Predicition comes after firm loses franchise

RAIL services in the north will get better ‘quite quickly’ after the announcement of Northern Rail’s renationalisation, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has predicted.

But he says that services will still need to be cut in order to make them reliable.

The mayor was speaking to the Observer after the government confirmed Northern Rail’s beleaguered franchise would be taken into public ownership on March 1, following months of pressure from northern leaders.

Arriva has been stripped of the contract it has had since April 2016. It was due to run until 2025.

The change will come into effect on March 1, with a public-sector operator the so-called operator of last resort - taking control of services.

A new company was registered with Companies House ahead of the announcement.

The franchise name was changed to Northern Trains and will be operated by the Department for Transport.

He welcomed the announcement, arguing that Sunday services in particular were likely to rapidly improve.

However, the existing timetable would also need to be changed in order to allow trains to run on time, he said, which would mean some services being axed.

Mr Burnham also called

●●Great Manchester mayor Andy Burnham (inset) insists railway services will improve fairly rapidly after Northern Rail’s franchise was taken into public ownership on ministers - who have today also promised a ‘masterplan’ for rail infrastructure in the centre of Manchester, where a bottleneck has helped cause chaos across the north - to finally fund long overdue new platforms at Manchester Piccadilly, as well as other improvements through Castlefield.

Describing those projects as ‘shovel ready,’ he admitted news of the government’s latest proposed infrastructure ‘masterplan’ for Manchester had caused him to ‘roll his eyes’ - since detailed plans have already been on government desks now for several years, without sign-off.

Nevertheless Mr Burnham insisted services would improve fairly rapidly in the wake of Northern’s takeover by the Operator of Last Resort, the technical name for the government arm that will run it from March, even without those infrastructure upgrades.

“I think Sundays will get better quite quickly,” he said, referring to years of cancellations under Northern, in large part due to a long-running trade union dispute.

“There was a deal done with the drivers that we were involved with behind the scenes and I think we will be back to a proper Sunday service quite quickly, possibly even before March 1.

“They’ve been a disgrace really, the cancellations on a Sunday.

“I think things will get slightly better from March onwards. I think there’s a lot of expertise in the people who are coming in and I think we will begin to see moderate improvements.

“Rolling stock is coming through all the time as well.”

However, at the latest meeting of the pan-northern Transport for the North body earlier this month, it was made plain that without as-yet unspecified cuts to services, merely removing Northern’s franchise would not be enough to end the chaos.

Mr Burnham admitted this would be both necessary and ‘controversial.’

“The big change that’s needed is a change to the timetable,” he said. “We have got too many trains going through Manchester every hour. This is controversial but it’s a fact - we need to take some train paths out because there’s too many in the bottleneck round there and it’s just chaos at the moment.

“We have been having conversations about which trains could be removed and of course there’s still freight trains going through Castlefield at peak times. That really is a nonsense. We’d hope the government through OLR can get a grip on that. I’d hope something could be done by May timetable, if not, then December.”

Part of the reason for May 2018’s meltdown was, according to the rail industry, the very short space of time they had been given to rewrite that summer’s new timetable.

Asked whether that could happen again, Mr Burnham said: “There is that danger and that’s what they say to me when I say ‘get a grip on it.’ I’m not talking about a wholesale restructure.”

The announcement from government also referred to a masterplan for that bottleneck in the heart of Manchester, which has crippled not only the services through the city itself but across the north.

It said that the secretary of state, Grant Shapps, has ‘instructed the leadership of the public-sector operator to sit down with Network Rail and build a comprehensive new masterplan to review congestion.’

However a comprehensive set of plans have been circulating now for several years, including expansion at Piccadilly Station, which has already passed its public inquiry, before going to government, being sent back out for further review by Network Rail, and returning in more or less the same form.

As a result Mr Burnham said he ‘rolled his eyes’ at that part of the announcement.

“That’s the one bit of the statement when I read it that made me wince a bit.

“How many times are we going to o round this circuit?” he said.

Noting that he still sensed ‘resistance’ within the Department of Transport to the idea, he added: “If they want shovel-ready northern infrastructure, it’s a pretty brilliant example of a piece of infrastructure that would benefit the whole north. If we had these platforms, it would benefit the whole of the north.”

While services would improve without that, he said, ultimately Manchester still needs those longpromised infrastructure upgrades.

“London-style transport means London-scale investment,” he added.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said in a statement: “It’s no surprise that passengers have lost trust in the North’s rail network.

“The service provided by the rail network in the north has failed to meet the needs of passengers.

“I am announcing today that from 1 March the Northern Rail franchise will be taken into public ownership and the government will begin operating services through the publicsector operator - the socalled operator of last resort.”