There are calls for more to be done to prevent a repetition of disruption which occurred to train services in south Cumbria this weekend.
On Sunday trains from Barrow were cancelled leading to overcrowding on those that did run.
Jayne Moorby, writing on X, said: “Another day another hideous journey. Cancelled two trains from Barrow this morning causing serious overcrowding on the remaining service on what must be on of the busiest travel days of the year.”
Responding on X, Northern’s commercial and customer director Alex Hornby said: ”There’s plenty happening to restore service quality Jayne and I’m sorry we’ve let you down.
“Some of this is outside of our control but all parties are committed to improvements.”
Business Crack did ask for an interview with Mr Hornby to provide a platform to clarify how soon improvements would be made but he was unavailable.
A spokesman for Northern said: “We are sorry for our recent performance, accept it has not been good enough and understand the impact this has on our customers in Cumbria.
“We are working hard to address issues with traincrew availability so we can improve reliability for our customers.
“We recently secured a new rest-day working agreement for our train drivers, however an offer that was put to our conductors in the North West to secure a commitment to work on Sundays was rejected by their members in a referendum vote.
“If it had been accepted, we believe that deal would have improved reliability in the short-term while we worked with the RMT to secure a longer-term agreement.
“Despite this setback, we will continue to work with colleagues and the RMT union to find a new way forward. We realise there is more to be done to address issues with performance in Cumbria and are now focused on delivering our improvement plan.”
The exchange prompted another comment about the service between Barrow and Manchester a day earlier.
