Train bosses promise to improve services in the North after ‘meltdown’

TransPennine Express (TPE), Northern and Avanti West Coast have cancelled thousands of services at short notice in recent months, even though they reduced timetables earlier this year to try and minimise disruption.

Earlier this month, all three operators introduced new timetables which reinstated hundreds of services, and vowed to improve reliability for passengers.

But dozens of trains were cancelled on the day those timetables were launched, due to bad weather and staff sickness, and strikes organised by the RMT are due to cause further disruption in the coming weeks.

Lord Patrick Mcloughlin, Chair of Transport for the North, said services have gone into “meltdown” and the disruption is currently costing the Northern economy around £8m a week.

Speaking to Parliament’s Transport Committee today, he said: “It is absolutely essential that these services are restored as quickly as possible with some reliability.”

Operators said they have been working to address the main issues – the train driver shortage – which emerged after a training backlog built up during the pandemic and drivers decided to stop volunteering to cover shifts on their rest days amid an ongoing industrial dispute.

TransPennine Express and Northern were both granted permission by the Government to negotiate new rest-day working agreements with the drivers union ASLEF earlier this week, but no agreements have been reached yet.

Richard Scott, Avanti West Coast 's Director of Corporate Affairs, admitted passengers have been “let down” but the new timetable, which increases the number of services by 40 per cent, will deliver long-awaited improvements.

He said Avanti, owned by First Group and Italian firm First Trenitalia, has enough drivers to operate all of the services and it is no longer reliant on rest-day working.

“We have been working extremely hard over the last few months on getting the new timetable in place,” he said. “It will be reliable, sustainable, robust and resilient.

“I accept fully that we have damaged trust in the travelling public and it will take time to get back.”

Avanti, which had the worst record for punctuality between July and September, has a contract to run services on the West Coast Mainline until the end of March and Mr Scott said he does not know if it will be renewed.

Nick Donovan, Managing Director at Northern, said the operator has enough drivers, which take at least 18 months to train, to deliver a reliable service.

But around 70 per cent of cancellations are currently being caused by staff sickness, he added.

Matthew Golton, Managing Director of TPE, admitted some passengers have been “let down” in recent months by a series of cancellations and delays.

He added: “What we have to do over the next few months is get this timetable performing more reliably and make a significant inroad into the number of cancellations."

Mr Golton also told MPs the operator has 576 drivers – more than ever before – but loss of rest-day working, the training backlog, industrial action and preparations for disruption caused by the Transpennine Route Upgrade have “eroded and hobbled our ability to make progress”.