Show of unity as reporters sent out into Northern Rail chaos

NEWSPAPERS from across the region sent reporters out into the Northern Rail chaos on Tuesday in an unprecedented show of unity.

Our sister paper the Manchester Evening News was joined by titles including the Liverpool Echo, Huddersfield Examiner, Teesside Gazette and Hull Daily Mail in demanding urgent action from the Government to address the fiasco.

To highlight the problems facing commuters on a daily basis, journalists went out on the hardest-hit train journeys across the north during both the morning and evening rush hour.

And it was a familiar story of overcrowding, delays and yet more cancellations.

In Rochdale, passenger Matthew Bannon was waiting for the 7.59am service from Littleborough into Manchester and said it has been regularly cancelled.

“The new timetable has made it much worse,” he said.

By the time our reporter got to Rochdale, the train was already standing room only.

It was a similar tale in Liverpool where travellers told of being stuck like ‘sardines’ in packed trains.

And Samantha Gildea, a reporter at our sister title Leeds Live, was unable to get onto the newly reduced service from Headingley to Leeds as it was too packed.

There were even claims Leeds railway station has entirely run out of complaint forms.

The evening commute was no better.

Reporter Leigh Kimmins tried to travel from Manchester Piccadilly to Liverpool South Parkway at 5.10pm. Services to Manchester Airport were delayed or cancelled due to lack of staff while he was in the station.

He also watched a crowd of passengers struggle to get onto a train to Preston with many muttering words such as ‘nightmare’ and ‘madness.’

The 5.41pm to Bromley Cross from Manchester Victoria was similarly crowded with conditions made all the more unbearable by hot weather.

An M.E.N. reporter watched as passengers were unable to board in Salford and the train became delayed as the driver asked for volunteers to get off and wait for the next service.

A regular commuter told us the service has been cut from four carriages to two under the emergency timetable.

Local MPs also voiced their concern about the issue, with Liz McInnes, Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton, whose constituency covers Bamford and Castleton, saying: “Railways in the north of England should be brought back into public ownership and the necessary investment needs to be made so that we can get the region moving and growing.”

Tony Lloyd, Labour MP for Rochdale, said: “It is unbelievable that no modelling took place in order to prevent the kind of disaster that we’ve seen.”