YOUR VIEWS Northern is costing us endless anguish
I WAS speaking to a woman at a bus stop the other day about the late running 199 Buxton bus from Stockport – she said that’s nothing compared with the trains.
She said the trains are either cancelled, late, or if they do run at all, are so packed you can’t move, with elderly standing wedged like sardines.
Many times there are platform alternatives and crowds have to run over footbridges, many being unable to make it and get left behind.
One day she set off from Preston to Dove Holes where she lives around 5pm and didn’t get home until 9.30pm because the platform alterations caused such confusion she got on the wrong train.
Chris Grayling’s words of apology are an insult to Northern passengers.
Are we supposed to believe the pathetic excuses for all this chaos – as if Northern had no idea the timetable changes would be a problem?
Surprise, surprise, we are being bluffed with double speak. The fact is that Northern have known for months the new timetable, the number of drivers needed, the number of trains needed, and where there are delays caused by another useless organisation, Network Rail, who cannot get their act together to finish electrifying Bolton. So there is no excuse, Northern is not fit for purpose.
We are told, to great fanfares, that the new franchise would bring huge improvements for the benefit of the public with more, and modern trains replacing ‘pacers’ and other old carriages. We were told by the government that Manchester to Leeds would be electrified and a new high-speed line built crossing the Pennines from Liverpool to Hull.
Osborne promoted this wonderful Northern Powerhouse scheme and committees were formed to get it going.
Well, where is it? Where is the political oratory being transformed into action. Northern should be disenfranchised. It is a total failure and it is costing us, the public, endless anguish. James Butterfield New Mills
Another building gone, to be replaced by another in time office block and mini retail units.
How many more office blocks can Stockport accommodate? Mr R Lever Woodley