A local councillor has welcomed the government’s announcement that it is considering whether the management of the North of England’s largest rail commuter service should be taken into public hands.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said Northern’s poor performance, with trains regularly arriving late or not at all, “cannot continue”. And Southport councillor Tony Dawson, himself a regular user of the Southport to Manchester service agrees. He says:
“Of course, Mr Shapps himself is even later than Northern trains with this analysis. But maybe better late than never.”
The government has now issued a “request for proposals” from Northern and the ‘Operator of Last Resort’ (OLR) which could lead to services being brought into direct government control.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons’ Transport Select Committee, Mr Shapps said: “We cannot carry on just thinking it is OK for trains not to arrive, or Sunday services not to be in place. That has to change.”
Councillor Dawson says: “The site of greatest misery is Salford Crescent station. This is where all the poor travellers who do not have a direct service to where they want to go get off and look at the boards to discover without warning that their connections have been cancelled, particularly on a Sunday. The boards say “No guards”. . “No drivers” and a hundred and one other excuses.”
“I have had to console one disabled pensioner who was in tears. Let us hope that this process will soon determine whether the franchise owner or an OLR would be best placed to tackle these issues and deliver for passengers.”
David Brown, managing director at Northern Rail, has blamed challenges outside the direct control of Northern, particularly the continuing late delivery of major infrastructure upgrades, including the North West electrification, which is more than two years late and has hit Southport to Manchester travellers particularly hard in this period.
Northern, which is one of the biggest franchises in the country, has been in financial trouble for years. And passenger numbers on Northern dropped after the botched introduction of new timetables in the summer of last year.
Transport for the North has said it believed the Northern franchise should be taken into public hands, via the ‘Operator of Last Resort’ (OLR) procedure. The OLR is, on behalf of the government, currently in charge of London North East Railway, the East Coast Mainline intercity franchise. The OLR has been monitoring Northern for some time. Any change to the operation of the franchise would likely take some months to implement. A wider review of the entire railways in the UK is already under way. The Williams Review, led by former British Airways boss Keith Williams, is due to publish its findings in coming weeks. It is expected that the rail franchise system will be completely overhauled.
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