Fury over more chaos on region’s railways
RAIL delays and cancellations have rocketed again in the past few weeks despite the introduction of emergency timetables, sparking further fury from northern politicians.
New figures show delays on Transpennine Express have shot up since the middle of last month, while up to one in four of its trains have been cancelled or significantly late in recent days.
Meanwhile around a quarter of Northern Rail trains are failing to turn up on time, even though the operator has been working to a reduced timetable. Government and the rail industry have now been warned against reintroducing the original timetable as planned on July 29, amid fears the system’s underlying problems have not been addressed.
Greater Manchester’s mayor has branded the continued delays and cancellations ‘outrageous.’
At Friday’s meeting of Rail North, which comprises council leaders and mayors from across the region and helps to oversee train franchises, it is understood politicians expressed serious frustration at the further drop in performance.
They were particularly enraged to be told by officials that only Chris Grayling, the secretary of state for transport, had the power to halt the original timetable’s reintroduction.
The figures presented to leaders show that from around June 18 there was a decline in the number of trains run by either operator that arrived on time, with a particularly dramatic drop on Transpennine.
On June 27, one in four of TPE’s trains were either cancelled altogether or significantly late, while the following day only 40pc of its services managed to turn up within 10 minutes of their scheduled departure time.
Performance on Northern - which has been operating to a reduced timetable ever since the original schedules threw services into chaos in May - has been better, but has still declined since the middle of June.
As of the end of the month, one in four of its trains were turning up at least five minutes late.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham slammed the poor performance, while the leader of Leeds council has warned against a rush back to the original timetable in a little over a fortnight’s time.
“It is frankly outrageous that the performance of train services across the north are getting worse again, even when fewer trains are running,” said Mr Burnham.
“The emergency timetable that cancelled thousands of services was brought in with the promise that this would help rail operators to stabilise and improve services. Passengers deserve an explanation from the rail industry as to why train services in the North are once again deteriorating.
“In May the transport secretary said that sorting the rail chaos in the north was his number one priority. Here in Greater Manchester, we have seen no evidence that he has followed through on that.
“The rail industry and Department for Transport need to get a grip and get to the root of this problem before any decisions are made on future services and timetables.”
TPE and Northern have been approached for comment.