Southern Axes Catering?

[transmanche]

Yet both Chiltern Railways and c2c have significantly higher satisfaction rates than any of the GoVia franchises,

Yes they do, but they are smaller and much simpler operations that are pretty much standalone. And notably neither of them operate intensive metro services in London.

and Overground (who operate the most intensive commuter-style system of anyone in London, with some of the worst overcrowding) have satisfaction rates 15 percentage points higher than that of Southern.

Yes, I specifically noted LO and Merseyrail as operations that buck the trend. Notably they are both concessions, rather than franchises. I leave you to draw your own conclusions...

 

[HH]

Yes, I specifically noted LO and Merseyrail as operations that buck the trend. Notably they are both concessions, rather than franchises. I leave you to draw your own conclusions...

It's almost certainly more to do with the amount of money being spent on them rather than them being concessions. That's not to say that concession might not be the best model for urban transportation; I tend to think that it is.

 

[gtr driver]

before the london bridge fiasco Southern were doing a lot better in this field so its sort of irrelevant.
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Bread box annoys me. Those rolls all sitting in the open fridge all day, you can see the cheese has gone all hard and manky.

Oh I wouldn't eat from there! But the tea is proper tea, stewing in a pot which is rare as hen's teeth these days.

 

[Starmill]

I'm really not 100% sure about that.

I must admit in my own personal travel I only ever tend to buy coffee and chocolate from trolleys, and rarely anything else, not even often that. Soft drinks, water, food etc I always buy before boarding. I often like to deliberately break my journey up[1][2] once it goes over about 2 hours, so half an hour at a selected intermediate station allows a stock-up.

I quite like to be able to do that. If I'm traveling for more than 3 hours, I'll do my best to travel ing 'proper' First Class too, subject to non-laughable prices, so catering is provided.

If I'm travelling at short notice or First is too expensive, I might visit the shop, but usually only of I've no chance to get anything before boarding.
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This is true especially given the 2+2 layout as well. TBH if I were LM I'd just follow Chiltern's DMUs and get rid of it if they can't be bothered giving it valid in its own right (i.e. 2+1 seating, in which case I might well cough up for it more often, as that is the main reason I tend to upgrade)

The main reasons I'm willing to pay up to about £5 for LM First is for the socket, and just in case it's not got 2+2 in Standard. For my usual journey (Crewe or Stoke to London) the premium is mostly less than £2.50. Most of the time I'll pack myself lunch for that journey!

 

[tony6499]

Seems Rail Gourmet knew about the contract finishing 3 months ago, just nice that they didn't bother informing their staff until Tuesday

 

[PHILIPE]

Seems Rail Gourmet knew about the contract finishing 3 months ago, just nice that they didn't bother informing their staff until Tuesday

Typical private company doing an outsourcing job acting like Cowboys.

 

[HH]

I think that you're doing cowboys a disservice.

 

[theironroad]

This is an absolutely disgusting episode, rail gourmet should be ashamed at how it is treating its staff contracted to provide the southern trolleys.

While southern may not be the employer, I find it hard to fathom that southern were unaware that rail gourmet staff had not been told.

This reflects badly on southern and tarnishes the start of the new super franchise.

On a side note, it is interesting and reflective that more people on this thread are more concerned about the fact they won't receive their complimentary cheap cup of coffee in first class than the fact 70 low paid workers are being turfed out of a job at four days notice.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Rail Gourmet are complete cowboys. They had the wheeze a few years ago, on Stansted Express, of declaring their trolley staff to be self-employed, just to avoid these pesky rules about giving notice and paying the minimum wage. Nothing they do surprises me anymore.

The whole episode is disgusting, but the GoVia directors have to afford their third Ferrari somehow. Those boarding school fees for the kids dont pay themselves.

 

[northwichcat]

On a side note, it is interesting and reflective that more people on this thread are more concerned about the fact they won't receive their complimentary cheap cup of coffee in first class than the fact 70 low paid workers are being turfed out of a job at four days notice.

Are they freelance or contracted? If they are contracted their employer will have to continue paying them for their notice period (usually at least 4 weeks) and if they've been employed for over two years then they'll additionally have to pay them one week's pay for every year they've been employed for after that (up to 3 months.) So being told you've lost your job at short notice isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you can spend time looking for a new job and attending interviews during your notice period.

During the last government the Conservatives wanted to let employers opt out of that if they instead offered shares to employees instead but the Lib Dems refused to back it so it didn't get through.
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The whole episode is disgusting, but the GoVia directors have to afford their third Ferrari somehow. Those boarding school fees for the kids dont pay themselves.

I'm wondering if whether reverse Govia (Kelios having the 65% share instead of the 35% share) bidding for franchises will operate franchises less on a "try and save as much money as possible" basis.

Strangely it's looking increasingly like Arriva winning the next Northern franchise could finish up being the best option (given the alternatives are Govia and Abellio) when that was unthinkable not that long ago.

 

[455driver]

This is an absolutely disgusting episode, rail gourmet should be ashamed at how it is treating its staff contracted to provide the southern trolleys.

While southern may not be the employer, I find it hard to fathom that southern were unaware that rail gourmet staff had not been told.

This reflects badly on southern and tarnishes the start of the new super franchise.

On a side note, it is interesting and reflective that more people on this thread are more concerned about the fact they won't receive their complimentary cheap cup of coffee in first class than the fact 70 low paid workers are being turfed out of a job at four days notice.

Telling the staff has got bugger all to do with Southern, that is an internal matter at Rail Gourmet, in fact getting involved would probably lead to a Court case of some sort.

 

[Aictos]

Telling the staff has got bugger all to do with Southern, that is an internal matter at Rail Gourmet, in fact getting involved would probably lead to a Court case of some sort.

Indeed and it's not the first time Rail Gourmet have pulled this stunt either now is it!

Southern actually are helping the sacked staff find alternative employment which considering they're Rail Gourmet staff acting as contractors to Southern is quite good, if anything instead of people here with a chip on their shoulders about Govia ranting and raving they do know who they are, they should be pointing the finger of blame at Rail Gourmet who ought to have advise their staf months ago the contract was finishing in July.

 

[timbo58]

They were widely known as 'rail gormless' when I started on intercity as they ran the stores for a while post privatisation and were very often a complete shambles.

Quite clearly a company may have legitimate business reasons to not announce redundancies before they are quite sure they will have to make them, but one can be fairly certain 3 days isnt a fair representation of what a company which purports to care about the staff, regards as fair notice.

 

[sarahj]

I've heard, but can not confirm, the last time they closed a depot and gave 6 weeks notice, everyone left right away, leaving them with weeks to go and no staff to run the trollies. Perhaps this is a way to keep staff right until the end? After all if they do not provide a trolley when contracted to, they face penalty payments.

 

[HH]

I've heard, but can not confirm, the last time they closed a depot and gave 6 weeks notice, everyone left right away, leaving them with weeks to go and no staff to run the trollies. Perhaps this is a way to keep staff right until the end? After all if they do not provide a trolley when contracted to they face penalty payments.

Yes, that's almost certainly why they did it. Of course an alternative would be to pay a little "thank you" payment for those staying until the end...

 

[tony6499]

I hope the Rail Gourmet staff get jobs with Southern now, least they can do. It just shows what being a member of a strong union does for a person otherwise they would have been just left out in the cold

 

[Agent_c]

I've heard, but can not confirm, the last time they closed a depot and gave 6 weeks notice, everyone left right away, leaving them with weeks to go and no staff to run the trollies. Perhaps this is a way to keep staff right until the end? After all if they do not provide a trolley when contracted to, they face penalty payments.

Given that such actions would result in you being fired rather than being made redundant, it would be a foolish staff who did that.

I remember at O2, before they decided that Customer service was surplus to requirements, a couple of redundant staff left a couple of hours early on their last day.

They were marched back to work, informed that they were dismissed instead of redundant, and had their very generous settlement packages taken from them.

 

[Carlisle]

I hope the Rail Gourmet staff get jobs with Southern now, least they can do. It just shows what being a member of a strong union does for a person otherwise they would have been just left out in the cold

Sadly is there really much the union can do in cases like this other than express its displeasure as loudly as possible? If a company can easily both recruit and train new staff for a particular task in a very short period there's probably little incentive for anything other than merely to comply with employment law