Long route to getting rail network in North back on track

Northern attempted to bring in a new timetable, yet a combination of poor industrial relations and creaking infrastructure led to thousands of trains getting cancelled within days.

Even seasoned observers were surprised by the chaos. Sir Michael Holden, a former boss of what is now LNER, said: “Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine it could conceivably be anything like as bad as it is.”

Passengers trying to commute from Leeds to Manchester would stare up at departure boards and watch service after service get axed.

This led to an entire generation of people being turned off train travel for good. Driving became the only reliable option for people wanting to get to work.

“The railways I think struggled to recover from that,” Mr Jackson says.

For Northern and TPE - the two key train operators - there would be no quick improvement.

TPE was the first franchise to be taken under public control due to poor performance in May 2023, and had to scale back its timetable later that year to avoid mass cancellations.

The operator had become notorious for using p-coded cancellations, which means a service is wiped from the timetable the night before.

Initially these did not appear in official statistics and at one point in 2023 TPE’s overall cancellation rate including p-codes was 22.6 per cent, while its official rate was recorded at 6 per cent.

With Northern, problems still remain. Over half-term last autumn, one in every 10 Northern trains was cancelled, while over a 12-week period one in three services on a Sunday between Sheffield and Manchester were axed.

The operator’s bosses told mayors recently that performance levels have been declining since 2015, and said it would take another three years to get services back to a respectable level.

In many people’s eyes, Northern’s archaic service was summed up by the fact it still uses fax machines to communicate with its drivers.

Martin Tugwell, chief executive of Transport for the North, says: “At the first level, it'd be nice to get back to a state where the residents and businesses in the North can have confidence that they've got a reliable railway.

“We know we need to unlock the economic potential, we need to grow that.

“But I think the starting point is actually to say we need a reliable railway, and what we should be delivering, we are delivering.”

West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin’s analysis is very clear: “We know that West Yorkshire and the North more widely have been absolutely left behind when it comes to funding for the rail network.”

The cancellation of both Northern legs of HS2 - to Leeds and Manchester - has left scars.

“We’ve already been working with a very fragile network with no resilience,” the Mayor explains.

“One thing happens from east to west and the whole day is wiped out when it comes to transport.”

However, amid the doom and gloom some much-needed optimism is growing.

“Its’s been a very negative story,” Ms Brabin says, “that I’ve been telling for the last three years.

“I think we are coming to a fork in the road where the future is and could be definitely much brighter.”

Firstly, after being forced to scale back its timetable in December 2023 to avoid more mass cancellations, over Christmas TPE was able to launch a new and increased timetable.

This has four fast trains every hour between Leeds and Manchester Victoria, alongside more stopping services.

Castleford, Normanton and Wakefield Kirkgate are also getting new direct links to York and Manchester every hour.

Services from Hull to Liverpool are set to benefit from new Nova-1 trains, while routes from Sheffield across the Pennines are set to have more carriages added.

Northern has agreed a rest day working agreement, which will particularly help services to Sheffield and those on the other side of the Pennines.

In the Budget, the Chancellor confirmed the funding for the TransPennine Route Upgrade (TRU), the biggest engineering project outside of HS2, which unlike the controversial high-speed behemoth is both on time and on budget.

The £11.5 billion project involves electrifying the 76-mile route, building new tracks, installing digital signalling equipment and upgrading stations. It is due to be completed by 2033.

The project, first announced back in 2011, will increase capacity – allowing eight more trains to run each hour – improve reliability.

It will also cut journey times, so people can travel between York and Manchester in 41 minutes and from Leeds to Manchester in 33 minutes.

Over the next few years, passengers are likely to see slower services or rail replacement buses to accommodate the work.

But Mr Jackson says: “I believe the short-term pain will be worth it for the long-term gain.

“We will have a railway system in the North, I’m convinced of it, that will rival or better that which you see in Crossrail [the Elizabeth line], and that’s pretty exciting.”

Ms Brabin describes the TRU as “absolutely fantastic” and believes it could build momentum for further infrastructure projects across Yorkshire and the North.

“We have all these engineers in our region, we have all this momentum - let’s use this to continue the programme of works,” she says.

“Some of them may be small - new platforms at Leeds - some of them may be bigger - a brand new through station at Bradford.

“But let’s keep the engineers in our region, so the programme of work rolls on.”

One of those possible infrastructure projects could be Northern Powerhouse Rail, the long-promised high-speed line from Liverpool connecting Leeds, Hull and Sheffield, with Manchester Airport.

It was initially pledged in 2014 by David Cameron and George Osborne, when Mr Tugwell explains “the idea about unlocking the North's potential was a recognition about connecting the great cities”. Since then however, it has constantly been pushed down the track.

The Government has remained tiplipped over it ahead of the Spending Review, however Budget papers suggested that the TransPennine Route Upgrade could pave the way for NPR.

Ms Brabin describes it as the North’s “nirvana”, while East Riding of Yorkshire Coun Leo Hammond says “if we’re really going to unlock the North of England then we need the Hull to Liverpool line”.

Research from the Convention of the North found it could unlock £118bn of growth across the North.

Questions remain as to whether the project is feasible in full, or just Liverpool and Manchester will be connected by a high-speed rail link.

Mr Tugwell says the view of Transport for the North is that it must be done in its entirety, and this was backed up by Juergen Maier’s Rail and Urban Transport Review, commissioned by Labour in opposition.

Unlike some Northern leaders, he remains confident that so-called “High-Speed 3” will happen. “I think the evidence is so clear - it’s all about investing in potential.”