Compensation payouts for delayed and cancelled trains have soared with the company serving Brighton and Hove paying out more than any other franchise.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which runs Southern and Thameslink services, paid out almost £15 million to frustrated passengers in 2016-17.
This was up from £2.23 million in the previous financial year.
Most claims were for delays of more than half an hour – the qualifying period has now been reduced to 15 minutes.
And it was a year punctuated by industrial action by rail unions.
On Monday (8 January) the RMT is holding another strike in Southern trains over changes to the role of guards or conductors – now called on-board supervisors.
The £15 million paid out to GTR passengers represents more than a fifth of all compensation across the entire country.
Payout figures were published by the Department for Transport (DfT) yesterday (Friday 5 January) days after fares went up by more than 3 per cent.
Virgin Trains were second and third for the level of payouts, with £13.7 million compensation to passengers on its East Coast franchise and £13.2 million to West Coast passengers.
The tax payers pay not the Rail Company
Yes unfortunately due to the unique way the GTR contract was bodged by this Conservative government. They gathered paid a set fee. All the money taken from the tickets and subsequently refunded goes in and out of the department for transport. Govia get paid no matter what. Strange contact to put on one of the most unreliable parts of the network