More cancellations and delays in rail shambles
FED-UP rail passengers faced more chaos yesterday as scores of trains were badly delayed or cancelled.
Northern Rail launched an emergency timetable – axing 165 services – in a bid to halt two weeks of disruption.
But many of the trains that did run were still held up, and some routes did not even have replacement buses.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said Northern Rail was in “the last-chance saloon” and demanded “substantial” compensation and fare reductions for those affected.
He said: “It is the company, and not the passengers, who should pay the price for their mismanagement.
“They are causing too much damage to the economy of the North to be allowed to inflict their miserable, unreliable services on us any longer.
“If they are not providing the promised new May timetable by early August, then steps should be taken to strip the franchise from them.”
Northern launched an eight-week interim timetable yesterday, axing six per cent of services across Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool and the Lakes Line between Oxenholme and Windermere.
Govia Thameslink Railway, which consists of Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express, is also operating an interim timetable. Commuter Clare Lamb described her journey home from London to Surrey as “horrendous” and said she had to leave her 13-year-old son home alone in the morning just to get to work on time.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport union's general secretary Mick Cash said: “If you draw up an emergency timetable that cancels trains to avoid cancelling trains and yet still cancel trains, you are not fit to run a bath, let alone a railway.”
The timing of all GTR and most Northern trains was changed on May 20 with the launch of new services and capacity. Since then, hundreds of trains have been axed. One commuter, software developer Nick Mitchell, 31, of Urmston, Manchester, has even created a “Northern Fail” app to document daily cancellations.
Northern's managing director David Brown apologised yesterday for the “unacceptable service”, saying the company realised earlier this year that the infrastructure and electrification needed would not happen in time.
He said it had meant a very shortnotice change to a complex timetable, which had led to “a very poor-quality timetable” being introduced.
Downing Street yesterday called the situation “totally unacceptable”.