Council pledges to exert pressure on Northern Rail for better service

Northern trains

Rochdale Borough Council will continue to pressure Northern Rail and the government to provide better service, following a motion passed at Wednesday’s (18 July) council meeting.

The Council approved a motion from Councillor Janet Emsley to continue to pressure the rail provider to ensure that the public get the service promised: ““The travelling public of Greater Manchester have had to put up with levels of inconvenience and disruption on the region’s railways way beyond what is acceptable.

“Along with our MPs and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Rochdale Council has made it clear that it is unacceptable that our commuters are being treated like second class citizens.

“The introduction of the emergency timetable, which is due to finish at the end of July, has stabilised things to some extent with less last-minute cancellations, this is inevitable as there are less trains timetabled.

“This situation has been compounded by the continually postponed plan to electrify the line between Manchester and Leeds.

“It is worth noting that Northern have not hit a performance target since 2006.

“That is simply unacceptable.

“Therefore, I call upon the Council to continue, along with our MPs and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, to exert pressure on Northern Rail and the Government, until we get not just a decent level of service but the level of service we were promised when the franchise was awarded.”

The Northern Rail fiasco

Four years ago, then-Chancellor George Osborne promised - when unveiling his vision for a northern powerhouse - to ‘join our northern cities together’ with faster, modern transport connections.

Directly addressing the franchise eventually won by Northern Rail a year later, he said: “We’ll want to see not just better services, and more seats at peak times, but also better journeys.”

The public is still waiting for these promises to be delivered.

Read more: https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/news-archives?type=News&searchtype=Phrase&Criteria=northern+rail