Minister slams Northern as hundreds of rail services are cancelled

Transport minister Chris Grayling says Northern Rail has failed passengers with no sign of the chaos on services in the region coming to an end.

There have been hundreds of cancellations following the introduction of new timetables across the North West.

More than 250 trains were cancelled by Northern on Tuesday with over a hundred yesterday.

The transport secretary says the “rail industry has collectively failed” passengers after timetable changes caused chaos across the network.

Chris Grayling wrote to MPs over the “wholly unsatisfactory” service on Govia Thameslink Railway and Northern.

And pressure is growing on the Government to take away the franchise from Northern.

Mr Grayling said: “The way timetabling is done has to change.”

He added: “We were aware there might be some disruption in the early stages of any new timetable change but the scale of the problem has far outstripped any expectation.”
The transport secretary also criticised Network Rail, saying it “cannot cope” with the workload, and its performance was “simply unacceptable”.

Greater Manchester Metro mayor Andy Burnham has labelled the service unacceptably poor and accused Northern of making passengers lives a misery.

Mayor Andy Burnham

Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram said:  “Northern’s passengers have endured months of misery and, when we spoke to the Transport Secretary last week, Andy Burnham and I made it very clear that we need immediate action to put an end to this disruption

“It is vital that Northern, Transport for the North and the Department for Transport work together to understand what has caused these issues. Northern need to publish a comprehensive action plan for putting things right and must introduce a compensation scheme quickly.

“If Northern fail to adhere to the agreed action plan, then a process needs to be initiated to remove Arriva Rail North’s franchise to operate and look at models of public ownership.

“Chaos on the North’s rail network has been so extreme and so prolonged that, as a company, Northern have lost the benefit of the doubt.

“They simply cannot be permitted to keep inflicting a miserable sub-standard service on the hundreds of thousands of passengers across our region who have had to endure dire train travel for far too long.”

Meanwhile there has been criticism of the way Northern has responded to complaints from passengers on social media.

Northern agreed to publish an action plan with “clear dates and milestones” for improvements so the company can be held to account.

The operator has also commissioned an independent report into the problems.

David Brown, managing director of Northern, said: “Our plans for modernisation are not all being delivered in the way we want.

“We are doing everything we can to minimise cancellations and delays and keep our customers informed.

“It has been difficult for many of our customers and I am truly sorry for this.

“There is urgent work to do to fully understand what did and didn’t work on all aspects of planning and delivery of the new timetable.

“We are committed to working with Network Rail to get things back on track as quickly as possible, and to deliver the services our customers expect and deserve.”

Meanwhile, Bolton MP Sir David Crausby has secured a debate on Northern services in Greater Manchester in Parliament on 6 June.

Labour’s shadow rail minster Rachel Maskell blamed the transport secretary for the problems.

She said: “The buck stops with him. It was him who awarded contracts to incompetent train companies and it was him who propped up a failed and unpopular system of rail privatisation.

“The next Labour government will put in place a new rail service, publicly owned and therefore better integrated, so that rail is run in the interests of the public.”

A Network Rail spokesman said: “Late timetables have certainly not helped the recent events but there are many other factors across the industry involved and we are looking at understanding the root cause so that future changes can be implemented more smoothly.”