Peak hour trains to and from Gatley are seriously delayed or cancelled almost every day. One of the most frustrating experiences is seeing a train that should have stopped at the station speeding through, leaving a packed platform waiting for half an hour or more.

It happened on Thursday when Cllr Iain Roberts was travelling to Newcastle and, when he asked Northern why the train hadn’t stopped, he was told:

This will have been due to being made aware of a customer needing to make a connection on the previous service going to Manchester Airport, and being unable to make up the time without cancelling stops.

Iain said “This was a morning rush hour train into Manchester. The platform was packed. Northern appear to have decided to hold back a train for one person, then leave hundreds stranded at the stations along the Manchester Airport line to make up the time. The last thing I’d want is for someone to miss their flight from the airport, but other people had places and jobs to get to as well. Maybe this person could have been put in a taxi!”

Passengers can claim compensation for a journey delayed by more than 15 minutes, but most people either don’t realise or don’t get round to it.

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