Two thirds of services from under fire rail operator Trans Pennine Express still delayed or cancelled as passengers endure more misery

Live public performance statistics showed that overall 65 per cent of Trans Pennine services were cancelled or late by more than 30 minutes.

Breaking those statistics down by region revealed that on north routes, 64 per cent were cancelled or delayed by more than half an hour. All of Preston to Scotland routes were cancelled or facing delays beyond 30 minutes and on the South Pennine routes half were cancelled and late.

On trains run by Northern the data showed that 57 of 106 trains were on time or late by less than ten minutes.

However, ten per cent were between five and 30 minutes late and 37 per cent were either cancelled or more than 30 minutes late.

On the West and North Yorkshire Inter trains, 22 per cent were delayed by 30 minutes or more or cancelled and on local services, 17 per cent were between ten and 30 minutes late and seven per cent cancelled or delayed by longer.

It comes after TransPennine Express were deemed the worst-performing operator in the country this week, with fewer than half of its trains meeting punctuality targets by last Thursday. Its performance prompted managing director Leo Goodwin to issue an apology to passengers.

Fellow operator Northern failed to get 70 per cent of its trains arriving within five or ten minutes of the scheduled time at any point last week following the introduction of a new timetable which came into effect on December 15.

66 per cent of LNER trains were running to time on Sunday but 34 per cent were classed as late by more than half an hour or cancelled.

However, one passenger who was travelling to London said she had to start travel plans an hour earlier to allow for delays so she could make a connection.

Emily Humphreys was travelling from Silsden to London via Leeds with what would have been a ten minute window to swap trains in Leeds station.

She said : "We were 15 minutes late from Silsden but we are here on the train an hour earlier as I knew we wouldn't make the ten minute change. I do this now as standard as last time I missed the connection and was two and a half hours late."

In a previous statement, Leo Goodwin, Managing Director for TransPennine Express had said: “I am really sorry for the disruption to our customers journeys this week. I know what a busy time it is whether people are trying to get to work, trying to get home to see school plays, visiting loved ones or trying to go out and enjoy their Christmas parties.

“Due to a number of issues with crew training caused by the late delivery of some of our new trains, a maintenance backlog and some infrastructure issues we have had to implement a temporary timetable, cancelling a number of journeys along one of our routes.

"This has unfortunately made a number of other services a lot busier. We are working really hard to sort this for our customers and as we introduce more new trains we should see an improvement to people’s journeys.”