Northern: Train company 'should lose franchise', say mayors

A matter that will have been affecting those of you using Sheffield train station this week (when they haven't been on strike of course)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-44242402

Rail company Northern should lose its franchise if improvements are not made, the mayors of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region have said.

 

A phone call between Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling took place to discuss disruption and mass cancellations. The mayors said Northern needs to publish an action plan so it can be held to account by passengers. A spokesman for the government said the disruption has been "unacceptable".

 

The mayors said the chaos on the network has been "so extreme" that Northern has "lost the benefit of the doubt". Mr Grayling told the House of Commons that the issues with Northern were a "Network Rail failure."

 

"This problem has arisen for two prime reasons: the problems with electrification Network Rail is carrying out on the line through Bolton and the failure of Network Rail to deliver a finalised timetable in time," he said. A spokesman for the Department for Transport said improving Northern services is Mr Grayling's "top priority".

The problems with Northern are in the vast majority of cases to do with Lancashire hence the Liverpool and Manchester involvement.

A new timetable was written to take advantage of Electrification-this is running late.

Old rolling stock still being used.

No cascade of good diesel stock to other lines.

Drivers late in being trained on new electric trains and routes.

TPE services to Manchester/Airport also affected by congestion at Piccadilly which is down to Northern problems and the new use of the island platform for services to Leeds via Victoria.

Our chaos starts on the 22nd of July with:

reduced service to London- hourly

reduced service to Chesterfield

an hour added to Birmingham services

no services to Derby at all

Northern improvements? I feel like im living in early eighties' when using northern. Foreign visitors laugh when they see a northern train coming and consider it some old fashioned romantic historic trip.

The problems with Northern are in the vast majority of cases to do with Lancashire hence the Liverpool and Manchester involvement.

A new timetable was written to take advantage of Electrification-this is running late.

Old rolling stock still being used.

No cascade of good diesel stock to other lines.

Drivers late in being trained on new electric trains and routes.

 

TPE services to Manchester/Airport also affected by congestion at Piccadilly which is down to Northern problems and the new use of the island platform for services to Leeds via Victoria.

 

Our chaos starts on the 22nd of July with:

reduced service to London- hourly

reduced service to Chesterfield

an hour added to Birmingham services

no services to Derby at all

Yes to all of the above, although services in and out of Sheffield have also been worse in the past week. Some of this is bad luck, yet another strike has not helped but those haven't been the only issues.

But yes, things are worse on the wrong side of the Pennines, for the reasons you describe.