Grayling '˜could have stopped' Northern rail chaos says predecessor

Lord Adonis said he vetoed timetable changes that would prove disruptive during his time in office under Tony Blair.

It came as Northern rail warned it would take weeks to improve services facing unprecedented delays and cancellations.

Lord Adonis told The Yorkshire Post Mr Grayling should have at least been aware of staffing issues at Northern, as well as delayed engineering works.

He said: “To blame it on the railway companies and say they were inevitable teething problems is unacceptable and demonstrates he isn’t doing his job.

“There’s no excuse whatsoever for a Transport Secretary allowing timetable changes to go ahead which radically disrupt the service without a robust plan for delivering on them and taking personal responsibility for seeing that there isn’t unacceptable disruption.”

Mr Grayling said he is in discussions with Northern and Network Rail to put right “wholly unacceptable” disruption.

“I have been very clear with Network Rail that it was far too late in finalising planned timetable changes and this must not happen again,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sheffield City Region mayor Dan Jarvis personally called on the Transport Secretary to take action.

After a teleconference with Mr Grayling and other northern leaders, Mr Jarvis said: “The problems being faced by rail passengers across the North are clearly unacceptable, so there is an urgent requirement for the Secretary of State to take swift and decisive action to improve services as soon as possible.

“However, we also need more than short term solutions. It is therefore crucial that there is a significant uplift in investment in northern transport infrastructure over the coming years.”