A rail operator has apologised for what passengers have called a "shocking service".

The apology from Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) comes after a number of passengers have complained that the company, which took over from previous franchisee First Capital Connect in September, has so far failed to provide a promised improved service.

More than 2,600 FCC employees were transferred across to work for Govia, which was meant to ensure a smooth transition and continuity.

However, the operator said the problems were the result of staff shortages. A statement on their website said: "We appreciate that recent weeks have been a difficult and sometimes frustrating time for many of our passengers and we are sorry if you have been personally affected by delayed and cancelled services.

"We have a resilience plan for the festive period, suspending all non-essential driver release and double-manning our driver resource management team, and we are constantly reviewing the drivers we have available and assigning them to services in such a way as to minimise the disruption caused. Driver-related cancellations will reduce in January."

St Albans City and District Council’s Local Services Scrutiny Committee registered concern about the deteriorating standard of the Thameslink service at a meeting this month.

During questioning, senior management from GTR admitted that performance of the Thameslink service had been in decline since September 2013.

They said this had continued after GTR took over the franchise on September 14. They explained that the deterioration was due to a combination of poor weather and a number of incidents and project work along the route.

One commuter, Andy Griffiths, said: "Not only have we been subjected to shocking service levels since Govia took over the train operating franchise from FCC but it has now come to light that they are using a less favourable calculation when they compensate passengers for service delays.

"The current Delay Repay system used by Govia, requires the poor delayed customers to take even more time out of their day to logon to the Govia website and claim for each delay greater than 30 mins."

The 40-year-old IT manager added: "This really does rub salt into the wound, when you take into account, I have already been an hour late to work or have missed my kids going to bed, we have to spend more of our time claiming, just to get a voucher to use on their service, not cash compensation, as voucher to use on a train which will probably be delayed again and now they have reduced to payments we are going to receive."

GTR said that from 2015 there will be more fast trains to St Albans between 10pm and midnight and by 2018 almost all fast trains will comprise 12 cars. GTR is also planning to provide better customer information and ticket purchasing options and improvements to St Albans station.

Have you been effected by poor services on the train? Get in touch at charlotte.ikonen@london.newsquest.co.uk