I think it is broadly justified in the east side. I commute on the Airedale line into Leeds on a daily basis. Despite the big marketing campaign about the introduction of the 331s, there seem to be very few in service. Reliability has also taken a nose dive since the alleged 331 induction with regular morning and evening peak cancellations, leaving people unable to board rammed, aging class 321s.
I wouldn't say it has taken a nose dive, it isn't as good as it's been but then this happens every year on the Aire & Wharfe lines which seem to suffer quite badly with the Autumn conditions. It also hasn't helped that the line treatment train that often plies it's way around the triangle not long before services start has been running as late as 45 minutes. In fact twice in the last 7 days its held up the first two services through Baildon and passed me whilst I've been waiting for my train. At most there have been only 2 331s working on the triangle, and even if the teething problems might have caused some issues, I've been on a few 321 and more particular 322s that have had all sorts of problems, sit-downs. So I don't think the drop in reliability is just down to the new stock. And its nothing compared to the problems in the North West.
There is also a perception around broken promises, the big franchise promise was more capacity and 6 car trains - these have been delayed by 2 years due to network rail not completing platform 0 at Leeds on time. The bigger own goal however is specifying the 331s with a low density layout so they have fewer seats (as a 4 car) than the outgoing 321s they will replace. This has not gone unnoticed by commuters
It isn't just P0 holding things up, most platforms along the triangle cannot hold 6 car 331 formations. So even when they can be introduced, there will need to be crew training on using SDO and of course the time it will take for passengers to get used to sitting in certain cars for certain stations. But none of this is the fault of Northern, no matter what the perception is. The platform lengthening should have been a priority for Network Rail, but as usual if it's not mega urgent it gets kicked down the road.
As for the 331 capacity, remember they replace the 321/322s and lose only a couple of dozen seats in comparison, and have much more standing capacity than the aforementioned classes.
The main observation, especially around Leeds where I have been commuting for almost 30 years, is there appears to have been little consideration of how the use of rail in 'Northern land' has increased, especially in the last ten years which has seen Leeds grow massively.
In terms of actual infrastructure this may be partly true, although there are new stations like Apperley Bridge which are tipping a lot more passengers onto the network. And some of the busiest lines in the area got wired in that 30 years, as well as a large capacity increase at Leeds.
Whilst I agree it can feel like there has been underinvestment in the area, especially compared to the North West, there still has been a lot of work done.
I can't believe in the 1990s there weren't people paid to look 10-20 years ahead and plan for the future.
30 years ago I was travelling on 2 car Pacers between Leeds and Bradford/Halifax. I still am. Then came the two car 158s. I'm still on those.
Unfortunately rolling stock isn't usually procured with a 10-20 year view. The Pacers came in as a low cost solution to replace older stick, and had they not done so many lines would likely have closed or have much reduced services. And subsequent governments have imposed zero growth on the Northern franchise, something only finally broken in 2016.
The timetable hadn't changed much until 2018, then Calder Valley times were totally messed with. 4 trains between Leeds and Bradford in half an hour or so, then nothing for almost half an hour. Is it any surprise with such tight timetabling knock on delays occur?
Station management has fallen apart since Carillion's demise. Full bins and no sign of gritting on cold mornings.
TVMs issues are covered elsewhere, but how can a connected system have a clock which is three minutes slow?
No more on platform announcements and on train PIS which hardly ever works.
I can't comment most of your experience there, but most stations do still seem to have announcements for trains arriving surely? Even at my wee little station Baildon we get them.
I agree about the 331s. On a service which has a max running time of about 40 minutes from Leeds to Skipton why order trains with tables? Its a high density commuter route!
Thats a few random thoughts and whilst I accept Northern were dealt a lot of the cards before they won the bid, they knew what they were bidding for and the management simply haven't stepped up to the mark.
The 331s were not bought just for the triangle routes, and as discussed above the plan was to run the busiest services as 6 car formations. As for the tables, from the ones I've used all I say is that they are very popular with business folk commuting. Laptops that previous were balanced on knees for a 45 minute or less commute are now quickly deployed onto them!