Another 38 train services have either been cancelled or amended by TransPennine Express today.
The train operator confirmed last night that a total of 25 services would be fully cancelled today (December 1). A further 13 services will be amended, with further short-notice cancellations and amendments to services likely throughout the day.
This comes amid a raft of cancellations, with at least 48 trains cancelled and 13 amended yesterday and at least 23 cancellations made on Monday. The full list of cancelled and amended services for today can be found here.
READ MORE: Rail chaos after another wave of TransPennine cancellations
Yesterday, transport secretary Mark Harper met with northern metro mayors, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, to discuss the chaos which has blighted the region's railways throughout the year. As well as TransPennine Express' short notice cancellations, Avanti West Coast has also come under fire for slashing its timetable.
Mr Harper said he believed ending rail worker industrial action was critical to improving railway services. He insisted 'quite a lot of progress' has been made in talks between unions, Network Rail and train operating companies - but said there is still work to be done.
He added that he agreed rail services were 'not good enough' in the north. Discussing his meeting with the mayors, he said: "I made it very clear before we kicked off that they weren't having to do a big persuasion job with me about the fact services are not good enough.
"They obviously landed their points very strongly about reinforcing that."
This morning, 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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