Action plan put in place to improve rail services in region

An action plan has been agreed to tackle the problems on Northern Rail services across the region.

The company has come under fire from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham for making commuters lives a misery.

And Transport Minister Chris Grayling has said improving services on Northern Rail was his number one priority.

He said: “Improving the service for Northern customers is the number one performance priority for my department and we will work with the industry to keep disruption at a minimum.”
A package of measures have been put in place and the performance of the company is being monitored on a daily basis.

Following the criticism from Andy Burnham the operator pledged to introduce a plan to restore services to acceptable levels of reliability “at the earliest opportunity”.

Mayor Andy Burnham

Barry White, the Chief Executive of Transport for the North, said: “We are extremely disappointed and concerned with the inadequate performance of Northern.

“We have received a timetable recovery plan from Northern to address these concerns and improve the rail experience for passengers. Both Transport for the North and the Department for Transport, through the Rail North Partnership, will be monitoring progress against the plan on a daily basis.”

The plan includes:

• Improving driver rostering to get more trains running now.

• Increasing driver training on new routes to get more services on line as quickly as possible.

• Additional contingency drivers and management presence at key locations in Manchester.

• Putting extra peak services in the timetable along the Bolton corridor, including between Buckshaw and Manchester Victoria, and Preston and Manchester Oxford Road.