Southern Rail owner sparks fresh fury after admitting commuters still face almost two years of chaos

Southern rail commuters have been warned normal service won't resume until the end of 2018
Victoria Jones/PA

The owner of Southern Rail today angered commuters by admitting that a normal service may not be restored on the strike-ravaged network until the end of 2018.

Transport giant Go-Ahead Group, which owns two-thirds of the franchise alongside the French government, said: “We’re sorry” as chief executive David Brown conceded no end was in sight for the long industrial dispute and infrastructure work that have brought misery to Southern passengers.

Shares in the company plummeted 14 per cent on Go-Ahead’s warning that the continuing industrial unrest on Southern — last month named Britain’s worst rail service — could hit profits by as much as £15 million this year.

Mr Brown admitted progress was painfully slow and told the Standard: “We’re still discussing issues from June last year. Every timetable change means working through what that means in cost terms.”

Business groups were outraged that commuters could face almost two more years of disruption. Tim Cobb, president of the Eastbourne Chamber of Commerce said: “This is clearly very, very bad news for the long suffering, distressed commuters of south of England. I had hoped that the fall in the share price of Go Ahead today would give management the impetus to sort this out but it is clearly not top of their agenda. Every day I hear more stories of people just giving up on London.”

But Mr Brown insisted he could “guarantee that by the end of 2018 — when London Bridge infrastructure is finished and the last timetable change is in place — the major issues should be resolved and people will have a much better service. But it’s still dependent on good industrial relations.

“Until then, we do believe we can improve things: over the past few weeks, we have operated a decent service with fewer than 20 trains cancelled per day, out of 2,500, which is down from 600 daily cancellations at the height of the industrial issues.”

Southern commuters are braced for continued travel misery 
Jeremy Selwyn

Southern, used by 300,000 passengers a day in Sussex, Surrey and south London, has been hit by 29 days of strike by the RMT and Aslef unions over the past year including a total three-day shutdown in December. The RMT has called for urgent talks ahead of a meeting to discuss further strikes.

Mr Brown said Go-Ahead was in discussions with the Government about recouping expenses it has had to pay due to the Southern disruption.

He said: “A lot of this industrial action has been beyond our control, but involved an awful lot of costs for us. We need to be recompensed for them. On some issues the Government will agree with us, on some it won’t.”

Mr Brown — recently the subject of “wanted” posters of the “dirty half dozen Great Train Robbers” blamed by commuters for Southern’s continuing strikes — ruled out handing the franchise back to the Government.

“It can only get better,” he said. “Some of the infrastructure changes are coming good, we’re getting more trains in, and hopefully we can resolve the industrial relations issues. But I appreciate that if you’re a passenger waiting for your train, you’re not happy with that.”

Mr Brown said: “Our customers have suffered months of disrupted travel, impacting work and family lives and we are sorry that such inconvenience and hardship has been caused.”

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