A woman took around the same amount of time travelling to Liverpool from Newcastle via train at the weekend as she would have enduring a lengthy flight to Dubai.
Sunday evening, Liverpool Echo reporter Charlotte Hadfield began her routine three hour journey from the North East to the North West, anticipating a clear commute, but upon her arrival at Newcastle's Central Station - she found that a litany of trains were cancelled, including all TransPennine Express services to her destination of Liverpool Lime Street.
The Mirror reports that Charlotte had planned to return via Carlisle and Wigan instead, only to find that a complete train derailment blocked the route.
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Train company Northern, Tweeted on Sunday: "Unfortunately we are advising customers not to travel between these stations on 23/10 as we are unable to source road replacement following disruption involving a derailed train."
Charlotte said she was 'left with no other option' to change her plans for a third time, and opt for a route going via York and Manchester. However, upon arriving in Manchester at 7.15pm, she faced even further delays.
She recalled: "I'm told I can get a Northern rail replacement bus if I wish, but it will take three hours to get to Liverpool Lime Street, so I decide to wait until my delayed train arrives."
As Charlotte was waiting on the platform she heard a loudspeaker announcement explaining that the train to Lime Street had been delayed due to signalling, and that a replacement bus was the best option. "But there's no sign of any staff or even a bus driver when we get there," she recalled.
"As hundreds of people join a queue outside the station, we look at our phones to find the delayed train we'd been waiting for has arrived and left without us. People are in genuine disbelief at the lack of communication or advice from station staff as we try to figure out how we are going to get home.
"One man turns to me and says 'this is an actual nightmare', while a woman who has also travelled from Newcastle is panicking that we're going to be left stranded overnight."
Charlotte eventually managed to find a way back, thanks in part to the help of her fellow passengers.
She continued: "We caught a train to Manchester Oxford Road before changing onto a Northern train to Liverpool Lime Street that was scheduled to leave at 20.46. Unsurprisingly, that train was also delayed. After a painfully long and broken up journey, I arrived into Liverpool Lime Street at 10.16pm - nearly seven hours after I first set off."
While she may be home now, Charlotte wanted to highlight the rail chaos and the issues many passengers regularly face travelling between cities in the North.
"In the time it would take you to fly direct from the UK to Dubai, I managed to get by train from Newcastle to Liverpool," she wrote.
"This seemingly endless journey will be all too familiar for regular train users and commuters, who have their patience tested on a daily basis. But this is the reality of what it's really like trying to travel between two major Northern cities on public transport - and why we deserve better."
The flight from Newcastle to Dubai typically takes just over seven hours.
Engineering work, signalling issues, higher-than-normal sickness levels, and a training backlog as a direct result of Covid, were among the reasons train operators gave for the delays to a journey that should have taken just over three hours, Charlotte said.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We’re sorry to passengers that they didn’t get the service they expect or deserve while travelling through Manchester Piccadilly yesterday evening. It’s after a staffing issue at our signal box in Stockport led to trains being cancelled, diverted or delayed.
“We’re also sorry that the resulting short notice changes to trains caused confusion and saw some passengers advised to get a rail replacement bus service when their train was in fact running. We understand how frustrating this is and are looking into how we can better share information to our frontline station staff when situations are constantly changing during times of unexpected disruption.”
Chris Jackson, regional director for Northern, said: “Due to planned engineering work, we were unable to operate services between Manchester and Liverpool that call via Newton-le-Willows on Sunday 23 October.
"We were, however, able to operate all but one of our hourly services from Manchester to Liverpool that operate via Warrington. We apologise to anyone whose journeys were inconvenienced.”
A spokesperson for TransPennine Express said: “Prior to December 2021 TransPennine Express (TPE) had posted its best ever performance results, and was subsequently 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.
"Combined, these factors have seen a number of on-the-day or ‘evening before’ cancellations being made. In normal circumstances, we have enough people to fully operate our scheduled timetable – and have more drivers now than ever before – however the combination of factors has put unprecedented pressure on our ability to effectively operate our services.
“Our customers want, and deserve, reliable and punctual train services, and we are sorry have not been able to consistently provide that due to the ongoing issues. TPE’s team continues to work flat-out to deliver higher levels of service delivery and to tackle the issues that are being experienced by customers.”
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