Delayed Electric Northern Railway EMU train at Manchester Oxford Road Railway station, North West England, UK

Last month’s major timetable change wasn’t just about rescheduling trains, but was designed to deliver more services between Leeds and Manchester, Manchester and Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds, Lincoln and Sheffield, and so on and so on. All these service improvements need more trains – and those trains haven’t arrived yet. New trains are being built, and the inevitable delays to their arrival have yet to be announced. But delays to new trains in London and Scotland are causing problems in the North. Second hand trains from Bristol and Edinburgh can now been seen at work in Yorkshire, but not nearly as many as there should be. And delays to electrification in London means diesels haven’t been released to Bristol, which in turn has kept Yorkshire bound trains in the South West. Brand new electric trains in Scotland have unsafe curved windows in their driving cabs, so haven’t entered service, which means Scotland’s diesels haven’t headed south of the border. This new timetable should have seen even more changes, but many service improvements have been held back until December. Even without the introduction of these more frequent schedules, there is a big shortage of trains, resulting in the trains that are running having fewer coaches than demand requires. Passengers are being left on platforms. The other company which needs to deliver on promises is Network Rail – not that it has promised much in the North. Leeds and Manchester are booming rail hubs. They have seen massive increases in passenger numbers, yet there has been little (Manchester) or no (Leeds) investment in the railway infrastructure. Widespread electrification was promised and then unpromised. It hasn’t been cancelled, but it won’t happen. The short lengths of railway that are being electrified have been massively delayed. The Ordsall Curve in Manchester has created more demand without creating any new capacity. Manchester Victoria is full, and yet more trains are running through it.Result is chaos