Rail passengers plan to fund review into Government handling of Southern Railway

Southern said it had put 119 trains back into its temporary weekday timetable, restoring the entire inner London metro service so that nearly all London Bridge peak trains are now running, and tripling the number of trains operating on the West London Line.

After pressure from Bexhill and Battle MP Huw Merriman and Hastings and Rye MP Amber Rudd, Southern have made a decision to put on buses during the 48-hour strike due to start tomorrow (Wednesday September 7).

Commuters are preparing to launch legal action against the Government over its handling of the troubled Southern rail franchise.

“Time is short and the situation is urgent – there is a strict time limit on launching Judicial Review claims – we need to act now and we need to act fast”.

Stephen Phipps, chair of the Reigate and Redhill and District Rail Users Association, a longstanding commuter action group, said the problems stemmed from “incompetence” at the Department for Transport rather than failings by Southern.

Group spokeswoman Summer Dean added: “We believe that the Government has been very quiet during this crisis and we are now ready to use the law to demand answers”.

On Thursday, the Government was accused of giving a taxpayer subsidy to Southern after announcing a £20m package to “get to grips” with delays and disruption which have plagued the company for months. Much of the money will go towards track and signalling repairs and upgrades which Southern says have been one of the root causes of disruption.

Mick Cash, the RMT leader, said: “The action goes ahead as planned”. RMT remains available for serious talks but [Southern’s parent company] Govia Thames Railway clearly have no interest in resolving the dispute and it is also clear that the Government are propping them up financially and politically.

“Just a fraction of these profits would be enough to keep the guards on Southern trains, keep the passengers safe and resolve the industrial dispute between RMT and the company”.

“The Government owns Southern but has outsourced the contract to Go-Ahead, a company who last week announced they’d met their strategic and financial targets for the year by making £100 million in profit”.

The petition said: “Southeastern consistently let down their paying customers, cancelling trains strategically so they don’t have to pay refunds, whilst making £12.8m in profit”.

“By endangering lives on a daily basis and failing to meet basic standards of service and reliability, we feel strongly that Southern Rail is operating far below its contractual and wider legal obligations; and it is now well beyond the point where a responsible government should step in”.

Mr Gibb said: “I look forward to helping the rail industry improve the passenger experience on the Southern network”.

Both Southeastern, which runs the majority of rail services across the county, and Southern, which operates trains from Ashford and Tonbridge, have come under fire in recent months for what passengers have described as a poor quality of service.