Northern mayors hold rail summit to demand UK ‘gets a grip’ on poor services

theguardian.com:

Mayors in the north of England are meeting to demand the government “get a grip” on appalling rail services, with TransPennine Express (TEP) on track to cancel more than 20,000 trains this year.

The operator has already cancelled about a quarter of services in 2023, with 40% scrapped in one week in January due to a lack of staff.

Commuters are also facing higher costs after rail fares in England and Wales increased by an average of 5.9% on Sunday.

Tracy Brabin, the Labour mayor of West Yorkshire, who will meet counterparts in Newcastle on Monday, said the north could no longer “stagger on”, with TPE alone likely to cancel 23,000 services in 2023 at the current rate.

Brabin said: “Government have to get involved, they have to understand we need to invest in transport across the north.I don’t think people in the south and across the country really understand the service we’re being forced to endure from TransPennine.”

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If things don’t improve, by the end of the year 23,000 services will have been cancelled. This is totally unacceptable, and ministers must get a grip.”

The First Group-owned operator could have its contract extended for another eight years in May. Its sister company Avanti West Coast, run by First with Trenitalia, was given a short six-month extension and warned to improve or lose the contract after similar performance problems last year.

A third struggling rail company, Northern, is already run by the state-owned operator of last resort.

Asked if First and TPE should retain the contract, Brabin said: “I don’t think it’s fit for purpose. If they continue to keep the contract we’ll have another eight years of this mayhem. We can’t stagger on like this – it’s affecting our