Rail operator voted worst in the country by commuters

Twice a year commuters are quizzed about various aspects of rail travel for the National Rail Passenger Survey (NRPS).

And Thameslink, which runs the ‘stopper’ service from Bedfordshire to London and on to Brighton, came bottom of the poll, with just 75 per cent of commuters giving a rating of ‘satisfied’ or ‘good’.

A Govia Thameslink Railway spokesperson said: “We know punctuality was particularly poor at the time of this survey, making life difficult for our passengers and for this we apologise.

“Many of those delays were outside our control such as lorries hitting one particular low railway bridge in Tulse Hill no less than seven times, causing 125 cancellations and delaying trains by over 3,500 minutes.

“But we will redouble our efforts with Network Rail to improve punctuality, with Network Rail making track, signalling and other systems more dependable and GTR bringing in new, more reliable trains this spring and still more drivers.”

They added: “Increased passenger demand and essential improvement work at London Bridge has made any problems that do occur on the Brighton Main Line and Thameslink route up to four times more difficult to recover from, as there is simply less room for the huge number of trains we run every day.

“However, when this work is finished, our services will be transformed for passengers with greater connectivity and more capacity to, from and through the heart of London.”

Passengers were quizzed about their experience of all 26 train companies that operate across Britain.

East Midlands Trains, which also runs services from London to Luton and Bedford, and onto the Midlands and Yorkshire, got a better result from commuters, being placed as 15th for passenger satisfaction. However the number of customers who gave a rating of ‘satisfied’ or ‘good’ actually fell from 89 per cent in the same poll six months earlier to 84 per cent.

The survey also looked at individual aspects of passengers’ experience.

Thameslink were rated 24th out of 26 companies of value for money, 23rd for having enough rooms for passengers to sit or stand, 22nd for dealing with delays, and bottom of the poll for punctuality.