LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The British government said itwould provide 20 million pounds ($26 million) to help improveservices on the privately run Southern rail network, afterpassengers suffered months of strikes, cancellations and delays.
The funding would be used to increase the number of teamsused to fix problems on the line, accelerate the replacement ofold track and ensure more staff at busy stations, the Departmentfor Transport (DfT) said on Thursday.
Southern, which connects London to Brighton and GatwickAirport, is run by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Britain'slargest train operator, which is a joint venture owned byLondon-listed Go-Ahead and France's Keolis.
In August, strikes on Southern added to months of delays andcancellations for commuters, following the company's move inJuly to axe about 15 percent of weekly services to try to makeits timetable more reliable.
The DfT said that GTR must work together with Network Rail,which owns the track infrastructure, to provide a better servicefor passengers and named rail veteran Chris Gibb to lead a planto improve services with a report due later this year.
Britain privatised its rail services in the 1990s but theleader of the opposition Labour party Jeremy Corbyn haschampioned renationalisation of the railways.
Joining calls from Corbyn and disgruntled Southernpassengers for the network to be nationalised, the Mayor ofLondon Sadiq Khan said in July that the state-owned Transportfor London should take over running the service.
Go-Ahead reports annual results on Friday. (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Stephen Addison)
