TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast criticised by leaders

The lives of train passengers in northern England are being blighted by cancellations, politicians say.

TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast have been singled out for criticism with the former cancelling about a quarter of its services in the first two months of 2023.

Northern political leaders are meeting in Newcastle to discuss the problems.

Train firms and the government acknowledged there were issues which they were trying to address.

TransPennine Express, which operates between major towns and cities including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, York, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh, cancelled 1,781 services during the last four-week reporting period according to official data from the Office of Road and Rail.

That represented almost a quarter of all their trains between 8 January and 4 February and 10% of all cancellations in England and Wales, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority said.

Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin said if the trend continued there would be an "appalling 23,000 cancellations inflicted" on passengers in 2023.

"This is shocking and the government must hear our calls, finally get a grip and bring this situation under control," Ms Brabin said.

"Without action, people will lose jobs, our youngsters will miss vital opportunities and the northern economy will go off the rails."

Ms Brabin told the BBC it was a "daily crisis" with a "catastrophic" impact on the whole of England, not just the North, adding it was a "national issue".

She said: "If you invest in railways and transport in the North you are going to have an expansion of productivity, growth and investment and that's surely good for the country."

She was speaking ahead of the Transport for the North Annual Conference which will look at a number of transport-related issues across northern England, including the trains.

Commuter Robert Barnstone gestures at the wall at Birchwood station in Warrington.

"That one is my favourite one to bash my head against," he joked, adding: "I use it regularly when I arrive here to find no trains."

Mr Barnstone relocated from London in April 2022 and picked a location he thought would have good transport connections.

Birchwood is served by Northern and TransPennineExpress offering what should be swift links to Warrington, Manchester and Liverpool.

But that's not been his experience over the past six months.

"In Essex, I was previously used to a train every five or 10 minutes," he said.

"Now I sometimes face hours without trains and it makes it difficult to plan your life.

"Only two weeks ago I was sitting on a train, due to leave at 06:40 and it was cancelled at 06:30 and they threw everybody off.

"All I want is a reliable train service every 30 minutes and I don't really think that's too much to ask."

He has been struck by the stark North-South divide in rail services, adding: "I think if this were happening down South, there would be uproar, I think there would be a revolution.

"But up here it just seems to be accepted."

A spokesman for TransPennine Express said it had "worked hard" to address staff shortages but it was "deeply disappointed" a pay deal for overtime for drivers had been "rejected out of hand" by train drivers' union Aslef.

He said: "We know the service levels over the past year have not been good enough and we are pulling out all the stops to make things better."

Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, refuted TransPennine Express's claim and said the firm did not have enough drivers, adding: "[TransPennine Express] has consistently failed to recruit and retain the drivers it needs to run the services it should."

A spokeswoman for Avanti West Coast, which runs routes on the West Coast Main Line through Cumbria and north-west England, said it had increased the number of services since starting a new timetable in December.

The firm said it was preparing for the arrival of 23 new trains which should lead to a "61% cut in carbon emissions" while delivering a "better customer experience".

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said the service provided by TransPennine Express had been "unacceptable".

He added: "We're working closely with operators to ensure disruption is kept to a minimum and long-term solutions are put in place for passengers in the north, including the swift recruitment and training of new drivers."

Today was the perfect illustration of how bad it can be for rail travellers in the north of England- in particular those who use TransPennine Express services.

I was due to meet Tracy Brabin at York at 08:30 to travel with her to Newcastle, but both our respective TransPennine Express services were cancelled.

She was exasperated, I was merely living the story.

Every night, TransPennine Express publishes a list of services it won't be running the following day. Their pre-amended timetable is a fantasy.

TransPennine Express says it is trying to improve and have offered drivers extra cash to work overtime and rest days.

But to the commuters, say in Huddersfield where seven out of 12 rush hour trains to Leeds were binned from the timetable last night, it doesn't matter.

It was just another morning of terrible, stressful delays. Here they take pictures of the departure boards to prove to their employers why they are late yet again. People are having to change jobs.

The government is under increasing pressure to do something. Will it?

Mark Harper, secretary of state for transport, said TransPennine Express's service was "not acceptable" and there were a number of issues including not having enough drivers.

He said the government had "worked closely" with the firm to "double the number of drivers" but both TransPennine Express and Aslef needed to "work together".

He also said Avanti West Coast had been "delivering a better service on weekdays" since the new timetable came in but there were still issues on the weekend to be fixed.

Away from the trains, a report prepared for the conference claimed with suitable investment the northern economy could produce a million new jobs by 2050 with wages an average of £10,000 higher than 2019.

Lord McLoughlin, chairman of Transport for the North, said further details on how the region could be improved would be released over the course of 2023 but it would require "long-term patient investment of scale to close this gap" with the South.

He said: "The longer we wait to grasp the nettle, the harder and more costly it will be to level up the North.

"But the evidence also shows the huge reward for our country if we do rise to the challenge and transform the North, harnessing the power of both public and private sectors to make a difference for the north's businesses and communities."

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