I AM QUITE FRANKLY ENRAGED BY YOUR COMMENT, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE MISARY THAT CAUSES TO THE DAILY LIVES OF COMMUTERS caused by an unreliable train service.
Quite frankly the situation in the north west is an absolute disgrace which of course has been going on for weeks before the new timetable. As far as I am concerned Arriva should be stripped of the Franchise with immediate effect, not that will happen of course and no I don't think its an over reaction. The fundamental problem is that the penalties for failure to provide a train service are far too lenient, added to which both this and the TPE timetable should have been suspended until Electrification completion and both Northern and TPE get more stock and more driver training.
The current situation with Northern is beyond defensible, however I think stripping Arriva of the franchise now would be wrong. They have created a mess, and now should be forced, as a minimum, to return things to the standards Serco/Abellio left the franchise in within a set time frame. Allowing them to walk away unscathed will just mean someone else has to pick up the mess. However I agree that the penalties are too lenient which is probably a major factor behind Northern allowing the RDW to expire.
I've been out and about today across West Yorkshire and have seen some good and mostly bad things across the network. There's clearly a number of factors at play here which has created this storm. Firstly, Network Rail have to take some responsibility as the timetables were mashed together in a hurry due to their failure to complete both Manchester-Preston and Preston-Blackpool on schedule. It will be impossible to say, but if today had launched with the proposed timetables it may have been a little more successful.
Obviously Northern have to accept the brunt of the blame due to their poor planning, and the way they have communicated this has been dire. They really need to raise their game here, get the message out explaining what has gone wrong, what is being done to improve and when this should be achieved by.
With a major timetable change like this teething problems were to be expected, and from my observations today Network Rail again have played a part in this. There's been some poor service regulation with some services being held in excess of 10 minutes for late trains to pass, and the fact TPE seem to be getting a lot of priority isn't helping Northern - one Selby service was held for 3 TPE services then let out just as a fourth was arriving. There's also been cases of trains arriving on time on different platforms but the announcements not going out until a few minutes later, so departures have been delayed whilst passengers transfer to the correct platform. Hopefully these are just teething problems but with some turnarounds now being quite tight Northern and Network Rail need to get this resolved to reduce delays to other services
I've also witnessed frontline staff at the receiving end of frustrations, one conductor having to face quite a large group of commuters who were unable to board a late and shortformed service. There's also been problems with the Leeds-Southport service - don't think any of these have run to time today and all evening peak (1620, 1720 and 1820 from Leeds) were cancelled.
It's disappointing Arriva have allowed this situation to happen, and to be honest I expected a lot better from them - they are generally quite a good transport provider