TransPennine Express has cancelled 53 trains on Friday, its website reveals
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'.
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. "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 Government added it has earmarked more than £16bn of funding for passenger services since the start of the pandemic. "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."
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.