COMMUTERS who use London’s Thameslink train services have described it as “inhumane” and “the worst service in the world”.
Last week, the Times Series asked to hear from commuters who have had bad experiences with Thameslink, which runs through Mill Hill and Hendon.
After Conservative councillors on the environment committee rejected a motion to improve the service, put forward by Labour Cllr Adam Langleben, hundreds of people contacted us in protest.
Clinical hypnotherapist, David Samson, uses the rail service twice a week and said something needs to change.
He told the Times series: “I call it Thames link roulette is what I call it, because you never know whether the train is going to arrive and when it does arrive, there’s only three or four carriages. I’m lucky I only use it twice a week.
“I have signed the petition to improve it. We have to do something about it, it is inhumane.”
People also took to social media to express their views of the rail service.
Davinia Crashy Bowman said: “The worst train service in the world. Delays, cancellations, overcrowding, short trains, breakdowns, lack of staff or rolling stock, affected by rainfall.
The Thameslink ‘service’ has not improved in decades.”
Richard Logue, who lives in Mill Hill, added management who are aware of the customer dissatisfaction “will not do anything about it”.
Thameslink train services was voted as the worst performing rail service in the country in a National Rail survey, when it came out bottom at 26.
London based author and poet J D Milaric took his frustrations out by writing a poem urging the rail service to improve its conditions for passengers.
He said: “My poem expresss my own, and doubtless many other people's views about Govia Thameslink Railways' awful performance in providing a train service to passengers.”
His poem titled ‘More of the C-word please’ reads:
At Thameslink you cannot be held responsible
For what our fluctuating weather will
Sometimes bring or other factors that
Can and often do impact
Upon your ability to run
All or even some
Of the schedule trains
But many factors are definitely within
Your control yet you have invariably been
Too slow or just unwilling to accept that you are
Responsible for the problems caused to every passenger
When trains arrive short of carriages
And they hear hackneyed excuses
As to why they are delayed
Or worse still, cancelled
What you can and should always do
Is prioritise and communicate with those who
Are the customers paying exorbitant fares to
Use your train services
Consider and
Communicate with
Customers
Continually
Do you C it now?
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