I don't disagree that some of the complaints are amazingly ill-informed but no-one put a gun to AGA's collective head and told them to run a railway. So I don't have much sympathy for them as a company.
Fair enough, but the logical answer is that nobody bids to run it. Given there are so many problems, no private company should get involved and leave it up to the DfT to sort. Even DOR is unlikely to have the ability to do anything different.
So, really, AGA is just a scapegoat and all the serial moaners are doing is blaming whoever is in charge. If Abellio goes, the hatred will move to the new operator - and the usefulness of these pressure groups (or user groups, commuter associations or whatever they'd like to be called) is effectively nil.
I am amazed that people would get the time (some FOUR hours?) to speak to Abellio executives and then go straight back to slagging them off at any opportunity and now seeking to grass up staff who, as far as I can see, could sit in first class if they so wished - as long as they give up their seats to anyone else that needs it (if first class was full).
I've seen staff on FCC give up seats, so it does happen. Surely having them in first class also means that, given FC is often near empty, it leaves more space in standard. Network Rail staff can be seen in first class sometimes (likely not managers given their clothing) and so can the police, and what's the problem?
I'm far more annoyed when standard class ticket holders upgrade themselves, or indeed people sit in first with no ticket at all. Yet I'm sure that many people would claim it's okay to sit in first if standard is remotely looking busy, and upgrade themselves out of principle.
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Would love to know how you think nationalising the line would make thinks miraculously brilliant again?
Me too. Given the main problems stem from the only bit of the railway you could class as nationalised!
Seems to me the best plan would be to do weekend closures to get the work done quickly, force through level crossing closures and get things done - and if anyone objects and puts a spanner in the works to stop the much needed work being done, direct commuters to those people instead.
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The DfT confirmed to me that they didn't make allowances for changes to travel habits brought about by technological advances such as remote working and video conferencing. The DfT's figures used to justify HS2 are highly flawed.
Don't worry, people will still be travelling just as much in the future as they do now. Some companies use video conferencing for international meetings, but most prefer face to face meetings because even now we can do 4K video streams if we so want, with audio quality that will make you swear you're all in the same room, it's just not the same.
Maybe we'll have VR meetings, where you can turn your head to see the person next to you, and be able to look at body language and have private conversations (all things you might do in a meeting) but I doubt that's going to go anywhere beyond gaming and, well, let's face it - porn.
We have high speed broadband now, and video calling has been around for years, and people still travel. In fact, they can probably travel more than they did before, so they can have conference calls (video or audio only) when on the move, or at other locations (e.g. sites).
I've worked in tech since the 1990s and I've given up writing about video conferencing as most people hate it. In my last job (working from home), we had regular Skype chats and it was never as good as face to face meetings and I can't imagine it ever will be.
