Passengers’ show fury at even more axed services

PASSENGERS have vented their anger after around 50 services across Greater Manchester were cancelled yesterday - with passengers only warned of the disruption on Twitter more than four hours after it began.

Around 47 services were withdrawn throughout the day, impacting the majority of trains on the Liverpool South Parkway to Manchester route and half the Wigan North Western to Huyton express services.

Northern have blamed crew shortages for the cancellations.

Among passengers affected were those heading to and from Manchester Airport.

The first train to be cancelled was the Manchester AirportLiverpool South Parkway at 7.52am, followed by a string of further cancellations. But Northern did not address passengers on the issue until 12.15pm.

A Northern spokesman said: “We would like to apologise to customers that we didn’t get the cancellation information out earlier on social media which is what we normally do. This should have happened, it didn’t and for that we’re sorry.”

It is understood it was not clear to Northern bosses how many drivers would turn up until Sunday shifts began - and that the impact of shortages had been exacerbated by lightening strikes in Yorkshire.

They are also ‘making safe’ the network ready for the partial reinstatement of the timetable today. The latest disruption follows two months of the emergency timetable where promised service improvements failed to fully materialise, with delays and cancellations continuing.

Passengers took to social media to express their frustration.

Chris Horner Tweeted: “@ northernassist are you ever actually going to recruit enough drivers to cover Sundays or are cancellations the new normal? If other businesses have staff shortages they get it sorted asap but not northern!”