Transpennine Express ‘fiasco’: Government urged to step in as passengers face severe disruption

The operator is announcing dozens of cancellations on a daily basis Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said the disruption is “causing real damage” to passengers and the Northern economy.

More than 100 services have been cancelled since Tuesday and Transpennine Express has blamed high levels of staff sickness, a driver training backlog caused by the pandemic and issues with the railways.

It comes after TPE brought in an amended timetable last month, which cut the number of services operating between North West England and Scotland, to try and reduce disruption.

Ms Haigh said: “It’s time for Ministers to put the country first, stop washing their hands of responsibility, and intervene.

“They should demand a binding plan from TransPennine Express for the urgent improvement of these vital services, claw-back taxpayers' money being handed over for trains that are no longer running, and if they cannot deliver, begin withdrawing the contract.

“It's utterly absurd that people cannot rely on the train to get to work, and flies in the face of countless promises made by the Tories to connect our northern towns and cities.”

She has also highlighted Government data which shows the number of planned services run by Transpennine Express fell by almost 20 per cent between April and June this year.

A spokesman for TPE has apologised for the disruption and said staff are working “flat-out to deliver higher levels of service”.

He added: “In normal circumstances, we have enough people to fully operate our scheduled timetable – and have more drivers now than ever before – however the combination of factors has put unprecedented pressure on our ability to effectively operate our services.”

MPs discussed the disruption faced by passengers travelling with TPE and Avanti West Coast, which are both owned by FirstGroup, in Parliament earlier this week.

Rail Minister Kevin Foster said: “We recognise that a number of factors have affected performance. Again, quite a lot of training is needed following the backlogs caused by covid and related to the line upgrades.

“It is clear that TPE services need to improve quite substantially. Again, we look to work with FirstGroup to get the type of improvement plan we want to see.”

He also said Avanti has been running a reduced service in recent months because drivers have stopped volunteering to work on their rest days, but it is in the process of hiring almost 100 new drivers.

“From December, Avanti plans to operate 264 daily train services on weekdays, a significant step up from the circa 180 daily services at present.

“We need train services that are reliable and resilient to modern life. Although the company has taken positive steps to get more trains moving, it must do more to deliver certainty of service to its passengers.”