The two mayors are, in my view, only doing this to score cheap political points.
Obviously the Northern franchise is large and should be merged with that of TransPennine and manage the whole network the same way as Network South East was - is the only way.
The other problems are:
- There's also too many two car units running in service, realistically we should be looking at four car units minimum.
- Not enough paths, some services should join and split at certain stations e.g Leeds, Barnsley, Goole, Doncaster, Man Vic and Preston.
- Too many services are routed via Bradford Interchange and the six trains an hour through Huddersfield. Why not have some services running via Brighouse which would help spread the services across two main routes between Leeds and Manchester, even routing one via Wakefield could replace the current Castleford to Huddersfield shuttle.
- Too many services are terminating at Knottingley, surely extending the service to Hull could provide a cheapish solution for a stopper service between Leeds and Hull.
- Too many services to Manchester Airport, there are other airports such as Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Leeds Bradford International Airport, Robin Hood Airport and Humberside. So what's special about Manchester Airport?
- Network Rail being behind on projects such as electrification.
- Various Combined Authorities, simply scrap them and let the local councils deal with buses/trams and the railway part hived off to Rail North or placed under a new brand e.g. Network North.
I can't see anything being improved in the long term apart from the quad tracking between Ravensthorpe and Huddersfield and the insallations of dynamic loops between Leeds and Manchester.
Edited to add in an extra point.