It^s a kind of free research.

SWT has been hugely profitable, so much so that Stagecoach is now in a mess because it overbid for the current franchise by hundreds of millions. So there is a sting in the tail just as there was after the first franchise award, for example the ^abuse^ of the 20% fare increases, the loss of travel centres (always very busy and great for disabled people) and reduced staffing at stations (despite all the hype about secure stations, and the additional station staffing which is a requirement of the new Southern franchise.)

I cannot get involved in a detailed argument at the present time as I am about to start a national rail tour to see what is going on around the country.

We are a well-recognised group that was established 16 years ago to campaign for better services and treatment of passengers in South Hampshire. We have had very positive relations with MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament), the rail industry (apart from Stagecoach), various other organisations, and members of the public, particularly regular SWT^▸ (South West Trains) commuters. We have had correspondence published in the local press, RAIL, the Times etc, and memoranda published in both the Transport Committee^s reports on franchising. We have been on TV and contributed to a number of radio programmes.

The response to our efforts has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly our commitment and the fact that we undertake wide-scale research rather than relying on off-the-cuff personal comments. Despite our attempts to improve things for local rail users, it appears that some anonymous members of your group decided to attack us behind our back, without any indication that you intended to invite us to respond. A concerned third party told us what was happening. By way of contrast, people like Barry Doe and SWT are well aware of our website and can respond if they choose. We would certainly publish their comments, whilst reserving the right to add our response. A very hostile letter from Stewart Palmer is copied in our latest newsletter.

Honing in on a single word like ^vitriolic^ hardly takes the argument forward. We are passionate about good customer service.  Can anyone deny that the kind of customer service recorded at the start of our latest newsletter is appalling? I would take a lot of convincing that people are not hugely irritated when booking offices, POs, shops etc are closed during opening hours except in emergencies. Our survey at Totton booking office was very useful to another organisation that had just been invited by the transport minister to submit evidence of non-compliance. Obviously he is not complacent.

I expect most of you will have heard Tony Ambrose, who has been equally forthright about the problems on FGW^▸ (First Great Western), for example at the 2007 and 2008 RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) seminars in the House of Commons. We applauded his efforts on behalf of FGW passengers on our website. We did not denigrate him as vitriolic, but we did condemn Tom Harris for his scathing put-down of Tony last year.

I^m not clear what is wrong with the Guardian. It is an award-winning quality newspaper. Using the term ^Guardian reader^ in a pejorative sense is no substitute for sound argument based on research. I actually worked on disability and carer issues for 12 years. Many older people can do all sorts of things provided they can go at their own pace. It is perfectly possible for someone who can cross a footbridge at slow speed to find that their pace makes a half-mile walk very arduous.   

I do accept that the more time people spend on SWT the more dissatisfied they are. Obviously it is possible to have satisfactory individual journeys, but regular commuters gradually experience a considerable range of problems. Passenger Focus^ statistics show much lower ratings among peak travellers.

Of course things will go wrong sometimes, but it is the attendant ^arrogance^  (Christian Wolmar^s choice of word in his book Stagecoach) which particularly upsets people. Brian Souter is famous for his words ^ethics are not irrelevant but some are incompatible with what we have to do because capitalism is based on greed^. ^Greed^ has a rather personal sense here as he and his sister own nearly a third of Stagecoach shares.  I was struck by the stark contrast between his words and those of Moir Lockhead at this year^s Passenger Focus conference, which revealed a considerable empathy with passengers and their needs. You will know better than us how far FGW actually practise empathy, but they are prepared to work with their stakeholders, which SWT are not ^ SWT just offer what people have confirmed as pure propaganda. 

Just one example of Stagecoach ethics: Stagecoach was about to be awarded a 20-year second contract on SWT when Mr Souter^s unwise business deals reduced the shares to 10p, and performance on SWT became so bad that they nearly lost the franchise altogether.

The SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) then bailed them out with another ^29m of taxpayers^ money for some very questionable improvements. One of these was for an extra evening train from Poole to Waterloo. The only stock available was the Poole portion of the busy 17.15 Waterloo-Weymouth. There was a turnaround time at Poole of only a few minutes. If the 17.15 was late, all stops from Southampton to Bournemouth were axed and scores of commuters left to await the next service. I have had people stranded at Southampton ring me to have a chat as they just wanted to give vent to their anger.  It all makes the petty greed of a few MPs, their duck islands and moat cleaning look comparatively insignificant.

Incidentally, just how many big conferences do members of your group attend, how much research do they do, how much background reading, and how often do they respond to consultations? I don^t imply any criticism in posing this question, but it would be interesting to know.

Our website brings together the many problems which SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s passengers experience, tests them against Stagecoach's expressed ethos, and looks for  patterns. It seems odd to suggest that the voices of large numbers of individuals complaining about poor treatment are somehow vitriolic. Are all the letters of complaint we collect individually vitriolic, or only collectively?

On the point about Southampton footbridge, the question is whether it's right to make elderly people take an unnecessary detour, whether one mile or half a mile. It can be socially exclusive where the elderly people are frail or disabled, and disability takes huge numbers of forms. If an elderly person states that a distance is longer than it actually is, it may well mean that the detour has been difficult for them. In addition, helping people take a shortcut through the station would show SWT in a very good light. I expect contributors are aware of the outcry about Sheffield station bridge since Stagecoach took over East Midlands.

Some of the staff on SWT are great, and some of them detest the way they are made to treat their customers - for example, locking doors on a 'connection' before departure time as passengers off a delayed train rush along the platform to catch it. At Woking I once saw a member of staff shoulder-butted in this situation. That was appalling, but common decency suggests that it was wrong to close the doors in the customer's face, although it was not the fault of the man on the front line.

As one of your contributors says, the delays etc on SWT can be horrendous. The capital letters simply make the frequency of the common operator problems more visual. Nobody is going to read through pages of  reports and ring the major problem types with a pencil.

Barry Doe is probably Britain's greatest fares expert. But he is hopelessly biased. When Stagecoach was bidding for the last franchise he e'mailed me saying how good SWT was and admitted he had been discussing with SWT management how they could get us on side. I think the answer is that deeds speak louder than words. Anyone read the SWT franchise prospectus 'Building on Success'?

It's always easier to attack other people's efforts to stand up for their fellow passengers than to stick one's head above the parapet and whistle-blow on lousy standards. It may be because MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament), Passenger Focus, the Campaign for Better Transport, the County Council, Arriva, First Group, Go Ahead, GNER^▸ (Great North Eastern Railways), Northern/Nedrail, Laing (and even their Swiss railway partners) and National Express realise this that their contacts with us have been very friendly.

 Enjoy your coffee, and all your trips to the PO, superstore etc when you find them closed during opening hours. Complacency doesn't breed good services. 

It^s great that you are giving publicity to the South Hampshire Rail Users^ Group, though I hope more contributors to your website will make the effort to read beyond the lead item in No. 122, as we try to cover the full range of issues which matter to SWT^▸ (South West Trains) passengers. No. 123 has just gone on-line.

If SWT were anything like FGW^▸ (First Great Western), our website would be very different. FGW hold a great stakeholder conference every year, at which we are represented. They listen to passengers and have taken steps to accommodate their aspirations, particularly on timetables. SWT consistently fob off their passengers ^ you need only look at the transcripts of the bi-annual^ webchat^ events on the SWT website to confirm this. Rail Future, the Kingston Area Travellers Association and the Alton Line Users Association have all had problems with SWT.

On 18 July last year, local MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) including a minister, conducted a protest at Southampton Central about ticket office opening hours. Rather than listening, SWT set up a distraction (more precisely, they put up a poster early that morning in the station foyer saying London Travel Card operators would be running a survey at the station that day and they would give ^2 for charity for every questionnaire completed).

The warning on our website about SWT^s aggressive penalty fares scheme was posted at the request of the official watchdog Passenger Focus. SWT^s leaflet makes clear that penalty fares will be issued in cases of people who inadvertently get the wrong kind of ticket. Yet SWT stated in response to a webchat question that it would need a book to explain their ticket machines fully. That is one of many reasons that we are in favour of ticket offices, though  Passenger Focus and the Campaign for Better Transport have put forward many other reasons.  I would strongly advise people not to board a SWT train and ask for a Rover!

PF^▸ (Penalty Fare) also confirmed that SWT published a figure of 61% of respondents to their on-line poll as satisfied that they had won another franchise term, without awaiting the result of the poll, which was showing 34% about the time it closed.

The new 2007 timetable between Southampton and Weymouth is very unpopular (see correspondence in past issues of RAIL). DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) officials were surprised by the huge service downgrade at Totton (a town of 30,000 with another 25,000 for whom Totton station is the natural railhead) and said it was due to adjustments to their specification by SWT and Network Rail.

The officials were so interested in our proposals that they agreed a meeting, saying something along those lines was likely to be discussed. The meeting was futile because SWT didn^t want to know and, by then, the franchise agreement had been signed off. SWT still blames DfT for the downgrade, but it^s ridiculous to suggest that the timetable specification was ever fixed in stone given the significant changes made on FGW.

You may be aware of the NO 450 Group formed in the Portsmouth area, after SWT put suburban stock on the 90-minute commuter run from Portsmouth to Waterloo. This attracted many hundreds of complaints. The trains arrived as part of a stock reshuffle to save hire costs. The class 442 Inter-City stock paid for by taxpayers for the long-distance Waterloo-Weymouth run was dumped by SWT and now serves short-haul runs between Brighton and Victoria, Go Ahead being prepared to meet the cost, unlike Stagecoach. Class 450 suburban trains often run through from Waterloo to Weymouth, a journey of over two and a half hours. 

Southampton is a major international transport hub and has 40,000 university students and a large Polish community, but SWT has closed its station enquiry office in succession to its bus station. 

Our view of the Stagecoach ethos reflects the picture set out in ^Stagecoach^ by Christian Wolmar, which was written with the collaboration of Stagecoach bosses, including Brian Souter. Mr Souter should know the kind of company he is running.

We have had very many positive responses from MPs across the SWT area who are as concerned as we are about some of the things that happen on SWT. We have links with a County Council website and the Campaign for Better Transport website, and are widely recognised by the press and broadcasting media. A few years ago Carlton were going to film a documentary about us, but SWT denied the cameramen access to their trains.

I expect you know that Stagecoach founders Brian Souter and Ann Gloag not long ago received ^250m in bonuses over a 2-year period. SWT is always keen on investment but little of it is their money. Coincidentally, SWT also published a figure of ^250m as the sum they had spent on Southampton Central at the time they were bidding for the latest franchise, but after we raised the issue they said it was really ^250,000. I got an e^mail saying ^ and ^ are close together on keyboards.

I hope this makes our position clearer.