Train timetable schedules: Key rail meetings now cancelled as well as trains

'I’ve asked my team to phone around and try and rearrange meetings,' says Chris Grayling's parliamentary private secretary

(Getty/iStock)

Two weeks after the botched introduction of new rail schedules, key rail meetings have been axed as well as hundreds of trains.

As replacement timetables — and sometimes buses — come into force on Northern services and the Govia Thameslink network through London, a planned series of meetings between individual MPs, the transport secretary Chris Grayling and the rail minister, Jo Johnson, have been called off.

More than 60 MPs had asked to discuss the timetable changes and subsequent disruption on the Northern and Govia Thameslink networks. Meetings were schedule to run 6-10pm.

But James Heappey, parliamentary private secretary for Mr Grayling, has now written to MPs saying: “Chris will now be making a statement to the House this afternoon which we expect to start around 5.30 and to run until 6.30. This means that some colleagues with earlier meetings would now miss out.

“For those reasons, I’ve asked my team to phone around and try and rearrange meetings.”

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents the train operators and Network Rail, was due to hold its annual conference in London on Monday. But the chief executive, Paul Plummer, said: “Thousands of dedicated people across the industry are doing everything they can to provide the best possible service as customers in some parts of the country have been experiencing unacceptable levels of disruption.”

Thousands of trains have been cancelled over the past fortnight, largely due to train operators having insufficient train drivers familiar with the new services. This in turn has been blamed on overrunning Network Rail projects.

Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, called once again for Mr Grayling to resign in the wake of the fiasco.

On BBC Radio 4's The World at One, he demanded to know: “Why wasn’t this ‘red-flagged’ weeks and weeks ago?

“In ordinary times, any secretary of state would resign.

“This prime minister is so enfeebled that she can't dismiss him, so we’re stuck with the status quo.“

Bim Afolami, Conservative MP for Hitchin, said: “We should move back to the timetable which was in force before."