grumpyf1

#NorthernFail It isn’t hard to imagine a conversation taking place at beleaguered train operator Northern, sometime in the depths of winter, that went something like this: “Passengers want more trains!” “Fine – give them more trains.” “What, really? Won’t we need loads more staff to operate them?” “We can worry about that nearer the go-live date.” “But, surely we’ll need time to employ them, train th....” “Shhsh! Stop worrying. It’s cold in here. Chuck something else on the fire.” “How about this large box of customer complaints?” “Perfect – we’ve got loads of those we need to get rid of!” OK, that’s made up, but there is more than enough anger and frustration amongst let-down passengers that it wouldn’t have surprised many of them if it were a true story. Northern have removed 165 services every day until nearly the end of July, as they struggle to cope with an expanded timetable. Some of these are the Lakes Line, running to and from Preston, Lancaster, Oxenhol...

A Pacer train. A nightmare on (too few) wheels. A time traveller could be forgiven for thinking they had mistakenly landed in the wrong century, if they hopped on a local train service in parts of Cumbria. I spend a large amount of my time waiting for Northern trains to arrive. Not because I actually want to catch one (more on that shortly), but because I’m waiting for the ever-lovely Mrs G to arrive. True, sitting in the car is an excellent opportunity to catch up on Twitter, the news and weather, sport, read a book, read the car manual or gaze into the middle distance. Theoretically, a quick shufti at the first item on that list should be interrupted by the choo-choo turning up. Unfortunately, it’s more likely to be the another read of the section on checking the oil level, or even contemplating the ingredients on a discarded sweet wrapper, so often are the trains delayed. So far, so bad. Still – at least once you’re on-board, everything should be OK, right? Comfortable, li...