Going south

FOR months Jamie Rickers has regularly crammed like a sardine into his Southern Rail train from Sanderstead to London Victoria; for months delays have made him late for work; and for months he has questioned the value of paying £2,724 ($3,590) a year for a “shit” service. “The only way it would change,” he says, “is if everyone on this train turned around and said: ‘I’m not paying any more’.” Alas Mr Rickers, who checks his watch as the train crawls along, lacks the time to start a revolution.

Thus far public anger has mainly scorched Southern itself. Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), the company which controls Southern, has certainly made a mess of things. Just as guards went on strike in April over the introduction of driver-only trains, it cut back on employee benefits such as free travel for family members. Staff sickness rates promptly doubled and drivers stopped volunteering to work overtime on Sundays.

Cue meltdown. In July Southern withdrew 15% of its services until further notice. Protests broke out in Brighton. Police had to drag an irate passenger away from a “meet the manager” session in London. Those who did make it onto trains could while away the journey playing “Southern Rail Tycoon”, a facetious online game that rewards players for each service they cancel.

Behind the spoof lies a sense that the company is profiting from passengers’ misery. GTR has indeed failed to fulfil the terms of its £8.9 billion contract, which runs from 2014 to 2021. But it is hardly profiteering. In June its expected profit margin over the seven years was cut in half, to 1.5%.

Nor is it the only party at fault. Signalling failures and other snafus by Network Rail, which maintains most of Britain’s track, explained half the delays in June. “All roads [in this dispute] lead back to the Department for Transport [DfT],” says Stephen Joseph of the Campaign for Better Transport, a pressure group. The DfT is right to push for driver-only trains, given that underemployed guards help to make Britain’s railways much less efficient than many in Europe. But it was unwise to force the issue when huge infrastructure projects were under way. And its contract with GTR is too soft, allowing the company to rely on drivers working overtime and, worst of all, specifying only featherweight financial penalties for cancelling services. Amid the chaos the firm has had to cough up just £2m, or 0.02% of its contract fee.

Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, wants to nationalise the franchise; polls suggest most passengers do too. But upgrading the track and training more drivers—the main obstacles to a less awful service—will take just as long whoever runs the trains. More broadly, privatisation has been no disaster: since the process began in 1994, annual passenger journeys have increased by 130%, to 1.7 billion. Train operating companies were subsidised only until 2010; last year they paid £802m to the Treasury.

When the Southern franchise comes up for renewal in 2021, the government should stiffen fines and require more drivers. For now, it must hope that the track upgrades finish soon and ease congestion, before a passengers’ revolution begins.