No train company should be encouraging passengers to endure “through the pain barrier” of repeated delays, cancellations and general incompetence of the operator.

Not least TransPennine Express (TPE), which has been setting all time lows, even by its standards when it comes to the service, or more the lack of it, that the operator provides to passengers.

It’s a damning indictment of the state of rail travel in this region that an operator would tell passengers to put up with such poor service.

Ministers will soon have to decide whether TPE’s contract to run services across the North should be renewed in May or the Government’s Operator of Last Resort should take over.

Rail Minister Huw Merriman said that railways in the North won't be fixed “overnight”. PIC: TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images

But from the region’s perspective, the Government surely has no choice but to strip the failing operator of its franchise.

Communities like Slaithwaite have been nearly cut off from the rest of Yorkshire, as TPE just can’t be trusted.

The commuters there are exasperated, having to rely on expensive and less eco-friendly alternatives to get to work and back.

While it's fair for Rail Minister Huw Merriman to say that railways in the North won't be fixed “overnight”, it’s time that the Government put an end to the misery suffered by thousands of commuters across the region on a daily basis for a year.

As Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “We have been suffering for a year now and the people of West Yorkshire have had enough.”

Yes, there is a need for “root and branch reform”, as Mr Merriman said at the Northern Transport Summit in Liverpool, but the question the Minister needs to ask is would the Government accept this level of chaos on the railways of London for even a few days?

The Government must ensure this is the end of the track for TPE - The Yorkshire Post says