Under-fire Northern issues another 'do not travel' warning for Manchester passengers

Under-fire rail operator Northern has issued another 'do not travel' warning to certain passengers in Manchester this weekend. Northern is coming under increased scrutiny from politicians after months of Sunday cancellations.

Andy Burnham has described the repeated warnings as 'embarrassing', while transport secretary Louise Haigh says Greater Manchester's mayor is now texting her every Monday to update her on the latest problems affecting Northern. Despite pressure being ramped up on Northern to improve its reliability, the company has issued yet another 'do not travel' warning.

The company will be running no services on Sunday (November 17) between Manchester Victoria and Chester via Warrington or Altrincham, Manchester Piccadilly and Stoke-on-Trent, or Wigan North Western and Stalybridge. Customers for those routes are being told 'do not travel', with no alternatives available.

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A post on Northern's website says: "Recently, we have seen higher levels of cancellations in the North West and for that we are sorry. The underlying reason is train crew availability, in particular on Sundays which is contractually outside of the working week."

Meanwhile, six other Greater Manchester services are being affected by train crew availability issues on Sunday. Fewer trains will run on the line between Todmorden and Southport via Manchester, Manchester Piccadilly and Hadfield, and Manchester Oxford Road and Liverpool via Warrington Central.

The service between Liverpool and Blackpool via Wigan will only run between Liverpool and Wigan. Final services will also be much earlier on that route, plus trains between Manchester Piccadilly and Crewe, and Manchester Piccadilly and Sheffield.

A Northern spokesperson added: "We encourage everyone to plan ahead and check journeys before travelling for the latest information and train times, particularly last trains of the day, which may be earlier than usual and may be cancelled at short notice. If you do travel, please leave yourself plenty of time to do so and don't rely on last trains."

Northern's reliability was discussed in the House of Commons this week, following a question from Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron. Labour's transport secretary Ms Haigh said: "I have routine conversations with Northern Rail. The most recent was on Thursday.

"We facilitated a new rest day working agreement with it, which has significantly reduced driver cancellations, but there is an outstanding issue with conductors. In parts of Northern Rail, particularly in the North West, Sundays are not included in the working week. That has led to an unacceptable amount of cancellations, which we are working to resolve."