Northern Rail plays Yes Minister

RMT has learnt that Northern Rail ferried staff by taxi from Blackpool to York on Monday to ensure that a train that was to pick up transport minister Patrick Mcloughlin, who was travelling from Garforth, ran at the correct time.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that there was clearly a two-tier service which meant that fare-paying passengers suffered cancellations while ministers were treated to staff being driven across the country to ensure services were maintained.

“This shows that plans to carve-up the Northern and TPE franchises which includes mass job losses are totally misguided and will further damage services across the region.

“Northern should be prioritising all passengers not re-enacting 1970s sit coms like Yes Minister,” he said.

A Northern Rail spokesperson comments: “This allegation by the RMT is not true. On Monday, following severe disruption in the Leeds area due to signalling problems, we moved members of staff around the network by train and taxi so that we had the right people in the right place to run trains for the evening peak."

Transport minister Patrick Mcloughlin was travelling on the 16.27 from York.