Passenger fury as rail boss says network is 'working well'

Rail boss Robin Gisby provoked passenger fury today after declaring the national train network was "fully open" and "working well."

As the Network Rail (NR) operations and customer services director made his comments hundreds of thousands of rail passenger continued to suffer horrendous disruption with train cancellations and changes to service.

The train operators were said to be "seething" over his remarks.

The National Rail Inquiries website listed delays to East Coast main line, East Midlands trains, through-London Thameslink services, First Great Western, Gatwick Express and London Midland along with "major delays" to Eurostar services.

Mr Gisby, speaking on the BBC Today Programme, said that for the last week NR was in "much better shape" than during the blizzards which crippled the south-east particularly 10 days ago.

Of conditions today he said: "Generally we are fully open and we are working well."

Of the situation across the country he said: "We are open for business today all across the network and we are planning to run a pretty good service."

Commuters have complained in their droves of being left standing on platforms waiting for non-existent trains and not being given any information.

Mr Gisby insisted there had been improvements in getting changes to timetables out to the train operators. "On the information side we are better now," he said.

Of the thousands who had to queue, some all night, outside St Pancras International for Eurostar, he said: "On the looking after folk, the situation at St Pancras has been very difficult." But he continued "We have been looking after people... we have had food and blankets... we got several thousand meals out."

The Salvation Army stepped in after an appeal from NR.

Emily Treffall, a First Capital Connect Thameslink commuter from Harpenden; said; "I wish Mr Gisby well on his next visit to planet earth. If he honestly thinks the network is working normally today it does not give any of us much hope for the future."

At King's Cross East Coast passenger Theodore Henry accused the rail boss of being "totally out of touch with reality."