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Graham Greenhalgh slams Northern Rail
by Lib Dem team on 21 May, 2018
Cllr Graham Greenhalgh has slammed Northern Rail’s incompetent introduction of a new timetable that saw an already-reduced Gatley service cut even further as train after train after train was cancelled.
“First Northern slashed the number of peak-hour services stopping at Gatley. Then, to add insult to injury, they cancelled every single one of the first five services on Monday morning. Delays and cancellations have continued throughout the day. It’s simply not acceptable. If they can’t run a decent train service, it should be handed over to someone who can,” said Graham.
The chaos at Gatley station was replicated across much of the country through the day as rail companies appeared incapable of running services they’d had months of planning to get ready.
The new timetable has seen a reduced service to Gatley, with a 50% cut in Northern trains in the morning peak. Between 7am and 9am there used to be six trains running from Gatley into Manchester. Now, including TransPennine services, there are just four.
Northern blamed over-running electrification works by Network Rail for the problems. However, officers at Stockport Council believe that Northern took their eye off the ball on the new timetables and, when they finally submitted their proposals, a lot of the slots they wanted had already gone. That meant their plans were rejected and they had to come back with this reduced service.
“A poor train service is bad for passengers and pushes more people into cars, meaning more traffic jams, more queues, more congestion and more pollution,” said Graham. “We want a good service for Gatley, a station for Cheadle and a train company that can run the trains on time. It shouldn’t be a lot to ask.”
9 Comments
On Friday my daughter checked the live departers for Gatley online before travelling to the station , her train to Bolton was showing as on time, so she went to the station and boarded the train but only got as far as Manchester eventually arriving at Bolton for her University course 2 hours late. Her return journey was no less fraught with no trains out of Manchester, so a bus was required back from Manchester to Parrs Wood and then a car journey from Parrs Wood, on her train journey from Bolton to Manchester a female passenger fainted but due to overcrowding she did not hit the floor but was wedged between passengers. My daughter travels to Bolton University twice a week and the sensible eviromently choice should be the Train but on this showing from now on she will be travelling by car. We should stop calling it Public Transport if it does not serve the Public and all Public Payments made to these Poorly Operated Transport Companies should STOP.
Intending to catch the 18.33 from Heald Green ( with another service scheduled for 18.40 ) to M/cr Oxford Road, the Northern Rail Live viewed at 18.10 showed the first train to be 3 minutes late . On arrival at the station 10 mins later the delay was 15 minutes and the next train showed an hours delay. As I would not make my concert at 19.30 I decided to take the car ( as was everyone else going into M/cr on a busy Friday evening ) .What is the point of asking residents or visitors to use Public Transport instead of cars when the service is so unreliable
A big part of the problem as well as incompetence- is greed. The first thing arriva did was to cease rest day working, which means if someone rings in sick, no one can come in on their rest day. This saved money for arriva and results in poor service. Plainly this government is so wedded to the ideology of privatisation they will only renationalise as a last resort, but without the need to drive profits higher, renationalisation would mean rest day working would be reinstated and a more consistent service developed.
The chaos on monday also affected my family. My daughter was returning to Bristol (MoD) and had an intercity bus (Manchester to Bristol) to catch from Shude Hill. Without any warning all services in the afternoon seemed cancelled from Heald Green. Fortunately i was at home and was able to drive her in to Manchester (Shude Hill) and caught the bus with 2 minutes to spare, otherwise it would have been a 7 h return journey to Bristol for me.
My previous employer Alstom Transport had a slogan ‘Seamless mobility’ as they were striving for this in there business (e ticketing, efficient trains etc.) both in the UK and overseas. It seems that the technology is available and therefore people expect more ‘seamlessness’, but the service companies seem to be dis-jointed. So in my opinion, i think it is correct for the LD to be very critical of the Northern Rail in this respect.
Shame you all couldn’t have been proactive about this farce rather than reactive. I include our so called Major Andy Burnham in this
We have no decent bus service to Manchester from Gatley, no metrolink, the roads are atrocious so cycling not an option for many. So what’s the option other than drive.
Yet there are more trains from East Didsbury despite an excellent bus service and the metrolink.
Really really poor
Hi Andy, what do you think we should have done proactively that we didn’t do?
We’ve been campaigning for better bus, rail and tram services for years!
Yet again the 07.05 to Manchester is cancelled. Ariva are let to do just what they want. This is not a service. 36 trains cancelled before 06.00 today! Who can sort this out what can the users do?
I heard Andy Burnham was involved has this gone anywhere or has it been cancelled like our trains?
Yet again the 07.05 to Manchester is cancelled. Ariva are let to do just what they want. This is not a service. 36 trains cancelled before 06.00 today! Who can sort this out what can the users do?
I heard Andy Burnham was involved has this gone anywhere or has it been cancelled like our trains?
Nigel
Again today as Yesterday no trains form Gatley to Manchester. What are you doing about it. What can I do?