Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2020-02-04/commuters-quit-jobs-as-chaos-on-south-western-railway-becomes-too-much/

Pretty damning.

Includes an interview with Hopwood who frankly looks like he's in desperate need of a holiday himself, I suspect he wishes he'd stayed where he was!

I don’t think he had a lot of choice. If the boses at First HQ say you go over to SWR and sort the mess out then off you go.

I know it’s only an interim role but who would want to take it on? The SW mainline is creaking at the seams with NR at times struggling to keep it together. Barely a day goes by without something going wrong.

The question is will First still be running the GW lines in a few months time for Mark Hopwood to return as MD? I think they will as Dft have got enough issues with other failing franchises to deal with. Sure the GW isn’t without its problems, but is a model of railway perfection compared to many other lines at the moment.

Two franchises now under OLR with possibly one or two more to follow is damning on the franchise based system. And where is the much heralded Williams report whilst all this goes on? Are the government sitting on it?

To be released this month, I understand. Along with decisions on Direct Awards/management contracts for GWR & XC