I expect there to be a few more last minute cancellations later this evening that Northern will surprise on us!
I mentioned on another thread that I got caught by cancellations myself last night. One thing I did notice was that a noticeable proportion were cancelled pretty well on the spur of the moment. For instance I caught an Alderley Edge to Southport train at Piccadilly, intending to travel to Wigan Wallgate. Between Piccadilly and Oxford Road a faint message came over the PA (as is often the case, it wasn't working properly), which, if I'd had to guess, I would have said had announced the train was terminating at Oxford Road. However, I wasn't sure, and thought, I'd soon find out one way or the other. There can't have been any indication at Oxford Road of any termination, since a load of passengers boarded, more in total than had already been on. A couple of minutes later a staff member boarded and announced that the train was being terminated.
There were even instances of trains being 'cancelled' at the last minute when, to anyone who remotely knows how things operate, it would have been obvious that cancelled was what they were going to be. The 1929 Airport - Barrow, for instance, was not acknowledged as being cancelled until after it should have departed Piccadilly, yet the southbound forming journey (ex-Windermere) had been terminated at Preston, no driver.
A similar thing happened with a Chat Moss stopper, it hadn't gone to Wilmslow, so it wasn't likely to be coming back. I cut my losses and went for a 67 bus.