Under-fire rail operator suffers big fall in profits

THE COMPANY which runs the under-fire Northern rail franchise saw its profits before tax fall by 40 per cent last year, new figures have revealed.

The annual report for Arriva Rail North for the year ending March 31, 2018, which was only filed with Companies House on January 2, does not include the botched introduction of new timetables which led to chaos on the region’s railways or the longrunning strike action which continues this weekend.

In the report written in July the company said the fall in its pretax profits from £21m to £12.7m was driven by “lower than anticipated passenger revenue growth”.

This was blamed on ongoing industrial action, bad weather and the postponement of planned timetable improvements in December 2017 due to delays in Network Rail completing vital infrastructure work.

It said: “Increased operational staff costs in the year support the company’s future plan to deliver an enhanced timetable as part of the business transformational change agenda.”

Northern will today be hit by a fresh strike in the long-running dispute over guards on trains, disrupting services again for passengers.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) on Arriva Rail North will walk out for the 43rd time since the row flared.

Northern, part of German transport giant Deutsche Bahn, said services will be “extremely busy”, with few trains running after 5pm.

Strikes will be held on every Saturday in January, with no sign of an end to the deadlock.

David Brown, Northern’s managing director, said yesterday: “We expect all of our service on Saturdays in January to be extremely busy”.