Bosses of UK's worst-performing railway paid themselves millions on bonuses

Rail bosses have paid themselves millions of pounds in bonuses - while presiding over the UK's worst-performing railway.
ThameslinkThameslink
Thameslink

The bosses of Go-Ahead, which owns Govia Thameslink Railway, have paid themselves and shareholders huge sums and bonuses despite providing the least punctual train service in Britain.

This includes £2.16million to Go-Ahead Group’s chief executive David Brown between July 2014 and June 2015, with the majority of this comprised of bonus payments.

Mick Cash, general secretary of trade union the RMT, described the huge payments as “money for old rope”.

He said: “It is truly shocking that part of the bonuses paid by the British passenger to the bosses of GTR is down to their ‘successful mobilisation’ of the current franchise.

“Commuters paying up to £5,000 a year for these failing service will be rightly furious. These bonuses are truly money for old rope.

“RMT has revealed that Thameslink are already being allowed to increase cancellations by a third, to 32,000, under its new contract with the government. Now we find that the top brass at this basket-case franchise are on a one way ticket to the bank as well.

“This situation is a national disgrace and on Wednesday RMT will be at the company headquarters in central London demanding an end to the attack on the guards, safety and other frontline staff and the ending of the GTR debacle.”

Figures released by Network Rail, which oversees the UK’s rail network, show that one in five Thameslink services failed to arrive on time over the past 12 months (19.3 per cent).

Thameslink runs the ‘stopper’ service from Bedford and Luton, via London, to Brighton.

Go-Ahead declined to comment.