Northern leaders have been invited to meet with the Transport Secretary over train cancellations after they called for the 'chaos' on the railways to be treated as an emergency. Regional mayors, including mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, said the Government should 'haul operators to the table to sort out this mess'.
Following an urgent meeting held on Thursday, five Labour mayors issued a stinging statement and listed three demands on Government, including placing under-fire train operator TransPennine Express on a 'six-month probation period' before 'any suggestion' of the renewal of its contract next May.
Figures from the operator's website show 60 trains were cancelled across the north and Greater Manchester on Wednesday this week, with 52 cancelled on Thursday. The figures for today - Friday - show 53 services have been cancelled, with many more altered.
The mayors also said Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, should 'sign off without delay the agreement on rest day working that is on his desk. "This will put more drivers on our railways within days and we can see no reason why this shouldn’t be approved immediately," added the statement.
On TransPennine Express, they called for 'a review of its recruitment processes and management practices'. "Clear performance standards must be set for the company to reach and their actual performance against them evaluated before any decision to renew," said the mayors.
"We need an urgent meeting with ministers to agree a long-term plan for the future. Our transport network has been starved of support for years. This is derailing our plans for a strong Northern economy. We need to explore potential for more devolved and local control of our railways so they can be integrated into public transport systems within city-regions.
"If levelling up is to be more than a slogan under the new Prime Minister, then he must give us the rail funding and powers we need to deliver."
The Department for Transport said in response a meeting invite to them has been issued. A spokesman said: "It's unacceptable that poor levels of service and strikes are preventing hard-working people from going about their daily lives. The Government is investing billions into northern transport and is working closely with train operators to ensure new drivers are swiftly recruited and long term solutions are put in place so passengers can travel confidently without disruption.
"The Department has written to northern leaders inviting them to meet with the Transport Secretary as soon as possible so, together, we can provide the reliable service passengers across the region deserve."
The Government added it has earmarked more than £16bn of funding for passenger services since the start of the pandemic.
A statement jointly drawn up by West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin, Andy Burnham; the mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram; mayor of the North of Tyne, Jamie Driscoll and mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard, said: "As thousands of last-minute cancellations continue to make life miserable for people in the North, and cause serious damage to the economy, the Government remains in a state of paralysis having just appointed its third Transport Secretary in seven weeks.
"If this level of disruption was being experienced in other parts of the country, we believe action would already have been taken to improve matters. We do not accept that passengers in the North should be treated in this way and just expected to put up with it. We won't.
"So today we are calling on the Prime Minister and his Transport Secretary Mark Harper to treat this emergency with the urgency it deserves. Only the Government can haul operators to the table to sort out this mess."
Speaking in Leeds mayor Ms Brabin said stories she has heard about people missing funerals and job interviews due to the continuing cancellations 'would make you weep'. "This chaos has impacted on millions of people's lives," she said.
"It's also derailing our economic ambitions for our region. This is really important given the economic chaos which was brought on by the mini-budget."
On the other side of the Pennines, Avanti West Coast has been under fire for months over cancellations, delays, slashed timetables and a lack of advanced tickets for journeys on the West Coast Main Line. On Tuesday, the then rail minister Kevin Foster said the Government is making preparations to intervene if Avanti fails to deliver 'significant' improvements on the West Coast Main Line.
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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