Southern Rail train drivers furious

Personally I feel that everyone at Southern should be ashamed of themselves for what they've done to people. Even if they apologised now and stopped I still don't think I would forgive them for the way they have passed this non-problem onto commuters.

I've always assumed the people behind TSR to be the ultimate hipters. Old enough to be completely out of touch and quite awkward. They probably live in in Brighton and have no need for the train. Originally when they went there to stay in a madly overpriced studio above a Lush shop in town, and any trip to London would be on the back of a Vespa, or taking a Megabus to be down with the kids.

Now, years later, I assume that TSR staff are even more like aged hipsters. They have beards, tattoos and vintage dresses that are just that little bit too perfect and try-hard, and are married and living in 3-bed semis in Portslade. They still don't need the train - they've got a Vauxhall Meriva to go to Sainsburys and back when the Ocado slots are too expensive.

I don't think it is fair to blame everyone at Southern, the management team have been working incredibly hard to resolve the matter.

Maybe but it's hard to believe that when it's been going on for 14 months and there's very little communication from them. For the first 7 months of last year no one even knew what the strikes were about.

Such is the nature of industrial action and Unions. They haven't sat idly around doing nothing, they want to resolve this crisis because it bad for business and their business is commuters. But it is the unions that have made this whole process take so long.

I hope so - do you know people who work there?

I do, Nick Brown the COO is a close family friend.

That's interesting - one day I'd love to speak to him and his colleagues to find out more about it. Personally I don't understand why they haven't been stronger with the staff than they have to date and why the government weren't activated earlier to help. At least the government are now taking it more seriously.

So why is everything that She-ra posts, as if it's being posted by your aunt who has just discovered facebook?

TSR has been around a while, and every year, students stay the same age - roughly 16-24, but the TSR staff get older and older.

Given TSR is headquartered in Brighton, I imagine the continued mess on Southern has impacted some of them too, when they've needed to go up to town. I used to live in West Sussex, so know that line pretty well. It was busy then. My friends tell me that it's actually worse than it's been reported - people really have had to give up their jobs, move house and do all manner of ridiculous things just because they don't know day to day whether they're going to be able to get to work and, once there, whether there's any possibility of their getting back home before 10pm or whether they'll be kicked off at Crawley.

They're actually really lovely people, not too hipster-y although I have my suspicions about one or two members of the CT...

I'm genuinely curious about which CT members you suspect to be hipsters

I'm genuinely curious about which CT members you suspect to be hipsters

I spy at least one!

That must be quite an old pic, I'm not even in it

That's interesting - one day I'd love to speak to him and his colleagues to find out more about it. Personally I don't understand why they haven't been stronger with the staff than they have to date and why the government weren't activated earlier to help. At least the government are now taking it more seriously.