The mayors of Greater Manchester and Liverpool city region have called on the transport secretary to terminate the Northern rail franchise after a year of sustained misery for passengers.
Speaking on behalf of the 4.3 million people they represent, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram made the demand 12 months on from last May’s timetable chaos.
They believe Northern, which is owned by Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway company, has consistently failed to show it is able to take the action required to restore public confidence or deliver its legally-binding franchise requirements. These include:
Failure to deliver a significant and sustained improvement in performance, with nearly a fifth of all services arriving late, 28,000 services cancelled in the last year and a huge increase in services being “shortformed” – reducing the number of carriages on the train - from 2,825 in December 2018 to 4,172 in April 2019.
Failure to resolve the RMT industrial dispute, which has led to 46 days of strike action since March 2017.
Failure to operate Sunday services, with 165 unplanned cancellations and 90 planned cancellations last Sunday.
Failure to deliver new services, such as a range of promised additional hourly services in much-needed parts of the network.
Failure to introduce new trains, which means hated Pacer trains may not be gone by the end of the year as promised
Burnham and Rotheram are urging the Department for Transport to bring in a new board and team of directors to run the company as soon possible.
Burnham said: “We have been extremely patient with Northern but enough is enough. They promised us that things would be significantly better by May 2019 and that hasn’t happened. Train services across Greater Manchester and the north-west remain unreliable and overcrowded. Sunday services are still subject to widespread cancellation and promises of new rolling stock have not been kept.”
Rotheram said: “Given Northern’s consistent failure to provide an acceptable service we believe it is now time for Chris Grayling to terminate their franchise and move to that operator of last resort as soon as possible.”
Their call took Northern by surprise. It took two hours before the operator released a response, which suggested it had no intention of relinquishing the franchise. “We agree the north deserves the best possible rail service and are working hard to improve the performance and reliability for customers,” the managing director, David Brown, tsaid.
“The unacceptable disruption following the May 2018 timetable change was caused by delays in infrastructure projects out of our control. We have apologised to our customers for the pain this caused. We have seen two successful timetable changes since then, introducing many more new services.
“Since last year, we have made a large number of improvements for customers, including better punctuality, investment in new and refurbished trains, over 2,000 new services and hundreds more people employed to help customers.
“These improvements are still a work in progress, but we are making things better for our customers. We want and expect things to continue to improve.”
Rail unions welcomed the mayors’ call. The TSSA general secretary, Manuel Cortes, described it as a vote of no confidence. “Northern rail is barely functioning and passengers deserve so much better. These services must be brought back into public ownership now,” he said.
“Failing Grayling would be wise to listen on this occasion and do the right thing, but I won’t hold my breath.”
On Tuesday the government announced an “exciting” competition, which invites northern towns and villages to bid for Pacer trains to be turned into “community spaces, cafes or new village halls”.
The proposal was greeted with incredulity by northern MPs, after nine years of austerity cuts from central government in which councils have lost almost 60p in the £1 from Whitehall for local services, with northern authorities worst hit.
“I am not sure my constituents will agree that this is an ‘exciting opportunity’, unless one of them is turned into a museum dedicated to highlighting years of under-investment in northern transport,” Jonathan Reynolds, the Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, told the Manchester Evening News. “My personal suggestion would be to invite my fed-up constituents to dismantle them piece by piece, a bit like when the Berlin Wall came down.”
Ministers should keep all options on the table, including further devolution to the north and the option of public operation, Burnham and Rotherham said.
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, terminated Virgin Trains East Coast’s contract and took the service in-house last year.
The Northern franchise is supposed to run until 2025, with an option for an additional year dependent on performance.
