TransPennine Express announces it’s cutting services from Manchester

TransPennine Express will be reducing its timetable for services across the North of England and Scotland due to ongoing staff shortages.

The rail operator will be introducing the temporary timetable with fewer connections along the West Coast Mainline from September 12th.

Services in Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Lancaster, Edinburgh and Glasgow will be affected.

TransPennine Express said the new timetable will ‘provide more stability and certainty for customers’ as it continues to struggle with high levels of staff sickness and a backlog in training.

Jerry Farquharson, service planning and performance director at TransPennine Express, apologised for the ‘ongoing issues’, saying that a ‘combination of factors has put unprecedented pressure on our ability to operate a consistent service’.

He said, as per the BBC: “This temporary amended timetable for our services between the North West of England and Scotland will help us provide more stability and certainty for customers travelling on this route.

“We have put in place measures to communicate this revised timetable to any affected customers and believe that by bringing this timetable in we will help customers have more confidence and certainty.”

The new timetable will be introduced three days before planned industrial action by twelve rail companies on September 15th.

Department for Transport / Flickr

The following week on September 26th, nine companies will stage further strike action in an ongoing dispute over pay and working conditions. 

The train companies likely to be involved in this strike include the TransPennine Express, West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast, c2c, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway, LNER and Southeastern.

Staff have been calling for better work conditions and an increase in pay, having rejected a 2% pay rise offer earlier this summer.