Passengers at one of the country’s worst railway stations for cancellations say trying to use the train is “not worth the stress” and they are forced to use the bus or drive instead.
One in 10 train services were cancelled at Hartlepool in the four weeks between 5 January and 1 February, according to new figures published this week.
The Government says it is bringing in a “new era of accountability” for train companies by sharing punctuality and reliability data for more than 1,700 stations in England.
The first set of figures showed eight of the 10 railway stations with the highest cancellation scores were in the North of England or Wales.
Ince and Elton station in Cheshire had the highest figure, with 22 per cent of trains cancelled, although this is a small station which only runs two trains an hour.
Hartlepool, in Tees Valley, by contrast, serves a seaside town of more than 90,000 people and is used by around 600,000 passengers per year.
A £12m revamp which saw its second platform brought back into use, a new footbridge and lifts installed, was completed last year with local leaders hoping it would lead to an increase in passenger numbers.
Hartlepool train station underwent a £12m revamp – but passengers say services are too unreliable (Photo: Chris Booth/Tees Valley CA)However, commuter Joanne Spires, 50, says she has stopped using the train to travel to her job in Newcastle because the service has become too unreliable.
“I liked to get the train because it’s a nice calm journey and I’d miss the sitting on the A19 in my car in traffic jams,” she told The i Paper.
“However the continual cancellation of Northern trains on a morning every day made this impossible for me to get there on time, if at all.
“The return journeys are just as bad – regular cancelled trains from Newcastle sometimes two or three in succession meant that the two-carriage train that would eventually arrive had way too many people getting on and all these people are not stopped.
“There is no staff stopping people getting on, leading to overcrowding on trains, in my opinion in a dangerous way.
“It has made the journey there more stressful due to the number of cars on the road at rush hour, I have to leave home much earlier than if I were to get a train as I know I’ll be sat in traffic.
“It’s a shame Hartlepool station got a lovely revamp with the new platform, the promise of more trains but quickly came the cancellations and usual excuses of not enough staff or broken down train leading to regular cancellations.
“I’ve found it’s not worth the stress.”
Most services at Hartlepool are run by Northern, the train company which has been under government control since 2020 but has been one of the worst-performing operators.
Critics believe its problems, including battles with staff over pay and conditions, demonstrate Labour’s nationalisation plans won’t fix the railways.
On 17 January, Northern shared a notification with passengers that 12 services wuold be cancelled between 10am and 9pm.
Reacting on social media, resident Dawn Rogers wrote: “Might as well just put a post up every day telling people what trains are actually running, would be a shorter list.”
Darren Peart joked: “Can we just go back to horse and carts for transport up and down the coast?”
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“Thank God for buses!” wrote Andy Marx.
A spokesperson for Northern said that during the period highlighted in the most recent cancellation scores the company experienced “higher than normal levels of cancellations to our semi-fast service on the Durham Coast, due to staff sickness and several trains requiring maintenance work”.
They added that in recent weeks the cancellation levels “have reduced and we are continuing to monitor performance along this route”.
The spokesperson added: “We are delivering our plan to improve performance and provide customers across the North of England with a reliable service.
“We are working to reduce sickness levels by helping staff return to work as well as introducing state-of-the-art simulators to accelerate our training programme and planning to make the largest ever investment in our fleet by introducing up to 450 new trains.”
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