The Astonishing History of South West Trains under Stagecoach

Welcome to this evidence-based history from the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group of a rail franchise born of political dogma and driven by operator greed. It has been updated to 30.9.2015. The italicised sections are illustrative or fill in detail, and may be omitted for a quicker read.

The paper records, through the voices and observations of many, including Ministers and other Members of Parliament, how ethically-limited Stagecoach, with its founders as major shareholders, quickly undermined performance and expunged quality through stripping assets; abruptly dismissed critics in terms which avoided the truth; gained a second franchise, at huge expense to taxpayers, to clear up the mess it had created, delaying investment in capacity for a decade; and then gained a third franchise by offering an unrealistic premium; reduced or removed every remaining vestige of quality; and further boosted profits by wrong-footing and intimidating honest members of the public at every opportunity.

In recent times Stagecoach has profited handsomely from a challenge against government over its SWT contract, and a challenge by its partner Virgin over the West Coast franchise. However, its fortunes may be changing. It has lost the opportunity of a two-year extension of the third SWT franchise to 2019 through refusing to commit to quality improvements, despite failing to operate anything like the committed timetable on a daily basis.

The first SWT franchise

Bad omens

Stagecoach had started as a small bus company. Its expansionary activities involved driving out existing operators by running its own buses just ahead of their established services. Following the demise of the Darlington Bus Company in 1994, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission described Stagecoach’s behaviour as “deplorable, predatory and against the public interest”.1

This had no salutary effect on Stagecoach co-founder Brian Souter, who is on record as saying that, “ethics are not irrelevant but some are incompatible with what we have to do, because capitalism is based on greed.”2 Years later, SWT literature boasted that Mr Souter was, “The tough Scots bruiser who came to dominate the UK’s bus industry by ruthlessly driving rivals off the road”.3

Stagecoach first got out of the red by acquiring Hampshire Bus and selling the less-profitable Southampton area bus operation, including disposal of the city’s bus station for commercial development. This brought them £4.4 million, twice the amount they had paid for the whole company.4 Southampton's 253,000 residents are left with an unattractively disjointed range of bus services, operated by four companies and departing from different points in the centre.

Stagecoach was effectively branded a cowboy company when, on public interest grounds, it was refused a High Court injunction against the screening of the World in Action’s programme ‘Cowboy Country’ which, on 1.7.1996, exposed its contemptible business practices to a wide audience. Almost two decades later, governments have failed to match the judiciary's insight. It appears that once a franchise is let, an ethically-limited operator can continually out-manoeuvre both the Department for Transport and the passengers and other taxpayers whom the Department should be representing.

Conservatives admit franchising dogma

Stagecoach won the SWT franchise from February 1996 by undercutting the incumbent BR management’s bid by just £200,000. The award launched rail franchising in Britain, with a settlement of £350 million over 7 years which financial commentators considered particularly generous.

Steven Norris, a former Conservative Transport Minister, later admitted that the award to Stagecoach suited his party's dogma: “Awarding the franchise to Stagecoach was really taking the fight to the enemy… It was the most aggressive decision we could take, and if we had tried to dress privatisation in ts most acceptable form, it would have been better to award it to almost anyone else.”5

Start of profiteering

The Conservatives soon came to realise their folly. Stagecoach sought to increase its profits by disposing of 125 middle managers and 71 drivers. The loss of drivers resulted in its having to cancel more than 190 services a week, causing uncertainty and anger among passengers. The loss of middle managers removed its ability to maintain quality and dependability across a wide range of activities.

Steven Norris lamented, ““We in the Conservative party were very happy at the way rail privatisation was going … new investment, new ideas, new services … SWT instantly unwound all that. It was so obviously a grave error of judgement, so obviously to the disadvantage of passengers, and so clearly an act committed by a private company. It left a bad taste instantly in people’s mouths about SWT.”6

Dr Alan Whitehead, the future MP for Southampton Test, commented: “We have the misfortune to live in the part of the country served by the worst single example of rail privatisation – South West Trains. Anybody who has travelled on the service recently will know that the whole system is in chaos, added to by South West Trains’ recent decision to scrap more than 190 of its services in a week. The problem arises through treating a public service as if it were just another marketing exercise.”7

John Watts, the Transport Minister, called Stagecoach’s management ‘inept’. The directors, including Brian Souter and Brian Cox, were typically unconcerned: “Souter poured petrol on the fire by suggesting that some of his customers had nothing better to do than to write letters of complaint in office time and wondered whether their bosses knew they were doing this. --- Cox did not help by saying that critics were ‘fully paid-up members of the hindsight club’.”8

Passenger anger

Public dissatisfaction was rife, ensuring that SWT was never long out of the headlines: “A total of 28,000 complaints were lodged by passengers last year against the privatised South West Trains. That is more than 500 complaints a week and does not include the massive travel chaos in February and March this year after the company got rid of too many drivers to save cash and did not have enough left to run all the trains.”9

Passengers were soon complaining of ‘cattle truck’ conditions.10 The Waterloo- Portsmouth service was so poor that there were calls for Stagecoach to lose the franchise.11 Aggressive clamping at Basingstoke station provoked death threats against the clampers. A woman with a disabled pass agreed to pay a fine for briefly stopping to set down her aunt, but was left stranded while the clamper took a 2-hour break. The woman sued and received a settlement of £460.12

In 1998-99, SWT was hit with a performance penalty of £3.6 million. This was after void days had improved the statistics. The true number of delays and cancellations was 72,482, equivalent to one for every 6 minutes of operation.13 Managing Director Graham Eccles conceded that ‘morale had never been lower’, dismissing calls for action with the insultingly contrived statement that “morale is how you feel about yourself and not how others feel about themselves”. 14

Mr Eccles’ lethargy was followed by industrial strife. By the start of 2000, SWT’s complaints staff were issuing much-delayed responses which referred to “literally hundreds of train cancellations caused by us having an unofficial industrial dispute with a large number of our train drivers.”

SWT became increasingly hard-faced. It introduced a new policy, which it has been ramping up ever since, of missing booked stops so that trains reach their destinations in time for a punctual departure on their next run, which improves punctuality statistics. John Denham, the MP for Southampton Itchen, stated: “Like most people I was amazed to find that this happens. Whatever the reason, some passengers pay a high price for unreliability.”15

SWT received a record £3.8 million penalty for late or cancelled trains in the 12 months ending in January 2000. This included £598,000 for running trains without the contracted number of carriages.16 Yet Stagecoach prospered from its low ethical base: “South West Trains, heavily criticised for its appalling service to commuters, today announced record operating profits of more than £39 million. --- The 16% increase, up from £34.4 million last year, infuriated passenger watchdog groups, who will accuse the company of continuing to put profits before passengers.”17

Towards the end of 2000, commuters’ lack of trust in SWT was highlighted in a damning special feature in the Evening Standard.18

* A Wokingham resident called SWT “liars” for claiming that Waterloo-Reading trains were now running on time, and noted that “SWT are cavalier in their treatment of passengers and constantly give either no information or disinformation to passengers, not allowing us to make informed decisions about alternative routes”.

The comments reflected those of railway commentator Alan Williams a year earlier: “A couple of months back, I told you about the perception gap that seemed to exist between the SWT that I and everybody else use, and the clearly quite different organisation that produces glossy brochures in a desperate attempt to convince us that it should retain its franchise. Lots of you wrote to say that, look as you might, none of you could find this brave new SWT”.19

Stagecoach deception

SWT’s tenth anniversary press release was to claim: “When we took over in 1996 the first few years were by far the hardest, but we put our heart and soul into delivering a railway to be proud of”. Mr Souter himself confessed to this extraordinary lie, but not until he had won a third franchise term: “When we first took over South West Trains in 1996, we treated it like a bus company. Our reduction in the number of drivers and the resulting disruption scared us skinny, and after that we backed away from widescale economies”.20 [He might have added, "until we won a third franchise with an excessive bid".]

As a fundamental example of Stagecoach's ethical limitations, the tenth anniversary release can usefully be considered alongside the comments of an employment tribunal in 2002. It ruled that SWT had wrongfully demoted train driver Greg Tucker, dismissing much of the company’s evidence as “incredible”, “risible” and “implausible, even absurd”. One key witness appeared to give evidence “without regard for truth and solely with an eye to where the advantage lay”.21

Remuneration culture thrives amid financial collapse

By April 2000, despite the SWT franchise's dreadful outcome for passengers and other taxpayers, Stagecoach became increasingly unstable, with the value of its group of companies falling to £1 billion, compared with £5 billion two years earlier.22 Critics considered that it had overstretched itself in the US.23

The company’s rewards culture had hardly helped. The personal fortune of Brian Souter and his sister and Stagecoach co-founder Ann Gloag, had reportedly risen to £600 million. Among directors' remunerations, Mike Kinski received a £250,000 welcome bonus in 1998, a £777,000 salary in 1998/99, and a £1.4m farewell bonus in 2000. 24

The second SWT franchise

New Labour betrays passengers

A report by the Central Rail Users’ Consultative Committee (CRUCC)25 had stated: “The Deputy Prime Minister [John Prescott], in a meeting with CRUCC representatives in August 1999, said that he wanted to see the passenger representative network heavily involved in the process of franchise re-letting. Support, or otherwise, for particular bids would be crucial. He said he wanted to see the CRUCC network involved in the running of passenger forums and hearings which might be held to consider bids”.

No such consultative process was established and, in 2001, Stagecoach was chosen as preferred bidder for a second SWT franchise. When the new franchise award was announced, the outcry from passengers can be summed up by the words of the BBC’s transport correspondent, Paul Clifton: “Here’s the opinion of one regular SWT commuter, sent to me by e’mail: “The award to Stagecoach is the cruellest betrayal of passengers departing from Southampton since the unsinkable Titanic set sail”.”26

The Evening Standard commented that “For many Londoners, further evidence of a drop in accepted standards of service comes with the news that South West Trains has had its franchise extended for 20 years – on the same day that hundreds of passengers were hit by disruption on the network”.27

The preference for Stagecoach bore no relation SWT’s performance. It remained the worst-performing passenger train operator in 2001. In the first 9 months of the year, passengers spent the equivalent of over 573 years waiting at its stations for late running trains.28 On a pro-rata basis, this would equate to more than 11 millennia under the proposed new 20-year franchise.29

More Stagecoach deception

The available evidence suggests that Stagecoach won support for its bid through bluff. For example, SWT Managing Director Andrew Haines publicised a £3.5 billion range of service and infrastructure improvements which were to be part of the Stagecoach deal and “offer real benefits for the people of Southampton”.30 He stated: “We believe that our proposals bring the most passenger benefits, and that they bring them more quickly than anyone else’s.” News was leaked only 10 days later that the company was favourite for a new franchise and that “SWT had impressed the SRA by its straightforward approach to the bidding process.”31

Stagecoach’s “straightforward” approach was quickly exposed. The company’s Head of Rail, Graham Eccles, proclaimed that “For the big PR hit, what you do is add up guaranteed outputs, the primary aspirations and the secondary aspirations, and then you shout loudly”.32 SWT media affairs manager Jane Lee clarified that: “It is for the Strategic Rail Authority to decide which of our proposals it wishes us to go ahead with”.33 With Stagecoach’s finances now precarious, Mr Haines’ exciting bid was exposed as just an offer to spend more of taxpayers’ money than its rival bidders, and much more than was ever going to be available.

Virtually none of the “real benefits” were ever realised, let alone in a short timeframe. So disappointment was heaped on passengers already dismayed that Stagecoach had won the second franchise. SWT was subsequently censured by the Advertising Standards Authority, following a complaint by the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group that its leaflets were falsely claiming the investment committed under the new franchise was “billions”.34 Mr Haines sought unsuccessfully to overturn the judgement.

Labour and Conservatives demand improvement

Stagecoach was by now at real risk of losing SWT altogether through poor performance. This meant more problems for commuters, as the company intensified the policy of omitting stops and terminating trains short of destination to improve its statistics.

Transport Secretary Stephen Byers told Parliament: “I agree that the SWT franchise is not being operated as well as anybody would like. I want the Strategic Rail Authority to use the franchise renewal as an opportunity to secure real improvements for the travelling public. The Strategic Rail Authority must use the time over the next few months to negotiate an agreement with SWT – with Stagecoach Group PLC. If the SRA cannot negotiate a franchise renewal that puts the interests of the travelling public first, it will be prepared to seek a new franchise operator which will put the interests of the travelling public first, drive up standards and improve reliability.”35

In June 2002, SWT was alone among the 26 passenger train operating companies to have its performance penalty increased compared with the previous year. The £12.5 million penalty was the largest ever levied under the performance regime.36 The Conservatives condemned the figures as a disgrace and called for remedial action by the Labour Government.37

Stagecoach lavished with public funds

Stagecoach was now desperately trying to grant share options from which its directors might profit. Hundreds of thousands of options were worthless after its shares plunged from a high of 284p to just 30p. 38 One report stated: “The shares have fallen more than 80% in six months and credit rating agency Moody’s recently downgraded the company to junk status”.39

Richard Bowker had become chairman of the SRA. He was formerly a senior executive with Virgin Trains in which Stagecoach had a 49% interest; Mr Bowker’s father was a senior Stagecoach executive; Mr Bowker had visited Stagecoach chairman Brian Souter’s church in Scotland (a round journey of 1,000 miles from the SRA’s London base)40 ; and Mr Bowker once worked with Graham Eccles.41

Mr Bowker admitted to the House of Commons Transport Committee that the timing of a £106 million grant to Virgin Trains had been determined by the need to stabilise Virgin and Stagecoach. The Rail Passengers Council had reacted with outrage to this grant, describing the payment to one of Britain's worst performing train operators as "deeply worrying" and demanding a public inquiry.42

The SRA gave SWT an additional £29 million in subsidy, partly in return for introducing a few extra evening services. One of these was a little-needed 19.43 Poole-Waterloo. This was a return working of the Poole portion of the busy 17.15 from Waterloo, due into Poole at 19.37. The six-minute turnaround meant that, when the 17.15 ran late, all stops between Southampton and Bournemouth were axed and tired commuters left behind at Southampton Central.

A London passenger wrote, “How can the SRA be serious about giving SWT yet more money? It is incapable of running the railway now. Its trains are a disgrace with smashed windows, missing internal doors and graffiti both inside and outside. Perhaps Richard Bowker should take to travelling on SWT daily and experience the disgraceful service that he is pumping millions of taxpayers’ pounds into”.43

The SRA eventually confirmed the second SWT franchise in terms of giving Stagecoach the chance to address its awful performance. The period was reduced from 20 years to just three, with Mr Bowker commenting that the agreement would mean the company focusing “on what matters to passengers – recovering performance to a level that passengers deserve and expect and the replacement of slam-door trains with the biggest new train order in the UK”.44

The Telegraph later commented that this was the franchise deal which “pulled the company out of reverse gear, since when the shares have trebled in value. It turned out to be a licence to print money.”45

Rail expert Christian Wolmar commented similarly that “The interim three-year arrangement agreed by Richard Bowker at the SRA in 2002 … was far too generous to Stagecoach. Under that contract, Stagecoach has been making super-profits at the expense of passengers and the taxpayer, netting a fabulous £58.9 million in the last year on turnover of around £500 million. That’s 12% of turnover. As I mentioned in my book, ‘On the Wrong Line’, a senior Stagecoach executive told me privately that the SRA had been a pushover and the company had been delighted by the deal.”46

Mr Souter and Mrs Gloag saw a meteoric increase in their personal fortunes, sharing dividends which totalled around a quarter of a billion pounds, including £65 million in 2004 47 and £175 million in 2006 48 .

Spartan new trains and worse timetable

A report by the Liberal Democrats found that overcrowding on SWT’s peak morning services increased by 77% between 1997 and 2004.49 Yet the fleet of new trains required under the terms of the second franchise was cut from 785 to 665 carriages. Stagecoach negotiated a cheap deal with Siemens for a batch of class 444 and class 450 Desiro units when the latter was facing the loss of 5,500 jobs.50 The trains became notorious for having much harder seating than those they replaced, harsh but unreliable air-conditioning, lack of emergency ventilation for when the air-conditioning failed in hot weather, and software which could not tell passengers which carriage they were in when trains divided en route.

SWT’s tight staffing meant that scheduled services were cancelled so that drivers could trial the new stock. Sixty-four services a day were cut in the Guildford-Aldershot-Ascot area. Public condemnation was typified by a passenger who complained of SWT’s “appalling mismanagement, with no forewarning or consultation with passengers.”51

In the last three months of 2002, SWT had the worst performance record of the London and South East train operators, with 59.9% of trains on time, compared with 65.4% in the previous year.52 Chiltern was now achieving 90.6%. A principal problem was that SWT had altered its timetable, creating track congestion, in response to Anglia Trains’ bid introduce an hourly Southampton-Norwich service. Revised services between Waterloo and Poole blocked one of the four tracks through Southampton Central from 10-past the hour to 20-past or 25-past, and another from 11-past to 30-past.

The SRA sought to mitigate the effects of SWT’s perverse timetable with service cuts. South Central’s trains from Victoria to Bournemouth would terminate at Southampton, depriving Bournemouth of direct services to the Sussex Coast and Gatwick Airport. In addition, some 70 SWT services were to be cut: “Among those trimmed will be two of the four trains an hour from Reading to Waterloo and one of the four trains hourly from Southampton and Winchester to Waterloo, a route where SWT already cruelly disappointed those who commute via what was once a fast, reliable and regular service. Though the cuts due to be removed are off-peak ones, the passengers concerned, who may have changed their working hours to avoid the cattle-truck conditions of peak-time travel, will suffer – and SWT admits as much”.53

In August 2003, around 100 passengers had a 9-hour journey, in a temperature of 30C, over the 79 miles from Southampton to Waterloo following a fatality. They were delayed at Micheldever, told they would backtrack via Havant, made to alight at Eastleigh, and then left in the single-carriage train of another operator for 3 hours with no water or ventilation. They had to smash windows to breathe.54 On the same day, Mr Bowker opined that passengers were starting to see “real benefits” as the railways improved.55

At the end of 2004, SWT took another step to improve its performance by introducing a much slower timetable. The Rail Passengers Committee was scathing. Their press release stated, “On Monday 13 December, passengers will experience new timetables; and some will be shocked to find that their journey will take longer, or have a reduced service… Passengers want shorter journeys, not longer ones, but they are going to have to put up with them all the same. It will be completely wrong if targets are not made tougher and passengers do not get compensation for poor performance, even though their journey is slower than it was before and the performance figures show an entirely fictitious improvement”.

The Daily Telegraph commented, “SWT has struck on one of the great philosophical truths of all time: the lower the standards that you set yourself, the easier they are to meet”.56

Perhaps reflecting the links between Mr Bowker and Stagecoach, the popular and capable chairman of the Southern Rail Passengers Committee, Wendy Toms, did not have her contract renewed when it expired. Ms Toms had supported those calling for SWT to make sure trains were not cancelled and did not terminate short of their destination.57 Nobody at the SRA, which was responsible for the Committee, bothered to contact her before making the announcement public.58

Consultation failure

A SWT leaflet claimed that "Over 80 local authorities and passenger user groups across our network have been consulted [on the new timetable] and where possible their feedback has been acted on". There are only a handful of user groups across the SWT area. The South Hampshire Rail Users' Group and the Kingston Area Travellers' Association were not consulted, although SWT was well aware of their existence. The Alton Line Users' Association was approached but one member revealed, “SWT sent us a draft of the new timetable. We wrote back saying it was completely unacceptable for users. They wrote back saying they were going ahead with it anyway. I wouldn’t call that consultation”.59

When challenged by Dr Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East, Andrew Haines, who was soon to depart, gave the lie to the leaflet’s claim in responding: “It would be impossible for us to carry out detailed consultation on something as radical as a completely new timetable.”

The third SWT franchise

Manipulative PR prior to franchise award

When transport authorities in the big provincial cities set up a support unit to get tough with profiteering bus operators and lobby for re-regulation, Stagecoach had responded, “Why is money being spent on expensive spin-doctoring and not on what passengers want?”.60 However, with its unenviable record looking likely to jeopardize a third cash-cow franchise on SWT, Stagecoach turned to vigorous spin-doctoring itself.

The first manifestation of the new approach was the launch of SWT’s glossy e-motion passenger magazine. Then, in September 2004, the company announced it was to spend £750,000 on cinema, TV and newspaper advertisements telling the public how good it was despite official statistics showing that its performance from April to June had been the worst of the 10 operators serving London61 . The advertisements would promote its new trains but not refer to performance.

The core of e-motion’s persuasive PR comprised the Passengers Panel pages. These gradually turned into little more than anodyne monologues by ‘independent’ chairman, the non-executive Stagecoach director Sir Alan Greengross. He had formerly been a critic of SWT62 in his role as Chairman of the London Regional Passengers Committee. The Kingston Area Travellers Association recorded that “A member of SWT’s so-called Passengers Panel has resigned because it does not serve the interests of passengers. Venessa Wilkins of Norbiton said that passengers’ suggestions were rarely acted upon and were a waste of time. She was not even thanked for her 18-month contribution to the Panel.”63

The Panel was clearly intended to be a Stagecoach mouthpiece, as in this little item attacking MPs who speak on behalf of their constituents: “Counting the spoons: As the voice of train passengers on SWT, it’s vital that we understand the issues that really matter to you so that we can protect your interests and ensure your views are strongly represented. The politician faced with a rail problem and little idea of how to deal with it cries “We have to put passengers first”. If they have no idea at all, “have” becomes “determined” [sic] and they shout even more. Isn’t there a saying ‘the louder they shout their innocence, the faster we count the spoons?’”64

E-motion included among a list of “frequently asked questions”: “I think that South West Trains has done a pretty good job recently and deserves a new franchise, and I’m not alone in this. Before all of you at the Panel groan and consign my letter to the waste-paper basket as just a note from another sycophant, let me hasten to add that there are a number of my fellow passengers who would not agree, which is exactly why I am writing. What can the ordinary passenger do to make his or her views heard by whoever awards the new franchises?”65

The perceived need for this purported FAQ - which is framed as though from a regular commuter - can be understood against the comments of Stagecoach director Rufus Boyd at the February 2005 meeting of the Hampshire Economic Forum.66 He opined that performance across the network was fine and the only problem was poor press coverage due to long-distance commuters who made the “ultimate distress purchase” in buying a home distant from their workplace. Any company other than a franchised train operator would bankrupt itself by being so dismissive of its best customers.

Sir Alan’s spinning refreshed Alan Williams’ ‘perception gap’. In the September-October 2005 issue of e-motion Sir Alan was ‘interviewed’ by some un-named person from SWT, making comments on behalf of the ‘independent’ Panel such as: “Everyone knows that things go wrong on the railway. We also acknowledge that much of it…is not the fault of South West Trains”; “You make a convincing case. If you can turn your plans into reality, you will be receiving and deserving of thanks from your passengers”; and “We at the Panel believe… that South West Trains has come a long way”.

Stagecoach’s prospectus for a third franchise bore the remarkable title Building on Success, which it later resurrected for its successful bid for the East Coast franchise. It included such ridiculous claims as, “Stagecoach’s success has been built on listening to customers and using their special insight to improve services even further. Local managers are empowered and encouraged to build relationships with the communities they serve – consultation lies at the heart of the Stagecoach approach.”

Franchise award mired in farce

Despite the importance of SWT in carrying 400,000 passengers daily, the new 10-year contract was apparently finalised under pressure, with wrangling over the terms continuing until 2am on the day the award was to be announced.67 For the first three years, the franchise was to continue to attract subsidy. Thereafter Stagecoach was to pay a massive premium. Financial experts doubted the company’s ability to deliver.

The Department for Transport was nonetheless nominated, though unsuccessfully, for the Whitehall and Westminster World 's award for the quality of their procurement process: “The Office of Government Commerce considered the valuation process to be sound, robust and auditable, and to have been conducted in full accordance with best practice.”

Two months after the franchise award, the Transport Committee’s press release on their report Passenger Rail Franchising struck a remarkably discordant note, declaring that, “The system of passenger rail franchising is a complex, fragmented and costly muddle which is unlikely to provide the innovation and investment needed for the passenger railways of the future. The system has had a decade to prove itself, but it has failed to achieve its core objectives.”

SWT held an on-line poll to see whether passengers thought Stagecoach should have retained the franchise. At 16.12.2006, the poll showed 70% saying ‘no’ and 30% saying ‘yes’, just as a new issue of e-motion published figures of 39% saying ‘no’ and 61% saying ‘yes’, with its ‘independent’ Passengers Panel claiming there was no doubt that a ‘huge majority’ of passengers welcomed the franchising outcome. Passenger Focus confirmed that the figures published in e-motion were extracted on 28 November. The astonishing swing in the following fortnight inevitably suggests that people connected with SWT had voted early on, biasing the vote. So even 30% in favour of Stagecoach was probably too high as a genuine reflection of public opinion.

Stagecoach failures delay capacity improvements by a decade

Scepticism about Stagecoach’s ability to deliver was justified by data released under the Freedom of Information Act. The amounts of the three failed bids were broadly comparable - £636 million, £513 million and £501 million - whereas Stagecoach had bid almost £1.2 billion.68 Although train operators frequently complain about DfT ‘micro-management’, Stagecoach ignored most of its franchise obligations from the outset, with a loss of quality and even humanity in many areas of activity. Far from investing in SWT, Mr Souter has admitted that he implemented cuts amounting to £110m 69 .

Following the reduction of the second franchise from 20 years to 3 for poor performance, agreed action to develop longer platforms at Waterloo and 60 other stations between 2002 and 2005 to accommodate more 10-car trains70 was delayed by over 10 years. The much-publicised proposal to ‘gold-plate’ track in the London area, where infrastructure failures now cause service disruption almost daily, simply disappeared.

Overcrowding grew even worse in the early years of the third franchise. Passengers were promised that “Capacity will be increased on both mainline and suburban services by around 20% ---- there will be more seats for many passengers on busy routes, with longer trains and extra services operating.”71 In reality, capacity was increased by stripping 6,500 seats from the suburban trains which serve SWT’s busiest routes, with further loss of seating in 28 outer-suburban trains.72

The comfortable Wessex Electric trains, paid for by taxpayers specifically for the long-distance Waterloo-Weymouth route, were taken off lease, despite commuters having suffered steep fare rises linked with their introduction. They were partly replaced by hard-seated class 444 trains from the Waterloo-Portsmouth line, but with around one fifth formed of cramped outer-suburban class 450 trains - both part of the order which was cut from 785 to 665 carriages.

Many Portsmouth-Waterloo commuter trains also switched to the outer-suburban trains. SWT persistently argued that this was necessary to provide more seats between Woking and London. However, at a committee meeting of the Portsmouth Rail Users on 22 March 2007, they admitted that the reshuffle was to avoid the higher leasing charges for the Wessex Electrics.

Any shortage of capacity east of Woking has in large measure been due to cancellations, short-formed trains, and improving punctuality by cutting stops. Such delivery failures have frequently resulted in the loss of hundreds of seats. Monitoring by the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group during 2014-15 showed that, every month, up to around 1,000 SWT services hadn't been running their full route or making all scheduled stops, and the loss of capacity through short formations had been equating to some 200-400 full-length trains.

Portsmouth-Waterloo commuters set up a website to campaign against the downgrading of their service. It attracted around 1,500 signatures. A linked survey in 2010 by Portsmouth City Council identified numerous complaints of cramped, uncomfortable conditions. It discovered that 74% of passengers went out of their way to avoid the class 450 trains [thus increasing overcrowding on other services], and many complained of sciatica and other back-related problems as a result of the 97-minute journey. Of passengers travelling from Portsmouth and Haslemere to London, 98.5% preferred the class 444 trains which had originally been intended for the route, and 85% found it no easier to find a seat. The council called for the class 450 trains to be taken off the line altogether.73

In 2011, Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt, supported by other local MPs, secured a parliamentary debate on the issue and a meeting with Transport Minister Norman Baker. She said: “We are still building steam and I fully intend to stoke the fire until we leave the station. I will continue to push on other outstanding matters: the overall use of rolling-stock; that the money SWT saves by using 450s is not passed on to passengers; the inadequacy of 450s for mainline routes; and the imperative that minimum standards of comfort are included in future Rail Franchise Agreements. Today’s meeting gives passengers hope that they will one day travel in comfort, and has assured the DfT that I and others will not rest until they do.”74

Mr Baker then contacted Andy Pitt, Managing Director of SWT, asking him to review the allocation of rolling stock. Mr Pitt was unapologetic, responding: “I have no plans to reduce the deployment of class 450 trains on the Portsmouth line.”75 Mr Pitt was replaced by Tim Shoveller, who immediately made false statements suggesting the 450s represented a like-for-like replacement, and declared he had little time for the Portsmouth commuters’ campaign.76 Research published in 2013, which divided the rail network into 79 routes, found that the Waterloo-Portsmouth route scored 78th best on value for money with a 23% score.77

With SWT’s rolling stock economies having created misery for commuters, some new and second-hand high-density carriages were promised. Despite years of above-inflation fare increases, DfT allowed SWT to recalculate the standing space it allowed per passenger from 0.45 to 0.25 square metres. The EU minimum for carriage of a sheep is 0.4 square metres.78 This statistical manoeuvre improved SWT’s place in the overcrowding league. Meanwhile, SWT had introduced ‘bouncers’ at some busy London stations to control the movement of passengers. They have given rise to many complaints of obstruction, officiousness, and even lack of English.79 SWT was forced to apologise after an announcer at Basingstoke station said fat people "should not sit down" as there was not enough space.80

Rail Minister Claire Perry admitted that passengers were standing on SWT trains longer than the permissible 20 minutes.81 She also stated that it was "unacceptable" that people were unable to board trains on commuter routes because they were already full. Transport Minister Robert Goodwill also admitted that the new trains are not fit for purpose: "The minister described the class 450 carriages as "infamous", adding: "Their three plus two seating configuration can make the journey elbow to elbow for some people. As people get bigger, that will be an even greater problem. Some people with back pain cannot use those trains."82

An important change which SWT did implement, but did not publicise, is that carriage interiors were now being wet-cleaned annually instead of monthly83 ; it seems reasonable that passengers should know of the potential health hazard before boarding their train. Trains can be in a terrible state.84 There are frequent complaints of overflowing toilets locked out of use, and of longer-distance trains formed of suburban stock without toilets. The Waterloo-Reading line produces many tweets about lack of toilets, desperately inconvenienced passengers, and fouled carriages. DfT's 'expectation' ignored as fares and parking charges soar

Passengers were told: “It is expected that many regulated season tickets into London will be discounted for passengers travelling outside the height of peak times.”85 Great expectation; nil delivery. Instead, SWT introduced a 20% surcharge on off-peak trains arriving in London before noon. It also increased the premium for first class travel from 50% to 80% and raised car parking charges by up to 21%. At Southampton Airport Parkway station, off-peak parking charges don’t start until 16.00, even on bank holidays.86 Guildford station has the third-highest annual station car park charges in Britain, at £1,800. 87

Train operators are not bound by the Government’s abolition of clamping on private land. SWT station car parks are displaying the following price list: Charge notice - up to £80; Wheel clamp release fee - £125; Vehicle removal - £250; Vehicle storage £35 per day or part day. These warnings are not always prominently displayed. For example, the plastic card at Lymington Town was 2 metres above ground level, so impossible for shorter people and wheelchair users to read. It then gradually blew away in pieces, leaving no warning of the scale of charges.

The 20% surcharge on off-peak tickets does not apply to stations, such as Basingstoke, where a more ethical operator provides alternative services. South Hampshire MPs Sandra Gidley, Mark Oaten and Chris Huhne signed a highly critical parliamentary motion calling on the Government to block excessive increases. SWT snubbed them in January 2010, when tickets at the original off-peak prices, cynically re-branded ‘super off-peak’, became invalid on trains leaving Waterloo between 16.00 and 19.00 inclusive. These tickets are now some of the most time-restricted in Britain.

Although there is a legal obligation to sell passengers the cheapest ticket for their journey, SWT’s passengers pay a surcharge if they don’t book separate tickets either side of Woking. A peak return from Bournemouth to London costs £104.90, but separate tickets for either side of Woking jointly cost £90.30. Barry Doe, a rail pricing consultant [who has in the past lobbied the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group, in consultation with SWT management, on behalf of Stagecoach88 ], calls Woking the “magical line” for price drops on the London route, and has described the higher prices as “legalised theft”.89 By way of comparison, a peak day return from Southampton to Waterloo by SWT costs £79.50, whereas an on-line peak Daysave from Southampton to Victoria on Southern trains via Chichester costs £38.

Outside the London area, SWT offers only token discounts for off-peak travel. The existence of off-peak rates does little beyond enabling the imposition of penalty fares if passengers travel too early. The only passengers likely to save a significant sum by travelling off-peak are those entitled to buy railcards. Some anytime day return fares with off-peak fares in brackets: Southampton-Basingstoke £14.70 (£14.60); Southampton-Bournemouth £14.40 (£14.30); Southampton-Ryde Esplanade £30.60 (£30.50); Southampton-Weymouth £27.00 (£26.80).

How does this compare with other operators’ fares? Southampton-Oxford, set by First Great Western but operated by Cross Country: £38.50 (£32.20); Southampton-Bath, set and operated by First Great Western: £25.90 (no off-peak fare, but a pre-booked Advance ticket costs £15.90 for the 09.10 train, and £14.00 for later trains). Southampton-Brighton, Eastbourne or Hastings, set by Southern: £26.60 (£15.30). [NB: All quoted fares may change at short notice]

An report by the Daily Echo90 found that SWT passengers are effectively subsidising other parts of the network while the region's own services struggle to cope with rising passenger numbers. Statistics from the Office of Rail Regulation showed that the SWT network was unique in getting less from government than it paid in premium. SWT's commercial director, Sam McCarthy, called on business leaders and passenger groups to lobby the government to get a better funding deal. Presumably nobody had told her that Stagecoach pays such a substantial premium only because it seriously trumped its rival bidders to make sure it retained its cash-cow franchise, whatever the cost to passengers? Since the premium payments were by now heavily rebated because revenue was below forecast, Stagecoach's plans were presumably based on even worse overcrowding.

Steve Brine, MP for Winchester and Chandlers Ford, said he had already spoken to the Prime Minister and Chancellor about the need for improvement in key areas on the network. John Denham, MP for Southampton Itchen, said; "It is absolutely essential to get extra funding over the next few years. There are too few trains, they are not very comfortable and the stations aren't particularly attractive. Caroline Dinage, MP for Gosport, protested about London trains that suffer from "slow journey times, on a 1930s infrastructure and eye-watering prices." Caroline Noakes, MP for Romsey and Southampton North, said that commuters were paying more for what they see as a worse service.

Stations stripped of facilities

A further promise to passengers was that: “The franchise will provide £40m investment in enhancements at stations.”91 All SWT’s station travel centres, except for a limited facility at Waterloo, were then shut while other operators maintain excellent facilities, even in relatively small towns such as Inverness.

The busy travel centre at Southampton Central suddenly closed, without public consultation, in succession to the city's bus station. The neglected rail station became such a blot that £3m was spent on improvements92 , with SWT meeting only one quarter of the cost, and the remainder effectively a public subsidy from Network Rail and cash-strapped Southampton City Council. The canopy awnings have not been painted for years and sections continue to rot and fall off. The station toilets, which had become squalid, were finally modernised, but Twitter reports suggest they are not reliably serviced. Following adverse publicity, including from the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group93 , newly installed turnstiles were not brought into use and have been removed.

When Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, made a 2,200 mile fact-finding trip on 40 trains, he singled out Southampton Central station for criticism.94 At 8pm there was no refreshment outlet on a station used by 5.5 million passengers a year. Writing in Parliament’s in-house journal, he described the experience as the “low point of the week”. In addition, he used the passenger helpline for another complaint but, like countless SWT passengers before him, got no reply.

SWT responded that catering outlets were not their responsibility. Yet an article about Brian Souter being in line for another, £6.3 million, bonus drew the response from the proprietor of Coffee Charisma, Godalming: “I am a tenant of SWT and they are asking me for a 140% increase in my rent, when the footfall at the station I have an outlet has increased 10% in 3 years”95 A report commissioned by Lord Adonis, following his tour, established that 11 of the worst 20 large stations nationally were managed by Stagecoach or the Stagecoach-Virgin partnership.

SWT offered further station “enhancements” by proposing big cutbacks in ticket office opening hours, which would also involve the affected stations being left unstaffed for longer periods. This brought widespread condemnation from MPs, User Groups, Passenger Representatives, the Unions, and individuals. Protests included “crisis talks” between Woking MP Humphrey Malins and SWT management96 . Dr Alan Whitehead, MP for Southampton Test, laid an early day motion which attracted cross-party support:

“That this House notes with extreme concern plans by South West Trains to close ticket offices and cut ticket office opening hours at 114 stations; believes that such cuts cannot be justified when these stations have seen a combined increase in passengers of nearly 27 per cent. in the last year; is further concerned that the cuts will dramatically increase the number of stations that will lose their ticket offices entirely during weekends and will leave stations unstaffed at weekends and in the evening making railway stations and passengers who use them feel less secure; believes that replacing staff with ticket machines will also reduce the quality and range of services available to passengers; and calls on South West Trains immediately to withdraw its plans.”

MPs John Denham, Alan Whitehead and Sandra Gidley attended a demonstration at Southampton Central on 18.7.2008, handing out leaflets about the cuts. Alan Whitehead said, “Without staff how can stations be as safe – all you will have is a button that means you can talk to someone five miles away and you won’t be able to talk to staff to make sure you get the cheapest ticket possible. If this goes ahead we may have to talk to a few ministers and see if they think South West Trains is giving the service it promised when it took on the franchise”. John Denham echoed these sentiments and added, “A lot of people will be affected by this and a lot took the leaflets away with them”.97

At 06.20 on the day of the demonstration, a member of the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group observed a SWT official affixing a poster, inside the main station entrance, which advised that London Travel Card operators would be conducting a survey at the station that day, and that £2 would be donated to charity for each person who completed a questionnaire. This was clearly a cheap Stagecoach distraction technique.

On 15.1.2009, transport correspondent Paul Clifton reported, on BBC South Today, that Stagecoach planned to cut SWT’s workforce by 10%, with loss of almost 500 staff in administrative and managerial grades. An internal memorandum was then leaked to the BBC, showing that the losses included 93 full-time and 87 part-time ticket office staff, 62 full-time and 9 part-time platform staff, and just 22 full-time and 3 part-time managers. SWT refused to comment on the deception, and the BBC established that the RMT union had not been told of the proposals.

Although the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, made SWT scale back the cuts in ticket office opening hours by 80%, the company has since implemented a second round. In addition, there are daily reports on SWT’s website of ticket offices closed during opening hours, even at stations such as Portsmouth, Southampton, Winchester and Woking. There is also substantial anecdotal evidence, for example on Twitter, that some closures go unreported.

Following a Passenger Focus survey of SWT’s ticket machines, Chief Executive, Anthony Smith, said: “Ticket machines can present bewildering jargon, a barrage of information and choices as well as incomplete information about ticket restrictions... As a result, some passengers give up and join the ticket office queue”.98 Passenger Focus confirmed that queuing times are often longer than the rail industry standards, with the longest queues at Guildford, Basingstoke and Winchester. Observations by a Surrey rail user have established that long queues build up at Guildford ticket office because, as is so often the case at major SWT stations, few ticket windows are open. Passengers at stations such as Guildford are routinely paying too much, and it can be difficult or impossible to get cheaper tickets from the machines even after time thresholds have passed.

Unstaffed stations mean that lifts and toilets are inaccessible. It would be interesting to have an explanation as to why passengers, including small children, pregnant women and elderly people, need toilets only on certain days or at certain times of day. Some stations have gained new lifts, bought with public funds. This is scarcely good value for money, for example at Brentford, where staffing is only for very short periods.

Whilst SWT likes to boast of ‘secure station’ awards, which are based largely on subjective criteria, cycle theft reportedly became a serious issue at Andover and Lymington Town stations.99 Totton station gained a ‘cycle theft hotspot’ notice. Guildford station is noted for disruptive behaviour, and Great Western Railway won't stop evening trains at Cosham because the station is left unstaffed. Given the widespread staffing reductions, problems at these stations are likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

Timetables downgraded

December 2007 saw the introduction of a new standard-hour timetable between Waterloo and Weymouth, which was a franchise commitment. The DfT’s objectives were to accelerate the Waterloo- Weymouth fast trains and use rolling stock more efficiently in meeting demand. Stagecoach has met the required stopping pattern for the Waterloo-Weymouth fast trains but not for the semi-fast Waterloo-Weymouth trains or the Waterloo-Poole trains. The substantial element of non-compliance was exposed following a protracted Freedom of Information request by the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group100 .

Unfortunately, DfT’s consultation on the changes had been seriously flawed, based on government rules, for example because it omitted a proposal to remove the stop at Totton from the semi-fast services. Totton is the fourth-largest intermediate town between Southampton and Weymouth, yet stations such as Branksome, Parkstone and Hamworthy, with smaller populations in their catchment areas and significantly lower usage101 , now have a vastly better service than Totton. Much smaller towns served by Southern, such as Emsworth, now have three times the basic service level at Totton.

The direct off-peak journey time from London to Totton increased by 32 minutes. The time from Totton to Christchurch increased from 28 minutes to 59 minutes. The 15.35 on Mondays to Fridays now takes a remarkable 71 minutes, with no further service until 17.01. For local travel, Totton-Southampton by train takes barely 5 minutes, whereas the road journey can take 15-20 minutes, particularly at peak times. The abysmal hourly train service provided for most of the day needs to be seen alongside the fact that pollution on the parallel road can at times present such a health risk that warnings are sent out to the most vulnerable people102 .

Dr Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East, called the changes an ‘appalling outcome’ for the people of Totton. Although faster journeys from London to Totton are theoretically possible by changing at Southampton, SWT insists on sending off the Totton train 30 seconds early, even when people are racing along the platform to make the connection. It argues that this benefits the ‘vast majority’ of passengers. However, since these trains are allowed 3 minutes for a Beaulieu Road stop which few of them are scheduled to make, leaving Southampton on time simply means standing at Brockenhurst for 28 minutes rather than 25. Punctuality is indeed important for passengers, but a major reason is the need to make connections.

The purported benefits of the new timetable are difficult to find. Weymouth-Waterloo trains became only 3 minutes faster, because of the increasing slackness of SWT schedules, while journey times for services from the busy smaller Dorset stations of Upwey and Wool were increased. Poole, a much larger town than Weymouth, had its fastest London journeys extended by 4 minutes. In the busier London commuter belt east of Poole, off-peak London services from Christchurch and New Milton were reduced from twice-hourly to hourly.

Following Transport Minister Tom Harris’ confirmation that he would welcome improvements to the proposed timetable103 two members of the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group attended a meeting with DfT officials and a SWT representative on 16.11.2007. DfT had confirmed in advance that timetable improvements could be up for discussion, but the SWT representative was intransigent. The DfT officials seemed out of their depths and just accepted the situation.

The effects of Stagecoach’s incompetence are now clear. In the five years prior to the timetable downgrade, the average passenger growth at intermediate stations between Southampton Central and Weymouth was 22.1%. The growth at Totton was 71.7% or 118,000, greater than at any other intermediate station except Bournemouth, Poole and Brockenhurst. In the succeeding five years, the average growth at intermediate stations was 16%, whilst Totton saw a decrease in usage of 1.4%, the only negative growth at any of the stations.104

Disproportionate revenue protection measures

In 2007, a Times transport correspondent and a BBC Radio Solent presenter who had difficulty obtaining tickets at SWT stations were both penalised with hefty fares on board trains. This led to the Times and the BBC contacting the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group, and to a radio report and article in the Times of 18 June. Stagecoach claimed that their policy had not changed, but a secret memo was leaked, exposing their fascist attitude to passengers and staff alike.

The memo told guards to treat passengers as fare dodgers even if they asked to buy a ticket. Guards would be accountable for accepting excuses even if passengers said they had queued for 15 minutes and could have missed their train. The memo also said that children must be penalized, including at weekends and bank holidays when cheaper fares were available. Guards must tell passengers they could be liable for an additional £20 on the spot fine and could be prosecuted for fare evasion. “From now, your commercial duties will be measured in three main areas: the amount of revenue you collect; the type of tickets that you sell; and the number of penalty fare warnings that you issue.”

Chris Huhne, MP for Eastleigh, wrote105 that the policy was out of order. He called for a clause in franchises insisting on fair and proportionate treatment of passengers. SWT, meanwhile, had brazenly produced a leaflet ‘Buying your ticket before you board’ which made clear that people who make genuine mistakes would be penalized: “We’ve produced a leaflet to help you make sure you don’t get caught out by accident and have to face the consequences…. Some people make costly mistakes about ticket types when they travel on our trains … Having an invalid ticket counts as having no ticket at all.”

‘RAIL’ editor Nigel Harris argued that SWT was damaging the reputation of the rail industry as a whole: “Maybe it’s because many railway people don’t actually pay fares – or not in full – especially very senior managers. But no-one likes to feel ripped-off and once you offend the British sense of fair play, you’re in trouble. Politicians forget this too but a bloody nose at election time usually reminds them. So, I watched in despair in mid-June as The Times ‘exposed’ South West Trains’ pre-meditated policy to “… fleece its passengers.” The harsh words “sharp practice”, and “profiteering” were used. SWT was “the unacceptable face of rail privatisation.” This is all enormously damaging – not just for Stagecoach, but the whole industry. RAIL was critical of SWT’s recent moves to manipulate the peak and impose 20% increases on off-peak fares and The Times was equally unimpressed. SWT’s protests about easing the post-peak rush were unconvincing: this is all about maximising revenues.”106

SWT continues to get more disproportionate in pursuing revenue protection. In particular, it is ardent in dragging its passengers before the courts, with its timetable leaflets declaring, ‘We have a policy to prosecute all deliberate fare evaders wherever possible.’ For this purpose, despite closed ticket offices and slow or broken ticket machines, almost anyone who boards a train without a ticket is likely to be treated as a deliberate fare evader. Three examples of cases where members of the public have contacted the South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group, followed by two cases from the press, are below.

* In October 2008, a commuter arrived at Southampton Central with his bike and found the gates unattended (a common problem), contrary to legal requirements. He therefore opened the manual gate, to avoid missing his train to work. Staff appeared and he politely showed his valid season ticket, but was given a £55 penalty.

* A young couple travelling with two £6.00 Megatrain tickets from Waterloo to Southampton decided to alight at Eastleigh, 5 3/4 miles short of their booked destination. Had they, senselessly, continued to Southampton and bought single tickets back to Eastleigh, it would have cost them £6.40 (one third less with a railcard). For this infringement of Stagecoach’s spurious rules, they were surcharged £114 109 .

Government consultations which are too little, too late

The South Hampshire Rail Users’ Group submitted details of many other revenue protection abuses on SWT and, to a lesser extent other franchises,110 in response to the DfT’s 2010 consultation on penalty fares. Nobody suggests that George Osborne was trying to defraud Virgin Trains when he was found in a first class seat with a standard class ticket. Nobody suggests that Cherie Blair was trying to defraud Thameslink when she was rushing to an important business engagement and boarded a train without queuing for a ticket. Society functions through people being in the right place at the right time; so why waste time and money treating ordinary members of the public like criminals over often very minor infringements of ticketing rules instead of employing staff to sell tickets on stations and trains?

While Stagecoach enthusiastically prosecutes its passengers, it appears less committed to ensuring that prosecutions are conducted properly. This may be because it realizes there is no evidence of fare avoidance, and relies on intimidation to extract large sums of money. Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court made SWT withdraw NINE prosecutions after it had failed to serve case details for the second hearing in a row. The magistrate commented that he despaired.111 Unsurprisingly, and unlike the other train companies serving South Hampshire, SWT is coy about the numbers of penalty fares it issues and prosecutions it undertakes, claiming the information is commercially confidential.112

Among other revenue protection issues, a new system of Oyster Extension Permits in the London area was beyond the understanding of most passengers. Transport for London reported to a London Travelwatch meeting that only 3% of people who should be loading Oyster Extension Permits onto their Oyster cards were actually doing so. Penalty Fares were not being issued, in order to give people time to adjust. However, a member of SWT’s staff reported on Railforums.co.uk that SWT was openly flouting this instruction, and charging penalty fares.113

TfL Commissioner, Sir Peter Hendy, later commented: "People hate the suburban rail service, they hate it. If you make a mistake on your Oyster card on the Tube, we'll refund it. On South West Trains, they'll fine you. That's a big philosophical difference."114

In February 2015 the Government launched a further public consultation on penalty fares, promising greater transparency, together with some limited protection from exploitation for passengers who made honest mistakes. SWT's Penalty Fares posters have been changed to threaten 'penalty fares' instead of 'penalty fares and/or prosecution'.

Intimidation of passengers

SWT often seeks justification for disproportionate action by confusing revenue protection and security issues, and then calls upon the British Transport Police who, ironically, always claim to be overstretched. An innocent passenger was accosted by armed police at Bournemouth station while shaking hands with a friend.115 He was apparently suspected of being the person who had earlier been ‘behaving suspiciously’ in Basingstoke because they were both black.

Twenty officers randomly stopped passengers at New Milton station on the pretext of looking for drugs, but no arrests were made.116 Police reportedly conducted random stop and search acts at Waterloo station.117 Students from Richmond College clashed with police after a ticket-checking operation led to a crush at Twickenham station, trapping people between the barriers and the ticket office doors (So what’s the point of barriers?). Three people were arrested and one person was taken to hospital.118

In March 2010, a 25-year-old musician was ‘invited’ to leave a Portsmouth-Southampton train by SWT’s Community Rail Officers. They had had nothing better to do than snoop on him, and noticed he had written the word ‘Killers’, the name of a pop group admired by the Prime Minister.119

Shocking attitudes to disabled people start at the top Twitter reveals ongoing complaints about the treatment of disabled people on SWT. It's pretty obvious that a greed ethic needs to be managed on a top-down basis. So how do people at the very top behave? A delegate walked out of a conference in Edinburgh after Brian Souter spun a long and offensive joke about paranoia and schizophrenia. The 'joke', as reported, is below.120

He said that whenever he phoned a company, “I hate these machines where you’ve got to "keep pressing the buttons” before being able to speak to a human being.

“If you are paranoid delusional, we know who you are and what you want; stay on the line and we’ll trace your call. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which buttons to press’.”

The delegate, Euan Mackenzie, of Edinburgh-based software and technology company 1partCarbon, later told The Scotsman: “I’m totally amazed that a group of well-educated people can still sit in a room and listen to poorly constructed jokes about mental health. I don’t understand how, in this day and age, people can get away with it and nobody stands up against it.” Other critics included former Downing Street adviser Alistair Campbell; Norman Lamb, Minister for Care and Support; and Judith Robertson. Director of mental health campaign, See Me.121

Two shameful cases of SWT's treatment of disabled people are below.

* Geoff Holt

Cecilia, who is studying a master's degree in accessibility and law at the University of Portsmouth, said: ‘I’m disgusted by the treatment I received and horrified that other disabled passengers may be receiving this treatment on a daily basis. There are not many forms of public transport accessible to me and now I am worried and put off from using South West Trains in the future.’

SWT has always demonstrated Stagecoach's inflexibility towards disabled people. For example, a senior citizen had to pay £400 for a smaller wheelchair to travel to London to see his grandchild, despite the intervention of Winchester MP Steve Brine on his behalf. SWT insisted they were just following guidelines, but guidelines by their nature are intended to be flexible.124

The widescale daily omission of stops, to compensate for even minor delays, means that wheelchair users can find themselves desperately looking for assistance. Among other complaints from individuals125 , a blind person was left stranded at Clapham Junction at 1am. A wheelchair user was left behind at the same station for not waiting in a position convenient for the guard. Another wheelchair user was kept waiting an hour and a half for a replacement taxi because SWT insisted on using their contracted company. A woman with crutches got trapped in a train door through a guard's impatience.

Turning to Stagecoach buses, a disabled man was told to pay £30 to retrieve his lost wallet.126 He had just drawn his disability allowance and had around £225 in his wallet when he accidentally left it behind on a bus. He suffered an epileptic fit.

Nationwide and worldwide disrepute 127

The sacking of Lymington Town station manager Ian Faletto, who had won many awards for exceptional service to passengers, became international news. Mr Faletto’s alleged ‘offence’ was to breach regulations by stepping on to the track. Expressions of disgust at the sacking quickly spread across Britain and beyond in the Telegraph, Mail, Mirror, Sun, Southern Daily Echo, Bournemouth Echo, New Milton Advertiser, and probably many other papers, not to mention TV and radio. We understand it was given more time on Australian TV news than President Obama’s state visit to Britain.

Mr Faletto consistently stated he stepped on the track to remove a supermarket trolley, which would have been a serious hazard (one metallic object caused an explosion after touching the live rail in the Southampton area, and another caused huge delays when it became entangled with the undercarriage of a train between Ewell West and Epsom), but SWT chose to disbelieve him in the absence of photographic evidence. As for Mr Faletto’s personal safety in accessing the track, the trolley was dumped close to the station, where all trains approach at low speed and stop. He said he checked by phone that the live rail was off. Mr Faletto’s former SWT Manager stated: “No one knows better than he did about the train times, the signals, the perils of the third line and when trains are due, so he would not have put himself in any danger.”

Mr Swayne commented, “I believe that a great injustice was done to Ian which has had a damaging effect on Lymington – anyone who visits the station can see the difference from the time he tended it”.

Purging volunteers

The Faletto case demonstrated how little SWT cared about the views of the Brockenhurst-Lymington Community Rail Partnership. Such partnerships are widely regarded as a success story on other operators’ routes. Conversely, on SWT there followed a purge of voluntary effort. A longstanding first aid group, part of a century-old network, was locked out of the premises it used on Eastleigh station without notice.128 A couple were forbidden to water their floral displays at Weymouth station.129 Information boards provided by the Friends of Crewkerne station were removed. So was an information board provided by the Friends of Wool Station. It contained a map which had cost the Parish Council £50 to produce.

Challenges to government

Despite wide-ranging initiatives at the expense of passengers, Mr Souter’s annual dividend fell to just £6.3 million. SWT managers lost their 2009 performance bonuses for missing financial targets, and were warned they would receive no bonus in 2010 unless “at least a further £7m of unbudgeted, sustainable savings are identified and implemented by year end”130 .

Stagecoach then engaged in a legal battle with DfT over the terms of its contract. It wanted the revenue support mechanism, under which DfT pays a proportion of franchisees’ losses if they fail to hit revenue targets, to be brought forward by 10 months from what DfT considered the contractual date. Remarkably, Stagecoach won, costing taxpayers an extra, unbudgeted, £68m 131 at a time of severe economic stringency.

Such stringency eluded Mr Souter himself, who decided to spend £100,000, to the detriment of the environment, on jetting family and friends to a party in Moscow to celebrate his daughter’s 21st birthday and the 30th anniversary of the foundation of Stagecoach.132 Stagecoach co-founder Ann Gloag celebrated her 70th birthday with a party in the grounds of Kinfauns [one her two castles] with Lulu, Neil Sedaka, and 250 guests.133

Mr Souter received a dividend of £51m in 2011, while Mrs Gloag received £37m. Stagecoach’s early payment of dividends, to avoid the new 50% tax rate, was condemned by PIRC, the UK's leading independent research and advisory consultancy.134 Sir George Mathewson, the new Stagecoach chairman, accused PIRC of “total nonsense”.135 This was predictable given that, as the Royal Bank of Scotland’s executive deputy chairman, he had reportedly said a £2.5 million bonus he shared with colleagues would not “give you bragging power in a Soho wine bar”.136 PIRC has since criticised Mr Souter’s decision to move from Chief Executive to Chairman of Stagecoach from May 2013. This defies a UK Corporate Governance Code recommendation aimed at the avoidance of ‘back seat driving’.

A subsequent article by Kevin Maguire, headed ‘Someone call this cowboy a taxi’,137 illustrates the extent of back seat driving. It reports Mr Souter as saying he would rather ‘take poison’ than swallow bold plans in Tyne and Wear to control bus routes and fares in the public interest. The article states: “Grim threats to shut depots and sack crews, hysterically denouncing councillors as ‘unreconstructed Stalinists’, is the crazed reaction of a bus bandit behaving as wildly as the greedy energy fat cats who menacingly predict power cuts unless they’re allowed to continue ripping off customers.” Souter, who together with his sister is worth an estimated £730 million, is paid by northerners on his buses whom he scathingly mocked as the “beer-drinking, chip-eating, council house-dwelling, old Labour-voting masses”.

As the article points out, Tyne and Wear simply wants the highly successful regulated bus services which London continues to enjoy and “if Souter thinks that Tory Mayor Boris Johnson is an ‘unreconstructed Stalinist’ too, then that’s the belly-aching multimillionaire’s problem”. Presumably, in Souter’s terms, anything is unreconstructed Stalinism if it can inhibit the pursuit of his ethically-limited greed.

Passengers Panel manoeuvres

SWT’s Passengers Panel continued to declare its ‘independence’ and dedication to passengers’ interests. During 2011, the most eye-catching item on the Panel’s website was the account of a member’s trip with a guard on Halloween night 2010, when the pair unsurprisingly failed to come across any of SWT’s “aggressive and abusive passengers”.

A handful of stakeholders, including our Group’s co-ordinator, were invited to the Winchester meeting of the Panel on 15.2.2011. There was trenchant criticism from participants about the way SWT treats its passengers. Despite a hugely complex fares system, SWT apparently preferred to increase revenue by unreasonably applying penalty fares rather than by attracting more passengers through advertising. People whose first language was not English were noted as being particularly susceptible to SWT bullying.

A case was quoted of a passenger who arrived at Swanwick station just in time to board a Southern train. The guard said he could board and pay at the barriers at Southampton Central. SWT then imposed a penalty fare. Participants saw the incident as highlighting the friendlier approach of Southern, which encouraged people to use trains.

One participant remarked that the employment of extra commercial guards could pay for itself through increased fare collection; guards were the company’s ambassadors who could help build good customer relations. The only reference to this meeting on the Panel’s website was in the report of its May 2011 meeting, “At the previous Stakeholders’ meeting that the Panel held in Winchester it quickly became clear that the attitude of staff on the railway was a big factor in determining their level of satisfaction. As one visitor put it “your Guards are truly the Company’s ambassadors”.

On 7.6.2011, Panel members carried out a survey on an evening train running from Winchester in the opposite direction from the main commuter flow. Their report used Chairman Sir Alan Greengross’ typical lines such as: “Even when things went wrong, there was wide recognition that it was very often not the fault of the Company.”

On 9.6.2011 home-going commuters, including a heavily pregnant woman, were abandoned without information for up to 6 hours after the theft of copper signalling cable. Some trains were only a few hundred yards from Woking station and, with signals at red, there was no danger from other trains. Yet the power was left on, and those who tried to escape were threatened by SWT and British Transport Police officials. Secretary of State Philip Hammond said the stranded passengers were given ‘pretty dreadful’ information about what was happening, and urged the rail chiefs to make urgent improvements, including arrangements to disembark passengers at the nearest station if the signalling breaks down.138

Nothing had changed by May 2013, when a fallen tree at Longcross delayed homeward commuters for up to 6 hours. Some tried to force open doors to escape from the 17.20 Waterloo-Reading. A typical passenger comment, of many, from Marketing director Tony Larks: “It just felt like it was going on forever. There didn’t seem to be any sort of plan for how to get passengers off the train or how to get the train going again. … There was no management from SWT there, just a train cleaner. The management is just appalling and has no idea how to deal with a crisis. In my carriage there was a woman having a panic attack and a couple of diabetics and there was no plan in place for them.” 139

Things still hadn't changed in May 2015, as in this report140: "Travelling toilet class: Rail passengers forced to crowd into lavatories on overcrowded trains as signal failures cause severe delays in London.

Delays, diversions and cancellations on South West Trains services
Platforms overcrowded and commuters stuck on trains for two hours
One packed service so full that passengers had to stand in the toilet
Network Rail confirms about 90 trains were cancelled and 400 delayed

Conditions on Britain's 'third-world' rail services reached a shameful new low today as rush-hour passengers were forced to travel 'toilet class' to avoid the crush after chaos on one of the nation's busiest commuter lines. Thousands of angry South West Trains passengers were caught up in overcrowded trains as services were delayed, cancelled and halted on the tracks because of two sets of signalling failures that caused gridlock for scores of peak-time trains.

Journeys of under half an hour were more than trebled to an hour and a half - with some passengers stuck for three hours on another day of rush-hour travel misery. Passengers were squeezed into trains in 'sardine-like conditions'. But on at least one packed train, commuters were forced to stand in the toilet because it was so full."

The South Hampshire Rail Users' Group received a damning report from a former Panel member, which echoed Venessa Wilkins:

“You should know that I am an ex-member of the Passengers Panel (yes, I hate to admit it now). It is a tightly controlled (dictated to) group commanded over by Sir Alan Greengross, who also happens to be a non-executive director of Stagecoach. There is no rotating chair and members are railroaded into his opinions and those of him only. Minutes never reflected the real efforts real people were making. Being talked over was a regular occurrence. I felt so sorry for the succession of assistants who were chewed up and dispensed with as were the really good members of the panel who had the tenacity to challenge the company.

I had to leave my job after lateness became not only embarrassing but made it operationally difficult for me to do my job. Thankfully I no longer have to endure the daily grind whilst my bank account was drained by extortionate season ticket prices and seeing a degraded family life due to lateness and cancellations - with no real improvements to the railway in return.” 141

Remarkably, for a body which had heaped praise on Stagecoach at every opportunity whilst largely ignoring criticisms, the Panel allowed the following commuter’s complaint (dated 21.9.2012) to appear on their website: “I lost my season ticket and applied for a duplicate. We arranged a time for 4pm but my meeting was late and I arrived at 4.20pm by which time the inspector was dealing with another customer so I waited until 4.50 only to be told very rudely that I’d missed my appointment and would need to wait to be called. This is a very inefficient system and has customers over a barrel. I’ve come away from the experience feeling like absolute scum and totally dejected and disillusioned… If there was another train carrier I would have had no hesitation in switching there and then but we are all restricted to one carrier per line. Things must change. Customers pay so much money and we just can’t be treated in this way.”

This view reflected the following, from a Southampton resident: “When I normally have to suffer the ‘every passenger is a criminal’ attitude employed by South West Trains in Southampton, I find that First Group’s friendly and proactive approach makes a huge difference”.142

By March 2015 SWT's website had lost its link to the Passengers Panel site, leaving just the reference: "The Passengers’ Panel is a unique forum consisting of volunteer South West Trains passengers. It is totally independent and, most importantly of all, its voice is heard at the highest level within South West Trains. Sir Alan Greengross, the Panel’s Chairman, regularly attends South West Trains Board Meetings in order to apprise the Board of Passengers' views."

The Panel's site was no longer recording any new initiatives or passenger input, stating: "We’ve been re-organising ourselves a little over the last couple of months...... We are now having meetings on the second Tuesday of every month. These are opportunities to feed back to SWT the real concerns of what we believe are the majority of Passengers, and help them explore ways that problems large and small can solved."

Note how Stagecoach evoked the spectre of a hypothetical majority of passengers [rather like the claims that the vast majority, actually 30%, were pleased Stagecoach had won a new franchise term.] By May 2015, SWT's website was advertising for season ticket holders to become new Panel members. They were being offered a free season ticket, which would seem to be a rather generous inducement to toe the line. They may soon get used to Sir Alan Greengross' modus operandi of introducing discussions as an opportunity to say what is good and bad about SWT, and then reporting only any good.

The Panel would do well to consider why Stagecoach failed to win a franchise extension to 2019. DfT was looking for future contracts to include penalties for overcrowding, rude staff and squalid toilets.143 It's clear from SWT's Twitter that this could have huge financial implications for the company.

Negative effects of the South West Trains & Network Rail Alliance

On 30 April 2012, SWT declared that: "Train company South West Trains and infrastructure operator Network Rail today announced the launch of a new alliance with the aim of delivering better rail services in the south and south-west of England. A single senior joint management team now has responsibility for both trains and track on the route operating out of London Waterloo in a first for the UK rail industry. It is aiming to cut delays for passengers, provide better customer service, deliver more effective management of disruption, and improve the efficiency of the railway through more collaborative working and better decision-making."144

This was somewhat contradicted by the following excerpt from an article on SWT's Passengers Panel website, dated summer 2013 and written in the familiar style of Sir Alan Greengross:

"The danger is the temptation by the different parties involved in running the system to, if not pass, then at least share the blame between all the others. SW Trains, Network Rail and Government can all individually suggest they’d love to help solve an issue but unfortunately it’s impossible without the other two changing how they work, which anyway would not be doable under the current franchise agreement."

The Alliance quickly proved itself to be more like a conspiracy against passengers. Engineering work overruns became endemic. The practices of omitting stops and curtailing services for operational convenience saw a meteoric increase. If Network Rail imposed even a minor speed restriction, SWT was likely to omit stops.

Some delayed trains make non-stop runs such as from Bournemouth or Basingstoke to Waterloo in the hope that their next service will be able to run on time. Hundreds may be put off delayed long-distance peak trains at stations such as Basingstoke, Woking and Guildford, where they create even more severe overcrowding on other services. There are often complaints that passengers on board trains are not told their stop is being omitted145 , giving rise to wasted time, missed connections or appointments, and even worse problems for disabled people. If a Shepperton or Kingston circle train appears likely to join the main line late, it is simply taken out of service. After one Kingston circle service had all its stops from Waterloo to Kingston omitted, SWT's website announced that it would be running early from Kingston. Twitter explains that stops are omitted from full-length trains to minimise delays and from shortened trains to avoid dangerous overcrowding.

The most noticeable effect of the Alliance was that Stagecoach's PR stance moved on from the days of e-motion. It's now about driving down passengers' expectations. The basic lines, backed up by numerous photos and videos, are that more and longer trains will be phased in over several years to address severe overcrowding [the programme is running a year late because of problems with revamping Southern's cast-off stock] and that the network is worn out and not fit for running today's intensive service. Naturally there are no references to the effects of the second franchise being reduced from 20 years to three through Stagecoach's poor performance, of Stagecoach's excessive bid for the third franchise, or of the removal of 120 Wessex Electric carriages to boost profits.

During the adverse weather of the 2013-2014 winter there was greater disruption to services than usual and the Fareham-Eastleigh line was closed for weeks. The volume of letters soared from 2,500 a month to 10,000. As SWT failed to provide adequate staffing, correspondence from 11.12.2013 was being answered on 21.2.2014, a delay of 52 days in excess of the Charter standard. Even Customer Services staff then turned on SWT for putting its efforts into making excuses rather than serving the public.146

Network Rail’s failures are quite profitable for train operating companies. It paid them £136m in 2012-13 for infrastructure problems which caused services to be late or cancelled. The companies, however, paid out less than £30m in ticket refunds to passengers.147 Passengers are increasingly complaining that SWT’s Customer Services either don’t respond to requests for refund, or else take weeks or months to reply, often with refusal on unreasonable grounds.148

Although the Alliance was supposedly unique, SWT boasted that, ‘The South West Trains – Network Rail Alliance was recognised as best in the industry for Putting Passengers First, Outstanding Teamwork and Maintenance Work at the prestigious National Rail Awards.’149 The Alliance then ended in its so-called 'deep' form, but not the joint control at Waterloo station. This means that Stagecoach will receive more compensation from Network Rail for infrastructure problems, but omitting stops and cancelling services will continue to be a joint exercise.

Stagecoach safety issues

'Cowboy Country' Stagecoach evidently lives on, despite the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's condemnation. The South East Scotland Transport Partnership, in response to the Competitions Commission’s inquiry into local bus operations, complained that Stagecoach took “fierce retaliatory measures” in Fife against smaller rivals. These included introducing improved timetables, and reverting to previous timetables once competitors pulled out.150 As another example of its 'fast-buck' culture, it sold the East London Bus Company for £263m in 2006, and bought it back in 2010 for £52.8m.

Contrary to Stagecoach's standard line, safety appears not always to take priority over profit. The company was found guilty of “dramatic and worrying” safety breaches, with incidents of wheels falling off buses “risking death and injury and also damage to property”. There have been an engine fire and eight incidents of wheel loss on Stagecoach buses between May 2009 and January 2010, which resulted in Stagecoach Perth, Stagecoach Glasgow and Stagecoach Fife receiving formal warnings. Stagecoach Strathtay, which covers large areas of Perth, Aberdeen and Dundee, was banned from expanding its services for four months.151

Stagecoach bus fires are now endemic in Britain, with some 9 in 2011; 11 in 2012; 10 in 2013; and 10 in 2014. Early in 2015 a horrified motorist flagged down a blazing bus with school students on board.152 One of the incidents occurred on a fast guided busway in Cambridgeshire.153 In Cheltenham, a shaking bus driver was told to continue his journey, leaving local residents to clear up the debris from the bus shelter he had smashed.154 A 15-year-old girl was left on a hard shoulder for 40 minutes, with no travel information, after a bus driver smelled burning rubber.155 A bus demolished part of a home in Harold Wood.156 Nine people were injured when a bus smashed into a house in Liverpool, and the roof of a double-decker was sliced off in Birkenhead.157

An eight-year-old boy and a woman thought to be in her 70s died on 3.10.2015 when a double-decker bus crashed into a supermarket in Coventry city centre. The boy, a passenger on the top deck of the bus, and the woman, a pedestrian, both died at the scene. A nine-year-old girl was taken to hospital seriously ill while six others, including the bus driver, were hurt. 158

Eye-witness repoorts inevitably suggest that the bus, driven by a 77-year-old who has said the crash was "beyond anyone's imagination", was out of control. A taxi driver opined that it was travelloing at 50-60mph. Police Superintendent Paul Keasey stated: I've been on the force 22 years and it's one of the worst things I've seen. When I got the call my heart sank".159 We may have missed something, but we have not seen any report in which Stagecoach expressed sorrow or condolences.

Two incidents involving buses jeopardised the safety of rail passengers. A bus smashed through level crossing gates in Devon 15 seconds before a high speed train passed.160 Another caused chaos when it smashed through level crossing gates in Canterbury.161 A Windsor & Eton Riverside-Waterloo train caught fire soon after departure on 30.1.2015 and the incident is under investigation.162 A passenger tweeted "Trainset on fire! Had to evacuate, walk down track! No direction from staff! Just told us to go to Windsor Central. Pathetic."

Various other incidents illustrate failure to operate a duty of care. A 60-year-old wheelchair user who fell asleep during his bus journey was found by a cleaner in a Manchester bus depot at 02.50. 163 An 89 year old great grandmother had to have a foot amputated after a bus ran over it as she was boarding. The driver was convicted of careless driving for failing to apply the handbrake, but neither he nor Stagecoach bothered to offer an apology164 . Bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis, part-owned by Mr Souter, was fined £50,000 in September 2012 for a safety offence, while Stagecoach Yorkshire was fined for an accident in which a bus dropped on a garage apprentice.165

In Illinois a Stagecoach Megabus crashed into an overbridge support, with one young woman killed, and 38 passengers taken to hospital, five of them by helicopter.166 The US Department of Transportation has warned prospective passengers that Megabus Northeast scores 75% for unsafe driving – it’s worse than three quarters of all comparable firms. In addition, there have been a number of lawsuits [at least one alleging corner-cutting with safety to maximise profits] following the deaths of 4 passengers in a Megabus incident near Syracuse.167

Stagecoach founding family's fortunes

Mr Souter’s last pay packet as chief executive amounted to £1.2 million, including a £382,000 cash bonus and 37.2% increase in his basic salary of £599,000. Sir George Mathewson, whom he replaced as chairman, received a £113,333 golden goodbye on stepping down from his short-term, part-time tenure. This was in addition to a near doubling in his fee at Stagecoach from £84,000 in 2011 to £165,000 in 2012. 168 The joint wealth of Mr Souter and Mrs Gloag now exceeds £1 billion. 169

Mr Souter received a knighthood, on the recommendation of the Scottish parliament, just weeks before he underpinned his position as the SNP’s biggest donor with a gift of £500,000. Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, was accused of operating a "culture of secrecy" after a letter in which he heaped praise on Mr Souter was made public. ALEX Salmond has been accused of operating a "culture of secrecy" after a letter in which he heaps praise on the SNP's biggest donor was made public.The Scottish Government had withheld the letter on three occasions following requests for disclosure from Labour, and it was only released after a FOI application by the Herald newspaper. Glasgow MSP Paul Martin, Labour's business manager at Holyrood, said: "This is a government that just can't be open and straight with people, even when it comes to covering up fawning letters to the First Minister's rich friends.”170

Secrecy was also a matter of contention in the trial of Mr Souter’s son Scott, a Stagecoach employee: “Tycoon’s son Scott Souter walked free from court yesterday after writing a sheriff a private letter. The thug – son of Stagecoach founder Brian Souter – battered two men in an unprovoked attack at a graduation party but was fined just £600 by Sheriff Robert McCreadie. It’s Souter’s third conviction – and his second for a drunken attack … The court heard Souter punched 23-year-old Keith Dewar … on the head and body … He then punched Drew Fleming, 22, in the face and broke his nose … A third charge of punching the girl throwing the party was dropped in a plea deal … Scottish Tories’ chief whip John Lamont questioned the secret letter to the sheriff. He said: “The public have to have confidence that every criminal is treated in the same transparent manner … ”.171 Drew Fleming’s father considers that “The whole trial from start to finish was an absolute joke.172

Another law breaker who can seen to have been treated leniently was Mrs Gloag, who escaped a driving ban after travelling at 90mph in a 60mph limit.173 Her business activities appear to have become an embarrassment to Stagecoach. In October 2013 she bought Manston Airport in Kent for £1, and sold it for £24 million with loss of 150 jobs. This was reportedly for a garden city development, against the Prime Minister's wishes. A comment from Evening Standard reader John Rossetti that, "It didn't take long for Stagecoach to announce plans for a garden city"174 , drew the following response:

“Contrary to the suggestion by John Rossetti, Stagecoach Group was not involved in any way in the purchase of Manston Airport. The airport was sold by Infratil to Lothian Shelf (710) Limited, an entity wholly and privately owned by Ann Gloag. No part of our company has any involvement in the airport or any decisions about its future.”175 S. Stewart, Stagecoach Group."

The local press lamented: "A century of aviation ends at Manston. All their huffing and puffing makes our political leaders look more like the domestic servants fussing about Downton Abbey while Lady Grantham purses her lips and does just as she damn well pleases. Ann Gloag has made buffoons of the politicians and fools of us all. Small wonder she declines media interviews. Who would want to be reminded of promises on purchasing an airport when they’ve just turned a pound into £24 million. Thanet District Council’s inquiry into a compulsory purchase order of the airport and the MPs’ assurances of the prime minister’s support looks laughable. Only this is serious. And lessons must be learned."176

Herne Bay MP Sir Roger Gale claimed he was "misled" by Mrs Gloag, who told him she would operate the airport for at least two years and invest heavily. Speaking at a meeting of the Transport Select Committee in Westminster, he said: "I believe now that I was seriously misled. Mrs Gloag had no intention of running this as an airport and every intention of turning it into an asset stripping operation."177

Mrs Gloag attracted similar opprobrium as her brother's jokes about mental disability, when she proposed to evict an elderly couple from their home.178 The husband stated: "I worked for the estate for 40 years. Now she wants us out. Last Wednesday I received an eviction letter from Gloag Investments informing us they wanted to modernise Mid Lodge Cottage - our home - to convert it into a holiday let. We have to be out by June 30. We were devastated. We have never met the woman and I would not want to now.... "We love the place but we wouldn't want to stay on even if she allowed us," he said. "We would feel uncomfortable and expect her to make it difficult for us to remain."

Among other activities, she invested in a bitterly-contested scheme, eventually abandoned, to impose a huge biomass plant adjacent to residential property in Southampton179 . Her own privacy was another matter; she has been accredited with undermining the Scottish Parliament’s Right to Roam legislation through an expensive lawsuit to exclude ramblers from the grounds of Kinfauns castle.

Speaking with two voices on profitability

Christian Wolmar has noted 180 that: Private Eye recently highlighted the contradiction between the message that Stagecoach presents to the wider public, and what it says to City analysts whom it is eager to butter up. In the Financial Times, Stagecoach Chief Executive Martin Griffiths was quoted as saying that Britain can’t afford nationalised trains. “I think those people that hark back to the days of putting all of that risk back onto the UK taxpayer forget where we’ve come from and where we’ve got to,” he said. “It’s nonsense about the operating margins that the operators make. On average they’re something like 2% or 3%.” However, as an article in Private Eye points out, it was a different story in Stagecoach’s annual report, which boasted of a 4.2% operating margin that has ‘low cash injected, meaning excellent returns on capital' – a point I have often made. Most businesses relate profit to capital investment, but train operators do not invest.”

Statistics and passengers’ voices say it all

The Spring 2015 statistics from TransportFocus give SWT’s overall satisfaction rate as 80%. SWT’s website states that its passengers make 208.8m journeys a year. On that basis, someone is dissatisfied with their journey on SWT well over 41m times a year, or over 115,000 times a day. Satisfaction ratings for the way the company deals with delays are just 36%, reflecting the many people stranded, dumped, or carried past their station for operational convenience and statistical manipulation. At least that's better than the 32% satisfaction with train toilet facilities, as suburban stock increasingly appears on medium-distance services.

TransportFocus, however, asks only about the journey the passenger has just made, so doesn't reflect the general experience of thousands of commuters. The most recent survey by the Consumers Association put the overall satisfaction rate at 48%. That’s equivalent to well over 108m unsatisfactory passenger journeys annually.

In terms of satisfaction with the value for money of tickets, SWT scores an overall 35% rating. Of 83 routes in Britain, its mainline services south of Basingstoke are voted 62nd-best with 39% satisfaction, whilst its Portsmouth services are voted 78th-best with 31% satisfaction. This will be partly due to the hated class 450 trains; SWT admits that they now deploy these trains on some 20% of services between Waterloo and Southampton, as well as on the Portsmouth line. Even SWT's crammed old suburban trains achieve 35%.

By way of comparison, Cross Country's services between Hampshire and Birmingham are voted 46th-best of the 83, with 48% satisfaction. On the routes north of Birmingham, where other Cross Country services increase frequency and capacity, those continuing to Manchester are voted 4th-best with 71% satisfaction, whilst those heading to the North East are voted joint 30th-best with 58% satisfaction. Despite the aura of the Virgin name, Cross Country's Birmingham-Manchester service is way ahead of Virgin-Stagecoach's high-frequency Euston-Manchester service, which is voted 28th best, with 59% satisfaction.

First Great Western's long-distance services, including those between Cardiff/Great Malvern and Hampshire, are voted 56th-best with 43% satisfaction. This result could do with some refinement since cost is likely to be the main problem on Paddington services, and the quality and capacity of rolling stock the main problems on services through Hampshire where some very good fare offers are available, including Ranger and Rover tickets.

Southern's Sussex Coast services, including those to Portsmouth and Southampton, are voted 59th-best with 41% satisfaction. This should improve when the Thameslink upgrade is completed.

These figures are a clear indictment both of a franchise that has been run by one operator longer than any other, and of the SWT/Network Rail joint control at Waterloo which, like the deeper Alliance, was supposed to deliver better operational outcomes for passengers. Twitter exposes the dissatisfaction and distress of passengers day after day. Crucially, the nature of the complaints doesn't vary much, showing what happens when there is a dearth of middle management to drive up standards.

Apart from the predictable complaints about delays, cancellations, short trains and excessive fares, passengers complain of stops being omitted without prior notice; trains not waiting for them after last-minute platform changes, being dumped for operational convenience despite alternative services being overloaded; disabled people being ignored or insulted; lack of help with ticketing; rude, threatening and disinterested staff; exceptionally officious and intimidating revenue protection; manhandling; inadequate or non-existent information; poor quality trains poorly maintained; stinking and overflowing train toilets; lack of toilets through use of suburban stock on long-distance services; station lifts and toilets out of use when stations are unstaffed; long queues for tickets through minimal staffing; ticket offices closed during opening hours; difficult and broken ticket machines; awful replacement bus services, often with drivers not knowing the route; and slow and dismissive customer services.Stagecoach's 2015 annual report, 'Investing for growth' is sub-titled: "Driving new markets, harnessing technology, and enhancing our customers' experience'.

Two worlds

Towards the end of September 2015, a passenger complained that his sixteen-year-old daughter had been left with no money for her college lunch. She bought her ticket from SWT at Staines and went on to the platform, but then went back to help a friend use the ticket machine. She was prevented from going on the platform again until she bought another ticket. 181

At 30.4.2015, Mr Souter owned over 86,900,000 ordinary shares in Stagecoach, and Ann Gloag owned over 62,500,000. 182 This represents a substantial element of their £1 billion wealth. They might rejoice in Thomas Piketty's view that there is no natural, spontaneous process to prevent destabilizing, inegalitarian forces from prevailing permanently."183

1 Source: ‘Stagecoach’ by Christian Wolmar.
2 Source: Scotland on Sunday.
3 Source: E-motion magazine, Jan-Feb 2005.
4 Source: ‘Stagecoach’ by Christian Wolmar.
5 Source: ‘Stagecoach’ by Christian Wolmar.
6 Source: ‘Stagecoach’ by Christian Wolmar.
7 Source: Southern Daily Echo 8.3.1997.
8 Source: ‘Stagecoach’ by Christian Wolmar.
9 Source: Evening Standard 24.4.1997.
10 Source: Bournemouth Daily Echo 27.2.1998.
11 Source: Portsmouth News 5.11.1998.
12 Source: Basingstoke Gazette 2.10.1998 and 9.10.1998.
13 Source: Daily Telegraph 18.3.1999.
14 Source: SWT ‘On Line’ magazine.
15 Source: Southern Daily Echo 31.3.1999.
16 Source: Evening Standard 16.3.2000.
17 Source: Evening Standard 14.6.2000.
18 Source: Evening Standard 5.12.2000.
19 Source: Modern Railways, January 2000.
20 Source: Railnews, December 2010.
21 Source: Private Eye.
22 Source: RAIL, Issue 382.
23 Source: Guardian 4.4.2000.
24 Source: The Times 15.2.2000.
25 Source: ‘Rail Passenger Franchise Replacement’, January 2000.
26 Source: Rail Professional, May 2001.
27 Source: Evening Standard 2.4.2001.
28 Source: Southern Sunday Independent 13.1.2002.
29 Source: Evening Standard 11.1.2002.
30 Source: Southern Daily Echo 6.2.2001.
31 Source: Guardian 16.2.2001.
32 Source: Rail Professional, May 2001.
33 Source: Southern Daily Echo 4.9.2001.
34 Source: Evening Standard 6.3.2002.
35 Source: Hansard 21.5.2002.
36 Source: Evening Standard 6.6.2002.
37 Source: Metro 7.6.2002.
38 Source: Evening Standard 25.7.2002.
39 Source: Guardian 24.10.2002.
40 Source: Private Eye.
41 Source: Rail Professional, November 2002.
42 Source: Guardian 25.7.2002.
43 Source: RAIL No. 441.
44 Source: Evening Standard 6.11.2002.
45 Source: Daily Telegraph 23.9.2006.
46 Source: RAIL 11.10.2006.
47 Source: Evening Standard 6.7.2004.
48 Source: Evening Standard 27.6.2007.
49 Source: Evening Standard 20.7.2004.
50 Source: Evening Standard 24.4.2001 and 10.5.2001.
51 Source: Evening Standard 20.1.2004.
52 Source: Evening Standard 12.3.2003.
53 Source: Evening Standard 26.2.2003.
54 Source: Southern Daily Echo 8.8.2003.
55 Source: Evening Standard 8.8.2003.
56 Source: Daily Telegraph 13.11.2004.
57 Source: Southern Daily Echo 29.12.2001.
58 Source: Southern Daily Echo 25.1.2003.
59 Source: Evening Standard 14.12.2004.
60 Source: Private Eye.
61 Source: Evening Standard 27.9.2004.
62 Source: Southern Daily Echo 17.3.1998.
63 Source: KATAlogue.
64 Source: E-motion Issue 4.
65 Source: E-motion Issue 13.
66 Source: CD record of the meeting.
67 Source: Evening Standard 22.9.2006.
68 Source: Times 11.6.2009.
69 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 24.6.2010.
70 Source: SRA's Strategic Plan, January 2002.
71 Source: DfT press release 22.9.2006.
72 Source: Evening Standard 2.10.2006.
73 Source: The News, Portsmouth 22.3.2010.
74 Source: MP’s Press Release.
75 Source: Response to Q.21 in SWT’s September 2011 Webchat.
76 Source: Rail Professional, January 2012.
77 Source: Passenger Focus.
78 Source: Sunday Times 18.8.2013.
79 Source: Twitter.
80 Source: Daily Echo 16.3.2015.
81 Source: Daily Echo 1.11.2014.
82 Source: Daily Echo 16.3.2015.
83 Source: Today’s Railways, UK edition, February 2009.
84 Source: Transcripts of SWT’s ‘Webchat’ events, and comments on Twitter.
85 Source: DfT press release 22.9.2006.
86 Source: SWT’s Autumn 2011 Webchat.
87 Source: The Times 13.3.2015
88 Source: E’mail of 19.1.2006.
89 Source: Bournemouth Echo.
90 Source: Daily Echo 27.2.2015.
91 Source: DfT press release, 22.9.2006.
92 Source: Southern Daily Echo 25.8.2010.
93 Source: Southern Daily Echo 24.9.2012.
94 Source: Southern Daily Echo 28.4.2009.
95 Source: Evening Standard 24.6.2009 and website.
96 Source: Newsletter from Mr Malins.
97 Source: Southern Daily Echo 21.7.2008.
98 Source: Rail News August 2010.
99 Source: New Milton Advertiser 5.11.2011.
100 Source: FOI request F0003441.
101 Source: ORR data for 2011-12.
102 Source: Southern Daily Echo 28.5.2010.
103 Source: Letter dated 15.6.2007 from Tom Harris to Julian Lewis.
104 Source: ORR footfall figures, 2001-02, 2006-07 and 2011-12.
105 Source: Southern Daily Echo 23.6.2007.
106 Source: RAIL, Issue 569.
107 Source: E’mails to SHRUG dated 13/9/2011 and 1.12.2011.
108 Source: Evening Standard 29.3.2010.
109 Source: Daily Telegraph 6.9.2010 and Southern Daily Echo 7.9.2010.
110 Source: Hogrider 126, Part 1 on www.shrug.info.
111 Source: Dorset Evening Echo 5.10.2012.
112 Source: BBC South Today 14.2.2013.
113 Source: Railtalk magazine, Issue 42.
114 Source: The Times 24.4.2015
115 Source: Metro 8.7.2008.
116 Source: Southern Daily Echo 18.9.2008.
117 Source: Today’s Railways, UK edition, November 2008.
118 Source: London Lite 7.10.2009.
119 Source: The News, Portsmouth.
120 Source: The Scotsman 9.5.2014
121 Source: The Scotsman 9.5.2014.
122 Source: Daily Mail 4.4.2012.
123 Source: The News, Portsmouth.
124 Source: Southern Daily Echo 17.11.2011.
125 Source: Twitter, May-September 2014.
126 Source: Mail on-line, 12.9.2013.
127 Source: New Milton Advertiser and Southern Daily Echo – many editions, Spring-Autumn 2011.
128 Source: E’mail to SHRUG from the group’s organiser.
129 Source: Dorset Echo 17/3/2011.
130 Source: Leaked SWT memorandum.
131 Source: Today’s Railways, UK edition, September 2011.
132 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 29.3.2010.
133 Source: Daily Mail on Facebook.
134 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 22.8.2011.
135 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 27.8.2011.
136 Source: Daily Telegraph website 23.2.2009.
137 Source: The Mirror 16.12.2013.
138 Source: Evening Standard 13.6.2011.
139 Source: Get Surrey 10.5.2013.
140 Source: Mail Online.
141 Source: E’mail to SHRUG’s co-ordinator in June 2012. Sender requested we withhold name.
142 Source: Railnews June 2011.
143 Source: The Times 18.9.2015.
144 Source: SWT's website.
145 Source: Twitter.
146 Source: BBC South Today.
147 Source: Evening Standard 16.9.2013.
148 Source: Twitter.
149 Source: SWT website.
150 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 5.9.2010.
151 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 1.3.2011 and VOSA website.
152 Source: Scottish News 13.1.2015.
153 Source: Cambridge News 6.6.2013.
154 Source: Gloucestershire Echo 16.7.2012.
155 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 14.5.2014
156 Source: Evening Standard 22.7.2014.
157 Source: Liverpool Echo 3.10.2014 and Guardian website 7.12.2014.
158 Source: BBC website.
159: Source: Daily Mirror 5.10.2015.
160 Source: BBC website October 2012.
161 Source: Canterbury Times 7.3.2013.
162 Source: RAIB website.
163 Source: BBC News Manchester.
164 Source: The Citizen, Gloucester 7.6.2013
165 Source: Private Eye 1305.
166 Source: Associated Press August 2012.
167 Source: Private Eye 1305.
168 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 13.7.2013.
169 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 12.5.2014.
170 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 12.10.2012.
171 Source: Daily Record 6.3.2013.
172 Source: Perthshire Advertiser.
173 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 29.11.2014
174 Source: Evening Standard 29.5.2014.
175 Source: Evening Standard 6.6.2014.
176 Source: Canterbury Times 15.10.2014.
177 Source: Canterbury Times website.
178 Source: The Herald (Scotland) 11.3.2015.
179 Source: Southern Daily Echo 11.10.2011.
180 Source: RAIL, Issue 737.
181 Source: Twitter.
182 Source: Stagecoach Group Annual Report 2015
183 Source: Capital in the Twenty-First Century.