What a miserable day its been on the First Capital Connect Thameslink route today.
As if First Capital Connect’s customers are not already annoyed with the ‘emergency timetable’, which seems to have been made permanent, they had to endure an afternoon of hell.
A train had broken down in the Farringdon area and caused major disruptions for most of the afternoon.
We have got a screenshot of the live departure boards for Farringdon station for the afternoon. As you can see from the picture, the whole afternoon was completely a mess.
A few customers have contacted us stating that FCC were useless at providing information “as per normal”.
FCC are reported to have also endangered lives, by keeping passengers on a footbridge and then causing a mass rush by announcing wrong platform information at Kentish Town.
Several passengers had to be assisted by ambulances because they had suffered panic attacks, including one passenger who was reported to have taken 3 hours to get from City Thameslink to Kentish Town.
A spokeswoman for FCC said “We have had some major disruption earlier on when a train failed in the Farringdon area, which was stopping trains from running through London.
“However even through that we had trains running through Brighton and terminating at London Bridge.”
Picture with thanks to ihatethameslink.co.uk
To the person commenting on the City Thameslink to Kentish Town – I think you are missing the point. FCC were directing people to Kentish Town from their other London Stations as this was the closest station operating to St Pancras. So for any unfortunate people wanting to get to St Albans, Luton or Bedford, yes they had to go to Kentish Town.
I was in City Thameslink when our train was taken out of service. I got on a bus to St Pancras and FCC staff directed us to Kentish Town. Here we were told platform 1 for a northbound train but it arrived on platform 3 and hundreds of people tried to cross the bridge to get to the correct platform. Staff were holding people back on the stairs and then, unbelieveably, the train went, barely a quarter full.
There are plenty of ways to get through London, thanks for pointing all of the options out. But I paid for a FCC ticket to use on FCC trains so I expect the service to run. So to say ‘there’s no excuse not to use another for of transport’ is somewhat ignorant. However, if you get stuck in that situation it sounds like you have all the ideas to get yourself out of it.
“What a miserable day its been on the First Capital Connect Thameslink route today.”
You could say that….
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A few customers have contacted us stating that FCC were useless at providing information “as per normal”.
State the obvious….
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“Several passengers had to be assisted by ambulances because they had suffered panic attacks, including one passenger who was reported to have taken 3 hours to get from City Thameslink to Kentish Town.”
I must say I do find that a bit hard to believe, 3 hours City Thameslink – Kentish Town! I know passengers are ignorant and/or oblivious etc but surely they’re not that stupid as to still wait for a train to go such a short distance. Kentish Town is served by the Northern Line so a short walk from City Thameslink to perhaps St. Paul’s and a tube journey of under 30 minutes and you arrive at Kentish Town. Alternatively there are plenty of black cabs available near to the entrances for City Thameslink, jump in one of those and pay the driver a couple of quid to be taken to Moorgate where you can board the Northern Line there and go direct to Kentish Town. And Kentish Town is well served by buses too so there’s no excuse not to use another form of transport…FCC Thameslink isn’t the only way to get through London!!!
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A spokeswoman for FCC said “We have had some major disruption earlier on when a train failed in the Farringdon area, which was stopping trains from running through London.
Still wondering how the one train causes so much trouble….surely it wasn’t blocking both lines?!!
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“However even through that we had trains running through Brighton and terminating at London Bridge.”
I hope trains don’t run through Brighton….they’d end up in the sea or at least on the sea front/beach.