Two mayors turned up late to their briefing on “rail choas” in the north of England after their train was cancelled.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram are calling on the government for an immediate increase in funding for train operators TransPennine Express and Northern.
Mr Rotherham, former MP for Liverpool Walton, said the irony that their train had been cancelled ahead of the key press conference had not been lost on them.
“This rail chaos is not only inflicting misery on people’s lives, its wreaking havoc on our local economies too,” the Labour politician said in statement.
“If this was happening in London or the South East, it would be treated as a national scandal.
“And let me be clear: we are not being critical of investment in the south, but we are concerned about the lack of investment in the North.”
Mr Burnham, meanwhile, complained that people had felt the brunt of rail delays and cancellation for too long.
“Both [rail operators] have a long way to go to win back the trust of passengers in the North, but they will never do so if they are being hamstrung by the financial constraints imposed on them by Whitehall,” he said.
“Millions of passengers in the North need to know that the government has their back when it comes to the delivery of reliable, functioning public transport.”
The pair held the briefing on the same day Avanti West Coast scrapped a number of its rail services as a result of strike action by train managers.
A spokesperson for TransPennine Express said that before December last year, the operator had seen its best ever performance results, for which it was recognised as train operator of the year at the Rail Business Awards.
“Since then, prolonged disruption affecting our services has been caused by a range of issues including ongoing high levels of train crew sickness, a persisting training backlog as a direct result of Covid, and infrastructure issues outside of TPE’s control,” the spokesman said.
“TransPennine Express team continues to work flat-out to deliver higher levels of service delivery and to tackle the issues that are being experienced by customers.”
A Department for Transport spokesman said it had has set aside upwards of £16bn of funding for passenger services since the Covid pandemic began.
“We are working closely with train operators to ensure disruption is kept to a minimum, long term solutions are put in place, and passengers can continue to travel while also recruiting and training significant numbers of new drivers at speed,” the spokesman said.
