Northern Rail announces plan to reduce train cancellations: removing 165 services entirely

Northern has announced a 'temporary change' to its timetable which will mean 165 daily services will be removed until the end of July

The changes will take into effect on Monday, June 4, affecting 6% of 2,800 daily services.

-> 'Truly sorry' Northern Rail warns it will take weeks to improve servicesA spokesman said: "This interim timetable will enable Northern to start to stabilise service levels over the next few weeks and, importantly, start to reduce the number of last-minute train cancellations.

"In the short-term we will be running fewer services, but still more than we did before the May timetable change. We will then get back to a full timetable service by the end of July."

David Brown, Managing Director, Northern said: “We have been experiencing some significant disruption to train services, especially around north Manchester, Bolton, Liverpool, Blackpool and up to the Lake District. I’d like to apologise for this unacceptable situation and for the disruption and inconvenience many passengers have faced. We’re truly sorry for this and are working hard to fix this.

-> Chris Grayling 'could have stopped' Northern Rail chaos says predecessorhttps://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/grayling-could-have-stopped-northern-rail-chaos-says-predecessor-1-9188341

David added: “Again I would like to apologise on behalf of Northern for the unacceptable service many customers have been subject to. We are absolutely committed to resolving the service issues, and the interim plan will help ensure we start to get back on track and start to give customers more certainty around the services we operate.

On a number of these routes there will be alternative rail services available, as well as other modes of transport. Where available, rail replacement buses will also operate on affected routes with details provided locally.