The real reason Southern Rail services have imploded

“The thing is, I don’t believe this stuff about staff shortages.”

That is what I said, and it doesn’t sound like a magic phrase, but it was as if I had said ‘open sesame’. I had gone to a different station to usual, and the conversation with the member of the station staff went like this.

I had asked why there were no trains on their running timetable to London. It was odd, even by the low standards of Southern Rail, to have them take the trains they couldn’t run off the timetable altogether. Usually, they just mark them as having been cancelled.

“Well,” she said. “It’s still the problem with staff shortages.”

It was then that I finally expressed my disbelief. It wasn’t until I said it that I realised how very little I did believe in the train company’s standard excuse. I mean, only few weeks ago, Southern Rail was claiming it was unprecedented sickness amongst the train crew. Now they appeared to be saying the train crew didn’t exist at all.

And in any case, why should any competent company experience a sudden, prolonged and catastrophic staff shortage, immediately after the short train strike in April, that prevents them from running a large chunk of the trains they are contracted to run?

“You’re right,” she said. “It isn’t true.”

“So what is the truth?” I said hopefully.

“I can’t tell you that because I would be sacked.”

I had to question a number of other staff members to find out – and I had the chance to see a number of them yesterday because it was such a struggle getting to London (there are supposed to be two direct trains every hour).

The answer, it appears, is that the company has banned the railway staff involved in the two-day strike from doing overtime, to stop them clawing back their lost money.

The trouble is that their roster system relies on overtime. Without overtime, they can’t run the train service that people rely on. The result, as anyone unfortunate enough to live on the south coast at the moment, has been absolute chaos – a wholly unreliable service which at weekends becomes dangerously overcrowded. Sarah had to climb over a table to get off the train late on Sunday night because it was so full of passengers who had been let down time and time again by cancelled trains.

Now, there are a number of peculiar things about this, and they follow on from the central implication. Southern Rail is a private company (part of Govia Thameslink Railway) that are knowingly messing their passengers about, deeply inconveniencing their lives and meetings, in order to punish their own staff. In other words, they are doing it by choice.

Of course, we may not believe that story either. I'm sure there are other reasons why the company is not allowing overtime. I can't pretend I know what they are and they are certainly not saying.

What does ring true is that they could run a service – my information is that the depots are full of train crews who are not being allowed out to do their jobs – but they have decided their passengers can be inconvenienced in order to teach staff a lesson.

Here are the odd things.

First, because this is not London, the media have not ferreted out the truth and put it on their front pages, and asked why the company directors are drawing down government subsidies (£8.9bn over seven years) while they are failing to provide the contracted service. There appear to be no journalists capable or empowered to turn up at the depot and see for themselves.

Second, there have been no questions in Parliament. My own MP Nick Herbert has made a statement and had meetings with the Department of Transport, as he explained yesterday. But then he still believes the staff shortages yarn.

Third, why is Southern Rail not afraid of losing their franchise? Does the regulator know and approve of this punishment or do they not? If they don't know, should they not investigate? If they do know, are there any circumstances, short of outright criminality, where a private contractor can have the quality clauses invoked to lose their franchise?

Is there no level of incompetence where the regulator will step in and act in defence of the customers?

Because if so, that isn’t what privatisation was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about providing a competitive market, to force utilities to be sensitive to the needs of customers – the precise opposite of what has happened with Southern Rail.

Because it isn’t clear to me what the difference is between a featherbedded public monopoly and a featherbedded private monopoly – clearly there are no competitive or regulatory pressures on Govia Thameslink/Southern Railway. It is even conceiveable that the senior management of GTR don't know either.

I have no theoretical problem with privatisation. Quite the reverse, as long as the operator is transparent and accountable. I believe in shaking up services so that they do what they claim to. But this regime has allowed a wholly indefensible feather-bedding that allows one company to make a point to its staff – forcing them into an overtime drought that is mainly suffered by their customers.

A kind of industrial action in reverse. Once again, it is those who depend on the service who get it in the neck.

If that isn’t a scandal that ought to be handed over to John Humphreys, I don’t know what is.

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