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Northern Rail is to be stripped of its franchise because of its “unacceptable” performance, transport secretary Grant Shapps has said.

“I’m simply not prepared for the service on Northern to carry on as it is and I am taking action,” he told BBC Breakfast.

It is “completely unacceptable” for trains to be “routinely” late, he said. ”I simply will not put up with that.”

The government has described Northern rail services as "unacceptable" as delays continue to plague its trains.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he is "not prepared" to tolerate the commuter line's poor performance.

In October, Mr Shapps said he had taken steps that could lead to the operator being stripped of its franchise.

Northern rail said the late delivery of big infrastructure projects had disrupted its services.
Giving evidence to the Commons' Transport Select Committee last year, the transport secretary said that he had issued a "request for proposals" from the company and the Operator of Last Resort.
This could lead to Northern rail's service being brought under government control.

BBC are suggesting the decision hasn't been made yet but could be in "a matter of weeks".

I’ve just spoken to the press association, the reporter spoke to Grant Schapps directly this morning & said he confirmed Northern would be stripped of the franchise, however, further comments from the DfT state that Northern may be offered a short term contract with notice to improve!!

Why does a Conservative Transport Secretary feel under added pressure ‘to be seen to be doing something’ or ‘to give the illusion of doing something’?  Memo to Perm Sec, DfT: “My [new] ‘friends in the north’ are giving me grief!”
 
21 new MPs in North West, 12 of which are Cons gains from Lab.
9 new MPs in North East, 7 of which are ditto.
8 new MPs in Yorkshire, 7 of which are ditto.

The source of Northern Rail’s problems isn’t the franchise holder: it’s the government

Northern has been crippled by industrial action and an impasse in relations between the company and the RMT union, which represents rail staff.

The dispute originated over the role of train guards, which Northern could potentially make redundant as changes in technology reduce their necessity.

DfT targets are for half of future services to be controlled only by the driver, with no need for a conductor to be on board. The guards currently open the doors and ensure passenger safety.

Things came to a head at the end of 2018, when the RMT offered to suspend planned strikes in return for a guarantee that guards would remain, but on November 30 decided to continue with the walkouts.

The saga did not come to an end until February 2019. By this point, strikes had taken place every Saturday since late August 2018. The RMT are now satisfied that guards will be protected under the current franchise agreement.

The irony is that things will get better as the new trains come in and the peak of driver training commitment passes on Northern, so the real lessons may never be learned. A cynic might say that Mr Shapps will be told by his officials at DfT that a good “kick up the backside” solved it. This must not be allowed to happen as it would be deeply insulting to many of the people on Northern who are very capable and who have been dealt a rotten hand of cards to play, when the dealer was in many cases the DfT itself.

Northern Rail passengers have faced chaos since May 2018 when new timetables were introduced. This week a decision is expected from the government on whether the firm will lose its franchise over "unacceptable delays".

Ian Smith, 47, is a civil servant who lives in Buckshaw Village. He takes the early train every morning to Manchester Victoria.

Ian says he loves Buckshaw and its "fantastic facilities", but says the train service into Manchester is "lacking".
"We're running old trains," he says, "and for the money that you pay for a ticket to go to Manchester, I think the actual service is atrocious."

For Ian, the main issue is the late running of trains, which delays him arriving at work. He says the information on platforms and apps is incorrect.

"It puts you in a negative mood before you start your day," he says.

I’m afraid this one stinks of most of the problems being outside of Northern’s control but most of them set to be resolved soon. 

Bringing in an ‘operator of last resort’ now looks good for the government in that they can claim their actions have sorted out the problems, when in reality it would have sorted itself anyway, and no quicker than had they let it be.

Northern re-nationalisation: "Nothing will change"

Grant Shapps is widely expected to announce the re-nationalisation of the Northern franchise. Commenting on this, Railfuture director Ian Brown said:

“So Northern have finally taken  the rap for the failure of the north’s rail network to adapt to a world where rail should play its part in the form of an efficient growing network.  An operator of last resort (i.e. the government) is to be brought in to manage the operation.

We should all hang our heads in abject, cringeable shame.

The RMT Executive Committee is happy seeing this as part of their campaign to nationalise the rail network . This model alone will fail just as Northern did.

The DfT must take its share of the blame too, being responsible for the decisions (or lack of them) that have caused the problems. Taking back the franchise will do nothing for users unless the operator and Network Rail work together to find an operational solution that is reliable in the short term, and which increases capacity in the long term.

The baying masses have their trophy like a fox being torn apart. The problem is that this doesn’t achieve anything. All the issues on the Northern network remain.  Nothing will change.

The fundamental problem of lack of infrastructure in the North must be tackled. We need to double the capacity of the North’s railway and attend to pinch points to make it reliable. An understanding of the laws of physics were pioneered in the North, silly to forget them.

There needs to be a strong client in the North and a period of sustained investment in infrastructure and service development, better optimising the needs of regional and currently, subordinated, urban travellers. Choices need to be made and the operational practices need to be improved to provide a 7 day reliable railway.  Passengers should be the focus, not disdained and regularly left in the cold.

The degree of naivety to think that all comes right with the fox hunt is at such a level where even the rail industry is embarrassed. But political populism is not about finding solutions, it is about allocating blame and gaining a honeymoon period even if you were already married to (and largely the cause of) the problem in the first place. The DfT cannot wash its hands of Northern franchise performance issues largely of its own making, nor hide behind an operational review of Network Rail to conclude that the North needs investment in more rail capacity.”

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Notes to editors:

Ian Brown CBE FCILT is Railfuture's Policy Director and speaks on behalf of the Railfuture Board

Railfuture’s own in depth analysis of the issue can be found on https://railfuture.org.uk/article1849-Northern-franchise

Railfuture is the UK's leading independent organisation campaigning for better rail services for both passengers and freight.

Railfuture's website can be found at: www.railfuture.org.uk

Follow Railfuture on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Railfuture

For further information and comment please contact:

Bruce Williamson, media spokesman
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Time is up. Northern is expected to be stripped of its rail franchise today and for commuters it can't happen quickly enough - rail travel in the north of England should come with a health warning.

It's not unique to the north but the combination of poor management, chronic under investment and an all round miserable passenger experience has become a running joke among Northern's users.

And most symbolically of all....they still run some services with Pacer trains that offer a glimpse back to how most commuters' grandparents would have travelled.

They are old buses converted into trains and just don't cut it when we live in an era of artificial intelligence and driverless cars.

From Sky News (https://news.sky.com/story/no-more-delays-for-northern-decision-as-franchise-reaches-the-end-of-the-line-11920532)



Silly question ... the pacers may have used bus designs but were any of them actually converted from "old buses"? - or is Sky embellishing the facts for press effect?

BBC News - Troubled rail firm Northern brought under government control
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51298820

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced that, from 1 March 2020, the government will take over running services on the Northern network.

The government recognises that the rail network in the north has fallen far short of delivering the service passengers need and deserve.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

This is a new beginning for Northern, but it is only a beginning.

Northern’s network is huge and complex and some of the things which are wrong are not going to be quick or easy to put right. But I am determined that Northern passengers see real and tangible improvements across the network as soon as possible.

The railways were invented in the north. Last year the Prime Minister promised that we would give the railway back to the places it was born, giving more power over services, fares, and stations to local leaders.

Today (29 January 2020) marks the first small step towards the north taking back control of its railways and its people taking back control of their travelling lives.

There will be no more leaving behind. This government is committed to levelling-up.

Silly question ... the pacers may have used bus designs but were any of them actually converted from "old buses"? - or is Sky embellishing the facts for press effect?

Private operators perform well when providing services for a strong and effective state-run body like Transport for London, or when they have established, effective management structures like Chiltern Railways, but in both cases, they also require the helping hand of investment from local or national government.

Contrary to the easy myth that the story here is of private companies failing to provide adequate services to the north of England, the real problem here is a failure to manage the terms of franchises well by the Department for Transport (take the troubled East Coast line, back in public hands again after a second successive train company found that it could not meet the punishing financial obligations imposed upon them by the government) and a long-running failure to invest in public transport by successive political parties.

Very good piece by Stephen Bush in the New Statesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/devolution/2020/01/real-problem-northern-rail-government-not-train-companies . It's all worth reading, but this is the crux of it:

Northern have been running the services with the rolling stock the government let them have for the fares the government told them to charge to a timetable drawn up by the government, and fighting the government's proxy war with the unions. Hardly an independent private sector model. Were Northern still running Pacers because they wanted to, because their customers wanted them to, or because that was all they could get? ...