Andy Burnham was late to a briefing about cancelled trains this morning... because of a cancelled train.
The Greater Manchester mayor was heading to Liverpool Lime Street with Steve Rotheram , mayor of the Liverpool region, this morning for a press conference on issues surrounding rail travel across the north of England. The pair have joined forces to call for action over chaos on the railways amid frequent cancellations, timetable changes and staff shortages.
But Mr Burnham said in a tweet posted at 8.40am that the pair would be late to the briefing due to a last-minute service cancellation. He posted a photo of them in front of a departures board, which had at least two cancelled trains listed on it.
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He said: "Heading to Lime St with @MetroMayorSteve for a press briefing on train cancellations but we’re going to be late as our train is cancelled."
Mr Rotheram told reporters at the briefing: "For us coming to you this morning to talk about train cancellations, and then to have our train actually cancelled, I think is indicative of the problems we've got."
The briefing on train cancellations today came just days after operator TransPennine Express cancelled 55 trains in just one single day. On Wednesday, the operator, which runs regional and inter-city trains between cities and towns in the north including Manchester, said on its website the cancellations were made 'as a result of ongoing issues'.
TransPennine Express, following on from Avanti West Coast, announced a temporary timetable would come into force on September 12 leading to reduced services. TPE at the time blamed 'higher-than-normal sickness levels and ongoing industrial relations issues' for the move, together with a 'training backlog as a direct result of Covid'.
Mr Burnham and Mr Rotheram are calling for a 'quality inter-city train service' with 'real change and improvement' on the railways. We will bring you more on what happened, and on what Mr Burnham and Mr Rotheram said, at the press briefing later.
A spokesperson for TransPennine Express said: "Prior to December 2021 TransPennine Express (TPE) had posted its best ever performance results, and was subsequently recognised as “Train Operator of the Year” at the Rail Business Awards.
“Since then, prolonged disruption affecting our services has been caused by a range of issues including ongoing high levels of train crew sickness, a persisting training backlog as a direct result of Covid, and infrastructure issues outside of TPE’s control. Combined, these factors have seen a number of on-the-day or ‘evening before’ cancellations being made.
“In normal circumstances, we have enough people to fully operate our scheduled timetable – and have more drivers now than ever before – however the combination of factors has put unprecedented pressure on our ability to effectively operate our services.
“Our customers want, and deserve, reliable and punctual train services, and we are sorry have not been able to consistently provide that due to the ongoing issues. TPE’s team continues to work flat-out to deliver higher levels of service delivery and to tackle the issues that are being experienced by customers.”
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