What is preventing MPs representing that area from ganging up against the Government and making it clear in Parliament that they expect major changes to railway organisation and facilities in the North?
They do do quite a bit of that, but it often descends to very local lobbying for particular lines or stations, which is very boring for everybody else and doesn't stand a chance in the wider planning sense.
The Transport Select Committee does a good job with its hearings and reports, and can seriously embarrass the DfT.
However, railway finance and organisation is buried deep in the government machine (Treasury, Industry, Regions as well as DfT).
It's very hard to get a change of policy out of DfT, for the duration of a particular party in power.
Life would change with Labour, but there's no guarantee that their ideas would do any better - they just have the "renationalise" mantra but don't understand this is not actually a solution in the 2020s.
The Williams review is the latest idea to throw up a better setup, but reports and recommendations have a habit of disappearing without trace, or of coming up with the wrong answer.
At the moment, Brexit is sucking the government machine dry, and when it is resolved, loads of other issues will get priority (health care, climate change, policing etc).
Rail is only as important as the last time the network ground to a halt, in the public's consciousness.