Please get Northern trains running on time – The Yorkshire Post says

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union has said it believes a forthcoming review into the running of the nation’s railways could move Northern back into private hands within weeks after the franchise for the much-maligned service was taken away from Arriva Rail North this weekend due to poor performance.

The union joined rail passenger groups yesterday in calling for the return of a publicly-owned railway system and a move away from the “broken” franchise system.

While the Department for Transport accepts that the current franchise system needs to change and it has given a 100-day timetable for the Government’s operator to put forward a plan to deliver “real and tangible improvements for passengers”, a return to a fully public railway system appears deeply unlikely in the foreseeable future. As Transport Secretary Grant Shapps wrote in this newspaper yesterday, there is no “magic cure for Northern”.

But for beleaguered commuters and passengers who have to rely on the notoriously unreliable Northern rail services, political arguments around their ownership structure come a distant second 
place to the delivery of a system that runs on time and lets them travel in comfort.

It should be the bare minimum of what is expected but for far too many years, what has been delivered – by both Northern and other operators serving this region – has come nowhere near that very basic premise. That must start to change immediately.