Call for minister’s sacking over rail service ‘worse than third world’
GREATER Manchester leaders have called for the transport secretary to be sacked and Northern Rail to be stripped of its franchise after its performance slumped again last month – despite its emergency timetable.
One council leader branded its services ‘worse than the third world’, while a second accused secretary of state Chris Grayling of ‘hiding away’ from the problem.
New figures tabled to the region’s combined authority come two days before the phased reintroduction of Northern’s chaotic timetable. The data shows that, despite emergency schedules introduced across the north last month, more than one in four Northern trains are still turning up late.
More than 1,000 trains were also cancelled in that time, while many more have been running with fewer carriages, leaving huge crowds of passengers standing on platforms.
The region’s mayor, Andy Burnham, demanded transport secretary Chris Grayling come to Manchester to finally resolve the problems, the fundamental causes of which he said still remained unclear despite repeated conversations with the rail industry.
Trafford council leader Andrew Western called for Mr Grayling’s head to roll, a demand backed by Tameside council’s leader Brenda Warrington. Other town hall bosses also piled in, branding the continued failure as ‘appalling’, ‘shocking’ and ‘unacceptable’.
Meanwhile Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese said ongoing chaos also proved the need for expansion at Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations - a decision that had been ‘sat on ministers’ desks for two years’.
At the start of July only 71.4pc of Northern trains arrived on time - a figure that had gradually slumped since the emergency timetable was improved following May’s meltdown.
Northern cancelled, either in full or in part, around 2,500 trains in June. The worst-hit lines were in Lancashire and Cumbria, but around 800 cancellations were on routes directly serving north or south Manchester.
June also saw a spike in trains turn up with fewer carriages than expected. North Manchester saw nearly 600 trains shortened in that month alone.
It was also reported last week that Manchester has the most overcrowded trains in the country.
Mr Burnham described the situation as ‘frankly astonishing’ given the emergency timetable, adding that Transpennine Express is not performing a lot better than Northern.
“There is something seriously wrong here with the industry’s understanding of the patterns of service, with the system, the congestion of parts of the system,” he said.
“It points to significant failures on behalf of all parts of the rail industry to begin diagnosing these problems, find solutions to them and then ensure an acceptable standard of service to the Greater Ma chester public. It’s simply not good enough.”
Wigan council leader David Molyneux said: “It’s worse than a third world service on many occasions.” Other council leaders went further, calling for Mr Grayling’s head to roll. Trafford council has passed a motion demanding the transport secretary’s resignation. Leader Andrew Western said he will write to the Prime Minister.
“This is unacceptable and the government cannot continue to treat the commuters of the north with the contempt that they have in ignoring this issue for so long,” he said.
Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese also pointed to one key underlying problem, relating to the rail corridor through Castlefield. While the new Ordsall Chord route had been built as planned, the other elements to the government’s Northern Hub project – which would have seen both Oxford Road and Piccadilly Stations get expanded platforms – had not been delivered.
“The result of a public inquiry we know has been sat on ministerial desks for over two years for both Oxford Road and Piccadilly’s platforms 15 and 16,” he said.
May’s chaos had shown that it was not possible to run the necessary number of trains each hour through Castlefield without that, he said. Northern Rail and the Department for Transport have been asked to comment.