One of Britain’s largest train companies has apologised after Poundland threatened it with legal action for comparing the current problems with rail services to the budget retailer’s chocolate.
Thameslink has faced criticism over disruption since the introduction of a new timetable on 20 May. On Wednesday it responded to a disgruntled passenger who had tweeted an image of a departures board showing cancellations.
Why, Ambassador @TLRailUK , with this fine service you are really spoiling us. pic.twitter.com/RZP9E0yF7k
— Kevin (@londonkro) May 30, 2018
Thameslink’s social media team replied: “Very sorry Kevin. Appreciate at the moment the service is less Ferrero Rocher and more Poundland cooking chocolate.”
Poundland’s retail director, Austin Cooke, tweeted that Thameslink had “no right to use our name to describe poor service”. He said Poundland had served 8 million shoppers last week and had a “pretty good idea about what great customer service is”.
“If you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team, we suggest you remove your tweet,” Cooke said in a message addressed to Charles Horton, the chief executive of Thamelink’s parent company, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR).
.@TLRailUK You’re ‘off the rails’ #TLFail #Proudland pic.twitter.com/rago9G1zmh
— Poundland (@Poundland) May 30, 2018
Thameslink deleted its original message and sent another tweet that read: “Very sorry team for using your name here. I have removed the offending tweet.”
GTR services have been plagued by disruption since redrawn timetable was introduced. On Wednesday more than 450 Govia Thameslink Railway trains – 13% of the total – were either cancelled or at least half an hour late. On some of its routes as many as half of all trains were cancelled.
This week MPs and rail passenger groups demanded “emergency measures” from the Department for Transport to end the disruption Thameslink services in and out of London over the past 10 days.
Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP for Reigate, said on Wednesday: “It is clear that neither GTR nor Network Rail were sufficiently resourced or funded to manage such a huge operation.”
In a letter to MPs who had raised concerns, the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, claimed the rail industry had “failed the passengers it serves”. He wrote that the new timetable had been finalised “much too late to permit adequate logistical planning” due to delayed Network Rail infrastructure works.
