The Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, has announced that the entire rail chaos is “unacceptable”.
Since 20 May, UK rail passengers faced severe delays and cancellations. This was as a result of the rail industry’s attempt to implement the biggest timetable change in a generation.
The changes mainly affected Northern Trains and GTR routes into London. In fact, the upgrade expected to change up to 46% of train times.
Moreover, over several weeks GTR cancelled 470 scheduled trains each weekday. Likewise, Northern Trains cancelled 310 each weekday.
Today, the Transport Secretary has announced a review designed to transform the rail industry.
This review follows the official report that blames lack of leadership in the rail industry.
Sky reports that Grayling said:
“The whole situation was entirely unacceptable,”
“We were clearly wrong to trust what the industry said to us, that it was going to be ready for the changes due in May.”
“My conclusion is that we’ve got an industry today where decision-making is too fragmented,”
“We need a more joined up industry, we need an industry that moves on from the model set up at the time of privatisation.”
“I believe that the divide between running the track and running the trains no longer works on our railway.”
Chris Grayling previously insisted “I don’t run the railways”. However, he now accepts that it is his job to prevent the same happening again.
Interestingly, a former commuter expressed his extreme frustration with his commute by creating an app. His ‘Northern Fail’ is designed to mock Northern Rail, it also lists the network’s delays and cancellations.