Northern rail has begun resuming services that were cancelled in the wake of the chaos caused by a new timetable introduced in May.
The firm, part of the Arriva group, cancelled 168 services per day in an attempt to ease the impact of the new timetable, which ran into trouble when there was a shortage of drivers.
The majority of services in Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire have begun running again, while trains have resumed on the Lakes Line in the Lake District, which was completely shut during the disruption.
In total, about 75 per cent of cancelled services are resuming, with the remaining 25 per cent due to be reinstated in September.
Passengers have taken to social media to report that even with the reinstated trains, services were running late or cancelled at the last minute after being delayed, contrary to the operator’s claim that the new timetable would allow customers to “better plan ahead”.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports that Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has written to the prime minister asking her to intervene over the disruption to passengers. He said even the services that weren’t cancelled have been running behind schedule and that the emergency timetable introduced to try and ease problems “didn’t solve anything”.
He claimed Northern passengers “will tell you that Northern services were poor for a long time before the new timetable came in and they haven’t got much better in the two months since”.
An inquiry into what went wrong with the timetable changes, which is being chaired by transport professor Stephen Glaister, will publish a final report in December.