2,000 trains are cancelled in one week
BURNHAM SAYS MINISTER HAS BEEN ‘ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL’ OVER CRISIS
MAYOR Andy Burnham has accused the Transport Secretary of ‘falling asleep at the wheel’ over Northern Rail chaos – amid passenger calls for his sacking.
Mr Burnham, who held crunch talks with rail chief Chris Grayling yesterday, described the conversation as ‘disappointing.’
The conference call with other northern leaders took place a week after the Department for Transport (DfT) and Transport for the North (TftN) intervened to agree an emergency plan with Northern to address ‘performance issues.’
Mr Burnham said he was promised passengers would have seen improvements by now. But with more than 2,000 announced part or full cancellations in the last week, the commuter nightmare continues.
Mr Burnham told the M.E.N: “The Transport Secretary been asleep at the wheel and allowed this chaos to develop.
“He promised Northern would be a top priority but he’s completely failed to get a grip and it can’t carry on.
“The big takeaway from this is that the pain of northern commuters is not of equal worth to the pain of southern commuters.
“If this was happening in the south, there would be a different response from Mr Grayling.
“As always, when it comes to the north, people are treated as second class citizens.
“We were led to believe things would get better in a fortnight but things have got worse – and nobody seems to know why.”
Mr Burnham added: “This is a shared responsibility between Network Rail and Northern and blame shifting and passing the buck does no good to anybody.
“Northern has lost the benefit of the doubt. Does the company care enough what customers are going through? I don’t see that it does.
“The removal of the franchise needs to remain on the table.”
Mr Burnham said Northern should have anticipated the issues around the new timetable, which Northern claims have revolved around Network Rail’s engineering and scheduling delays and their knock-on impact on driver training on the new routes.
Mr Burnham said Mr Grayling told leaders they would ‘plot a way back’ to a better service, but he added: “My call is more direct. Mr Grayling needs to take personal responsibilty for this situation.
“He needs to set a clear deadline by which things will improve to an acceptable standard. This will allow us to hold him and the rail industry to account.
“We cannot have another week where promises are made and things slip backwards.”
Commuters, meanwhile, are now calling for Mr Grayling’s sacking.
Katie Macdonald, 51, who commutes daily from Bromley Cross to Manchester Victoria, said: “Hundreds of thousands of lives are being affected.
“Chris Grayling has basically shown complete ineptitude and incompetence and if he was running a business in any other sector he’d be asked to step down by a board in a vote of no confidence and that is effectively what the passengers of Northern are asking him to do.”
Mr Grayling said: “I am in regular discussions with Network Rail, Northern and GTR, and have reiterated that disruption suffered by passengers is wholly unacceptable.
“I have been very clear with Network Rail that it was far too late in finalising planned timetable changes and this must not happen again.
“Train companies are working to keep passengers moving and disruption minimised.”
A Department for Transport spokeswoman said they did not recognise claims Mr Grayling did not understand the root of the problem.
Northern Rail, Network Rail and Govia Thameslink Railway have said in a joint statement they are urgently working on ‘comprehensive plans’ to reduce disruption to give passengers ‘the greatest possible certainty of train services so they can better plan ahead.”
Bosses added: “Unfortunately, it will take some time to deliver significant improvements to services, but we will keep passengers up to date on all changes we make.”