‘Northern Fail’ Decision Expected Today

The Department for Transport is expected to announce a decision that either the service is taken on by an ‘Operator of Last Resort (OLR) or is handed back to Northern on only a limited basis.

The lobby group ‘Transport for the North’ has been calling for the OLR as “the only way to rebuild confidence and trust among passengers.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, told Parliament earlier this month that action would be taken against the service by the end of January. But Southport councillor Tony Dawson is concerned that simply taking Northern under public ownership, which he supports, will not be enough.

Councillor Dawson told the recent meeting of Sefton Council that TransPennine Express, who share most of the Liverpool to Manchester with Northern Rail, are also suffering bad delays recently and they, like Northern, are blaming the state-owned Network Rail for much of the delays.  While Sefton Council complained officially about the Northern Rail service two years ago, they have not criticised Network Rail who are years behind in some of their projects, critically disabling the ability of train operators to run their timetables. “Ownership is one thing, Councillor Dawson says. “We need a properly integrated rail service. But proper management is another important factor.”

Just this weekend Councillor Dawson reports his Southport train back from Manchester being cancelled at the last minute while he was stood on the windswept Salford Crescent station. So he took the next train to Wigan, hoping to find somewhere warm to waste the hour till the next train came.

“It was only when I was leaving the station at Wigan that I was told by a helpful ticket collector that there was a train leaving for Southport in two minutes, which I just aught by running back down the platform. But there was no announcement or other information to passengers. Northern Rail not only cannot  provide trains running to timetable. They cannot even tell the public when they CAN provide the train. No surprise that this train to Southport was virtually empty.”

The official reason for the train cancellation is ‘lack of train conductors’. “But who would want to be a train conductor, though. these days,” says Councillor Dawson “when that work puts you in the front line of the criticism from passengers about overcrowded, too expensive and cancelled and late trains?”

Northern Rail is owned and operated by Arriva, who also provide most of the buses which run in Southport.

Chris Burchell, Arriva’s managing director of UK trains said: “We accept services on the Northern network are not yet good enough and we sincerely apologise to our customers for our role in that.  “Many of the issues affecting the franchise however are outside the direct control of Northern.””Assumptions were given when the plan for the franchise was developed that critical infrastructure projects would be delivered to enable growth and support capacity demands.Many of these have either been delayed or cancelled.

“These challenges will continue to affect services irrespective of who is running them. What is needed is a new plan, and, in that analysis, we are fully in agreement with Government. That is why the Government asked us to prepare a business plan for a shorter ‘Direct Award”