Northern Rail: 75% of cancelled services restored as Andy Burnham calls for Chris Grayling to resign

‘I’m struggling to see how Chris Grayling can defend his position because he's been asleep at the wheel all summer,’ said Andy Burnham

Northern Rail train (Getty)

As Northern Rail passengers are promised a better train service during the Monday morning rush hour, the mayor of Manchester has demanded the resignation of the transport secretary and the renationalisation of the rail industry.

Three-quarters of the services cancelled in the botched introduction of a new timetable have been restored – though a glance at departure boards show a range of cancellations across the region, particularly on the line between Preston and Barrow-in-Furness.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, the Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, said: “There’s only so many times you can call on the transport secretary to do his job.

“Back in May he said that sorting out chaos on railways across the north was his top priority. I see no evidence that he has followed through on that statement.

“Since the emergency timetable came in, services have continued to be very, very poor. Services late, overcrowded, being cancelled – it’s just not acceptable.

“And then we get to a situation Saturday night where almost 50 services were just cancelled at a stroke so they could, in their words, get the trains in the right places for Monday morning. So even if things are slightly better this morning, it’s because there were no services yesterday.

“They cannot run a railway on this basis, and the government I’m afraid has to get its mind out of the internal battles and start focussing on the bread-and-butter issues affecting millions of people across this country.”

Asked if Mr Grayling should lose his job, Mr Burnham told the Today programme: “Yes, ultimately, because he's just not doing enough.”

But Robert Nisbet, regional director for the Rail Delivery Group, representing Network Rail and the train operators, said the new schedules would offer “a much more reliable and effective service”.

“We know it’s been pretty awful for the past few weeks.

“But remember the ambition behind these changes. The changes weren’t done to try to bring misery to people’s lives, they were brought about to add more services into the system.”

The planned timetable changes for December 2018 have been scaled back.