RMT has announced that it has demanded that Arriva / DB be stripped of its Northern franchise.
This comes as the public bail-out soars to £282 million and company enters crisis talks with the government.
The news comes after Virgin Trains East Coast collapsed earlier in the year.
Many will already know that Northern is still recovering following the major disruption following the May timetable change.
What did the officials say?
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:
“Arriva Rail North, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, is a basket case rail franchise sucking up well over a quarter of a billion pounds a year in public bail-outs while wrecking service standards, ripping up the safety rule book and threatening to throw the guards off over half their trains. This scandal needs to end immediately and that means the Government taking immediate action to bring the Northern routes into direct public ownership and control with the services run on the basis of safety, security and access and not private profit. That means a guard on every train and proper staffing at station level as well.
“With reports that Trans Pennine Express are in similar dire straits this national disgrace on our privatised railways, coming exactly 25 years after the Act was passed ushering in the Great British Rail Rip-Off, has to be called to a halt before irreversible damage is done.
“If Virgin can be kicked off the East Coast and the lines returned to public ownership there is no excuse whatsoever for dragging out the death throes of Arriva on Northern Rail.”
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Bit of a cheek for the RMT to moan about Northern management while they are causing just as much misery for Joe Public.
Glad I travel by Coach now, had my belly full of the robbing TOCs and the 1970s arrogance of unions.
The next fare increase will just put people back onto the roads.
With the Christmas markets due to open this weekend ..train services at weekend on northern have only been reinstated after MONTH’S of no weekdnd services .. from Bolton and they are now going to be on strike .. and for several weekends.
it’s utterly despicable treatment of the traveling public and commuters alike and i have put up with this endless shoddy money robbing service for long enough trying to get yo and ftom work in Manchester.. …. countless extra money spent on taxis or getting home alternate ways on the metrolink ,.. and we now have more to contend with ..the strikes YOUR TARGETING THE WRONG PEOPLE
It’s time they lost the franchise …. and it’s long overdue thst we don’t pay full price for a half price service.. 21St century travel … it isn’t .. disgusting attitudes…
Arriva are.rubbish trains and bus.alike.late.dirty.do not turn up (bus,) often braking.down
Note: East Coast has not been “returned to public ownership”. It is in the hands of a different partnership of 3 private sector companies under a different contract with DfT, maybe similar to GTR’s management contract, compared with the previous 2 private sector companies called Stagecoach and Virgin under a franchise contract with DfT. Management not ownership is what matters.
Sadly RMT are getting nowhere with the guards strikes. Northern & SWR management have their tin hats on and they are in their bunkers. With no talks planned it’s a waiting game as to who blinks first. With the Govt backing the TOC’s the RMT will be sadly beaten in the end as per their failed action on Southern. Both parties action will drive passengers off Northern’s routes using cars or buses as a alternative. It will be hard to get them back.
People keep talking about the timetable change as being the point when the service started to deteriorate for northern. But the true is its been in decline for a number of years. The timetable change was the breaking point and highlighted the plight of northern commuters to the national press thanks to local MP’s organisations like opsta and norhern resist where the public finally had a voice to vent their collective frustrations on social media. I hope this is the final nail in the coffin for northern and they bring back British rail and renationalise. Putting the consumer ahead of profits. That’s would be a nice Christmas present.
Definitely the answer to Northern Franchise. Remove Arriva/DB. A.S.A.P.
I think Northern should be stripped completely. All they have done is put misery on passengers and cancelling and delaying services just because of strikes happening all at once and causing misery to passengers across its network.
South Western Railway are only going to strike for 24hrs but hopefully they won’t allow more strikes to happen next year. Why do train operators have the urge to strike. Not all train operators in the UK don’t strike. It’s just a few that do. TfL are planning to have strikes on some of the tube lines including the Piccadilly Line which is to strike sometime this week or tomorrow.
With the amount of trouble Northern have caused for the public including myself as I had to miss out on the Brief Encounter tour which I was booked on aswell as having to change my boarding point for when I did that tour to Stratford upon Avon and the fear of a strike on January 26th next year as im doing a tour that day could wreck things for me. Iv even had to miss a lot of filming trips when I needed to use Northern services and they were striking. At present I wanna see northern get shut down and replaced by a better company as Arriva Trains Wales have gone and presently I couldn’t care in the slightest if they get given the push.