Even so I know FCC operates the trains and they constantly let me down in important ways.
I commute daily between Redhill and City Thameslink and in essence I am required to use their services as its a 25 minute walk to London Bridge from my office and I've no idea how far Victoria is. There are a few through trains which I try to use but particularly in the evening I have to use East Croydon to change to Southern services.
Last week I had one train out 10 on time at City Thameslink or East Croydon/Redhill. The journey which can take 36 minutes on a direct train never actually happened in less than 1 hour.
Most of the issues are Network Rails fault but not all.
Why is the Southbound service in the Rush hour reduced from the off-peak train every 15 minutes to train every 30 minutes? Example here was Thursday night, I mistimed my walk from the office as someone stopped me on the way out, result 25 minutes standing on the platforms at City Thameslink! That's FCC decision to reduce train in the peak not network rail!!
On Tuesday the morning direct was formed of 4 coaches as a unit failed on the way to Brighton to form the service. The units are used far too intensively and any mess up there is no reserve. Result standing in a cattle truck all the way to work for 1 hour 40 minutes as the route was lost due to the effort trying to get all the passengers on at Redhill (took 10 minutes as no real alternative trains for the passengers). FCC could make proposals like Southern to buy extra stock - even if it just for Southern, South Eastern or LM to release there stock that can be converted to dual use (plenty of stock with pantograph wells!!). Or when reducing train lengths offer passengers to use the tube that morning - all reasonable routes. They don't even do that when the core is blocked - you can use Southern trains but not tubes and buses - so that's 20-25 minute walk to London Bridge then or pay for your alternative route.
FCC is managed so badly that is no wonder that passengers blame them when signals go down because everything else is rubbish.
But FCC can't justify getting new rolling stock more than it got. It's already take all the 319's back and the entire 377/5 fleet straight from new. Anything else is a no go as the new trains FCC are getting are tied up with the Thameslink Programme. Other than striping Southern of more 377/2 (and likely nicking some 350/1 from LM to back fill) there is no stock that is cleared to run a Thameslink service. In fact no dual voltage stock that can run on TL. The 375/6 are not usable. Opinion has already been looked into and rejected for a number of reasons.
You cannot use an AC or DC stock as the time penalty to reverse a unit in the Core in peak would mean you'd lose at least one other service but likely two which is pointless.
The other big problem with new rolling stock is the fact that the first new train should have been delivered to FCC by now for testing and two would have been in service by next summer. Due to the delays you've ended up with no trains order when they should be completed. This means any additional units cannot be justified for the short period sadly.
The other problem you have is the extremely limited berthing spots south of London. This is worse at the weekend where a unit failure any time after 22:00 Friday means it cannot be properly looked at until after 05:00 Monday. I can't remember the figure for how many units but there is some like 4x 377 and about 10x 319 on the south side at weekends giving very few units and no actual spares if something goes wrong. The new Three Bridges depot will sort this out and give Thameslink trains somewhere they can be looked after properly. But again it's more waiting. Least this will arrive before the new trains!
As for the less trains in peak, this more down to pathing through South London to access the Brighton Main Line. fact is we can't go via London Bridge due to the well known issues there. The route we take via Crystal Palace is packed as it is and regularly sees our trains delayed by up to 15mins daily. This will become a bigger issue once we start routing every train via Crystal Palace for five years come 2013.
Basically the line,intrastructure and set up is not right to run the railway that needed now let alone in the future. That's why they are spending better part of £6bn upgrading the route. 2018 just can't come soon enough.
