Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said users of the Avanti and TransPennine Express rail services are met with a “shrug” when they complain about the services. “And we cannot allow that to happen,” he said, speaking to LBC. “I was a minister and I would rightfully be dragged over the coals if this was the performance of a service I was responsible for.” West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin and shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh also criticized the train companies. The government should “reclaim” taxpayers’ money used to subsidize trains that are not running, Hague said, after a third of TransPennine Express trains were canceled on Tuesday. Haigh said: “This ongoing fiasco is causing real damage to the public, passengers and the economy. “Ministers must stop washing their hands of responsibility and step in. “They should demand a plan from TransPennine Express to urgently improve and restore vital services and recover the taxpayers’ money that will be handed over for trains that are no longer running.” Brambin said Tuesday’s train cancellations were “typical of the daily struggles faced by commuters in the north of England” and that her own TransPennine Express train home had been cancelled. He said: “We are tired of being let down badly by a failing rail network that does not meet our needs. This is particularly unacceptable when our economy needs all the support it can get.” He called on the government to intervene “urgently”, but said “nationalisation is the only real answer”. Adam Major travels between Scunthorpe and Leeds a few times a week to visit his girlfriend. He said: “It used to be two an hour and then it went down to one an hour. And now is an hour if you’re lucky. Sometimes two in a row can be cancelled. So you’re stuck at the station for three hours. “I would be at a station waiting for it to come in and it would come up on the board saying ‘cancelled’. The only reason they ever give is a last minute schedule change. No one really knows what that means.” The couple will move to Australia early next year “because we’re fed up with this whole situation, to be honest,” he said. Some commuters are trying to find workarounds to make sure they get to their destination. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Sam Babrovskie said she moved to Stalybridge for an easy commute, as her train will take 14 minutes to Manchester. But now he drives to Ashton-under-Lyne and takes the tram – a journey that takes more than twice as long – because the trains are so unreliable. “It took me three hours to get home on the train a few weeks ago and that’s when I gave up.” Babrowski saw people crying at Manchester Piccadilly station because they couldn’t get to the airport and would miss their flight. He added: “I always joke with my friends that the Victorians will turn their graves over what we did to the railways.” It comes as a plan to set up a public sector body to oversee Britain’s troubled rail network has been delayed. Great British Railways, which would take over from infrastructure manager Network Rail and be responsible for handing out rail contracts, will not go ahead in 2024 due to the scrapping of the transport bill. A TransPennine Express spokesman said: “A track defect at Huyton continues to cause disruption to our services between Liverpool and Manchester, with the impact being felt further afield across our network – as far as Newcastle and Glasgow. “Combined with this, the sustained high levels of sickness and the backlog of training as a direct result of Covid continue to affect our services and these factors have seen a number of cancellations on the day or ‘before the afternoon’. “Under normal circumstances, we have enough people to operate our full planned timetable, however the combination of all these factors has put unprecedented pressure on our ability to run a consistent service.”
