After slow improvements in the service over the last year, the introduction of the new timetable for Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) services on 20 May has been a fiasco.
Many Thameslink and Southern Rail trains have been cancelled or removed and there is now a revised cut-down timetable. Despite the fact that the new timetable has been long-planned, GTR as failed to provide enough drivers on the new routes.
This reinforces my long-standing view that GTR should lose the franchise, which I have put to the Transport Secretary in the House of Commons.
GTR’s Chief Executive, Charles Horton, has resigned, but I am pushing for the whole franchise to be taken away from GTR due to their serial incompetence.