The picture taken by Gary Shore of Gaslight shows Norman and myself telling the audience at the end of the meeting that we were off to The Goat, where Norman had performed in a gig back in 1978, long before he got into Parliament and achieved his current reputation as a tireless campaigner and Liberal Democrat spokesman on transport.

But first of all there was the serious stuff.   Chris White, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Herts County Council, opened the meeting and set the context.  I then covered all FCC’s multiple failings which have been well rehearsed previously in this blog – just type First Capital Connect into the search box on the right hand side.  I pointed out that statutory mechanisms exist for franchises to be taken back temporarily into public sector management as has happened with East Coast Mainlines currently and previously happened with the terrible Connex.

The audience was then invited to share their own experiences,  and we had a stream of interesting comments and questions, including whether it is now possible for FCC to lose their franchise.

Norman listened hard to all the points and interjections, and then gave a thoughtful and detailed response, showing a considerable grasp of First Group and FCC’s history and performance both on Thameslink and elsewhere.  He reeled off the statistics on FCC’s relative performance not just over this last winter but for the previous few years and showed how they had consistently under-performed the rest of the rail industry.

He agreed with members of the audience that FCC’s business choice not to employ a sufficient number of drivers and rely disproportionately on rest day working barely justified the argument that all the consequential train cancellations were the result of force majeure when the drivers quite legally refused to play ball.  Since this was the basis of the Department for Transport deciding FCC were not in breach of their franchise obligations, it does indicate an unhealthily close relationship between ministers, officials and franchisees.

The core of his argument was that current franchise arrangements are far too Treasury-focused when they should be passenger-focused.  So the franchises were taken away from Sea Containers and National Express on East Coast Mainlines when they failed to pay the Treasury, while no similar action was taken against FCC when they failed their passengers.  We have a railway run for the Treasury and not for the public.

He was adamant that FCC should not have any franchise extension after the end of the current term in 2012 and that they had to be on  notice for any further failure to deliver their promises to passengers.

Norman ended by painting a vision of longer franchises with passenger-focused targets rather that Treasury ones.  He highlighted the investment being made by Chiltern Railways (which has a 22 year term) in a brand new stretch of track which will create a new route from Oxford to London.  More money could be pumped into the system by making Network Rail match international benchmarks for efficiency and so lower the industry’s costs, by cutting expenditure on new motorways, and by channelling funds through the new National Infrastructure Bank envisioned by Vince Cable.

And on a final note, he alerted us to announcements to be made later this week by the Liberal Democrats on a new vision for fares and better ways of compensating passengers for poor performance.  Watch this space.