{"id":141606,"date":"2018-06-15T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/govia-thameslink-chief-executive-charles-horton-resigns\/"},"modified":"2018-06-15T12:00:02","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T12:00:02","slug":"govia-thameslink-chief-executive-charles-horton-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/govia-thameslink-chief-executive-charles-horton-resigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Govia Thameslink chief executive Charles Horton resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charles
Image caption Mr Horton said he recognised passengers' frustration <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The boss of beleaguered rail firm Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) is to resign.<\/p>\n

Passengers have faced major disruption as hundreds of trains were cancelled following the introduction of new timetables in May.<\/p>\n

GTR, which runs Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern, said chief executive Charles Horton would remain in post for a short time to oversee the development a temporary timetable.<\/p>\n

The RMT said: "The rotten franchise he was steering remains in place."<\/p>\n

Announcing his resignation, Mr Horton said: "I recognise that passengers have been hugely frustrated at the significant disruption caused by the introduction of new timetables.<\/p>\n

"It is the right time to hand leadership of GTR to a new pair of hands."<\/p>\n

GTR - Britain's largest rail franchise - changed the time of every train on its timetable on 20 May.<\/p>\n

The operator warned of disruption before the changes were brought in, but the implementation of the new timetable saw some services withdrawn and further cancellations without any warning.<\/p>\n

'Failure on every level'<\/h2>\n

About 230 daily services were removed from GTR's routes to make for a "more consistent timetable", the company said.<\/p>\n

Last week, it emerged the firm was using taxis to make sure students could get to exams on time.<\/p>\n

And Mr Horton admitted being delayed by his own trains.<\/p>\n

In a letter to staff, he said: "In my view, this was an industry-wide failure of the timetabling process. But with leadership comes responsibility and so I feel it is only right that I step down.<\/p>\n

"Before my departure in a few weeks' time, I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure a smooth handover as we work to put our railway back on track and give our passengers a reliable service once again."<\/p>\n

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "Mr Horton may now have gone but the rotten franchise he was steering remains in place and no change at the top will alter that.<\/p>\n

"This whole basket-case operation is a failure on every level."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image caption Mr Horton said he recognised passengers' frustration The boss of beleaguered rail firm Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) is to resign. Passengers have faced major disruption as hundreds of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}