Southeastern - The most recent failed franchise!? | Failed Franchises #7 - SE

The fact you've already made 7 of these, really should be an indicator that the general management of services under privatisation needs to be changed.

One trick they used to pull quite alot was late running trains would just skip stations to get back on time. Often had the train annouced as 'arriving on platform 1', only to have it go sailing past at full speed, and then the platform signs would display 'cancelled'.

Avanti West Coast might be in the Failed Franchises series quite soon. Heard reports that Avanti could be stripped of its contract within days.

as someone who usually uses southeastern, never knew they were a failed franchise until now

It's amazing how quickly people forget. If you compare the service to that of the connex days it really is night and day. Tbf I moved out of the area so my experience is out of date now and I understand the networkers are really starting to show their age now, but is it really as bad as connex were? Somehow I doubt it!

I think the 'TFL Three' made a video, showing just how poor the seats on the 465's are. They walked along the carriages, trying to lift the seats, and nearly ALL of them were loose and broken. Terrible trains!

I wouldn't really call HS1 Intercity, more express-commuter

The southeastern franchise wasn't technically stripped of the franchise, just the DfT didn't extend the contract for Govia the extra 6 months that was an option in the contract. The southeastern franchise has been treated poorly for ages. I commute every day on southeastern metro services, and to say our rolling stock is in a bad condition would not be an understatement. Constant short term extensions by the DfT meant that there was no point in investing in any of the metro fleet. You mentioned how the whole southeastern fleet was refurbished. The 375s were refurbished, but not the 465s and 376s. The 465s only got the modifications to make them legal but did not get reupholstered or any real benefit. The 376s are still in their Connex moquette due to the lack of investment. However, I find DfT OLR southeastern worse than Govia. They have continued to not invest in the metro fleet, the 465s are becoming old and reliable, and nothing official is really coming out from southesastern about a 376 refurb. Even the 376 refurb won't be getting air conditioning, a feature on every other electrostar, as that is too much money. DfT southeastern have just cut timetables, and one service I was getting every morning was on average at least 5 minutes late every morning. Trains seemed dirtier and would say more is needed to be done. Is it bad that I found Northern's ex-EMR 156s luxury compared to what I normally travel on?

I remember catching a train from Beckenham Junction to Herne Hill on SouthEastern, returning home from a day trip out on the trams in Croydon with friends. The power shut off suddenly near Sydenham Hill, one of the most stranded stations on the network. We waited for over an hour, but still the train didn't move. We ended up walking ten minutes to the nearest bus stop, then had to go to Brixton.

"Credit : Myself", very kind of you but honestly I didn't take any of that footage. Thanks though.

I've been binging your videos. Love them. Everything you do is great!!! Thanks for the content.

Great video mate keep up the great work 🇬🇧👍

This must have taken a crazy amount of research, but this is an incredible video, I salute you!!

I stumbled across this series yesterday and binged it in one sitting And then I get rewarded with a seventh? God must be real

A very interesting video, Thank you for uploading this video 😊😊

Another really good video!

Never really used SouthEastern but the few times I have ever used the service, it has not been very good; once tried to get home (travelling west) from Bromley South only to find that my train was cancelled after someone had successfully jumped in front of a moving train at another station forcing me to get the bus instead, very sad indeed.

As someone using southeastern, I have to say that they were never that impressive. Those good early years weren't their success, they were simply in the right place at the right time. They inherited a much improved service from the Operator of Last Resort, and inherited schemes like HS1. They were very good at claiming the credit for that, but not so good at actually running a railway. They weren't as bad as Connex, but that would require considerable malicious effort. Southeastern felt more like they were simply absent from a certain level of management upwards... they had great staff at the lower levels who had learned the lessons from past problems. But the upper management seemed unwilling or unable to learn from them.

Like the videos before this is an excellent video. I've been really enjoying them.

I enjoyed a weekend in Kent in February 2024; check my “Humberside Invicta Weekend” series of videos. I have to say every train I used was near enough to time with no cancellations at all. The only disruption I encountered was buses between Minster and Margate which was because of engineering work.