The rail regulator has put Network Rail ‘on a warning’ over its poor service in the North West and Central region in England.
Publishing its update on the rail infrastructure operator’s impact on passenger train service performance, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said that at a national level Network Rail’s contribution to passenger train delay minutes was 58%, down 1.1 percentage points compared with the previous year.
However, there are variations across the country, it added. In the North West and Central region where train operating companies include Northern and Trans Pennine Express, Network Rail’s contribution to delays ‘remains a concern’.
The ORR said performance in this region deteriorated in 2018 and failed to substantially recover during 2019. As a result, it is investigating the detail of Network Rail’s recently initiated recovery plan further and monitoring its impact to test whether it is doing all it reasonably can to improve service for passengers.
Chief executive John Larkinson said: ‘ORR is responsible for looking at how Network Rail contributes to train delays and while there are areas of very good performance such as in Wales and Western region, Network Rail’s performance in North West and Central region is not good enough.’
The regulator also looked at the cause of the recent poor performance of Trans Pennine Express (TPE) and found it has been largely the result of train operations. It said that while its role in holding train operators to account is limited, it has written to TPE requiring further information on how it is meeting its obligations to communicate information on service disruption.
In the Wales and Western region, Network Rail has delivered its best performance of the last five years, the ORR said.
In Scotland, the ORR said it is seeing a number of improvements, with a 24% reduction in passenger train delay minutes attributed to the infrastructure operator. Despite this, it remains well below its punctuality targets for both ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper.
Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: ‘For too many months, passengers - particularly in the Midlands and the North, have been coping with very poor train services. It simply isn’t good enough and on behalf of the rail industry, I’d like to apologise. We have let you down.
‘There is no quick-fix, but fix it we will and a cross industry task force has been pulled together to tackle the problems head-on. I want them to cut through the red tape and deliver solutions quickly that will bring improvements for passengers in the near future. It will need more reliable assets, a much more reliable train plan and more robust operator resource plans.’
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