Rail customers will face a “wave of ticket office carnage” if rail bosses plans to close ticket offices are successful, according to the rail union.

Yesterday rail union RMT launched action to defend jobs and services over Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) plans to close 81 offices on Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express lines.

Nine Croydon stations and four in Sutton will be affected by the plans.

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The first wave of closures will take place in June, with Carshalton Beeches, Selhurst and South Croydon and stations among the first to lose their office.

A second wave is proposed to take place after with Norbury, Thornton Heath, Purley, Coulson South, Sanderstead, Wallington, Carshalton, Sutton and Caterham ticket offices set to be shut, but a closure date is not yet known.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said although the plans are legally required to be put out for consultation the company “hell bent on bulldozing through the proposals from June this year”.

He added: “These plans, driven by the desire to de-staff our railways in the quest for profit, would unleash a wave of ticket office carnage across rail franchises that are already seen as the basket-cases of Britain’s privatised railway network.

“It is clear that Govia couldn’t give two hoots about passenger services, jobs and safety and are prepared to milk these routes for every single penny that they can extract regardless of what the travelling public think of them.

“It is a disgrace and Govia should be slung out and these essential rail services taken into public ownership before these latest profit-driven cuts are allowed to rip through these 81 stations from North to South.”

A spokesperson for Govia Thameslink Railway said: “We want to modernise the way we operate approximately 80 of our busier stations for the benefit of passengers, many of whom now buy their tickets online, or use Oyster, contactless and smartcards.

“Where sales from ticket offices are low, we want to bring staff out from behind the windows and on to the concourse to work where they’re needed most, as station hosts, providing assistance and helping sell tickets from ticket machines and their own handheld devices.

“All the affected stations will be staffed for longer as a result – at all but two they would be staffed from the very first train of the day to the very last, seven days a week.

“This will drive other customer benefits and we’ll also be able to increase the opening hours of facilities passengers have told us are important, such as waiting rooms, toilets and lifts.”

Rail bosses have faced repeated criticism over the last month for its poor service, leading to Transport for London announcing it would take over London’s entire suburban rail network by 2021.

MP’s are continuing to call for Southern and Thameslink to lose its franchise sooner than 2021 if it cannot improve its service.

Last week a national survey revealed Thameslink and Southern customers had the lowest and third lowest customer satisfaction ratings.