As we look ahead to spring and summer, I reflect on the challenging winter months, when we had mixed success with the service we provide to you on our network. Our South London services continued to break new records for punctuality as a positive consequence of the December 2008 timetable change and we worked very hard to bed in the more demanding changes for the Sussex Coast services.

I would like to assure you that we consider the safe and punctual delivery of services to you as our number-one priority and we are working extremely hard with our industry partners on improving all aspects of the service we provide. We also make changes and improvements based on feedback from passengers, wherever we can.

There are many improvements still to come during the remainder of our franchise and, despite the current economic climate, these will continue as planned. We also have an exciting new internet-based ticket buying facility, which you can read about in Southern OnTrack magazine.

I hope you enjoy reading Southern Ontrack magazine and if you have any comments you would like to make to me and my team, please log on to www.southernrailway.com and click on ‘Your View’.

Chris Burchell, Managing Director