Rail hit squad to sort train troubles

Rail hit squad to sort train troubles

A special railway hit squad is to be called in to improve life for fed-up passengers in Rochdale.

Since the loop line closure, travel has become chaotic with delays and overcrowding on the Calder Valley route from Leeds, through Rochdale, to Manchester Victoria.

It became Greater Manchester’s worst performing route during September and October. Now, operators Northern and Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (GMITA) have agreed to form a so-called “Quality Improvement Team” to sort out the problems.

The authority has already paid to put extra trains on the route to carry commuters displaced from the loop line. But now officials will examine the service “inch by inch” to find out what is going wrong.

Last week police were called in when passengers swamped a Rochdale-bound train from Victoria after a concert at the adjoining Manchester Arena.

Officers ordered crowds back from a Pacer train which turned up to form the 10.20pm to Leeds, just as fans poured out of the Michael McIntyre gig.

Rail campaigners have demanded to meet councillors at stations along the Calder Valley after reports that commuters have been regularly left behind in both morning and evening rush hours because there is not enough capacity while the loop line is converted to Metrolink.

A train’s reliability is measured by its Public Performance Measure (PPM) which calculates services running less than five minutes late.

While Northern’s PPM overall rose to over 91%, the Calder Valley line went down to less than 87%.

Lee Wasnidge, Northern’s area director, said the line has been badly affected by flooding and there were three or four consecutive days of points failures. There had also been a derailment at a depot near Leeds.

Of the hit squad, he said it would be like one brought in to solve problems on the Manchester to Southport line when it became the worst performing route.

“We will analyse it inch by inch and find out the issues,” he said.

“When we did it on the Southport line, performance was down to 85% and now we regularly achieve above 90%.”