By Delays and cancellations leave passengers waiting hours for Cleethorpes to Manchester service
Since the start of the year, the Cleethorpes to Manchester service has faced long delays and multiple cancellations due to covid.
In January TransPennine Express announced a reduced timetable to give passengers more clarity on which trains would be running as the company said staff sickness was affecting trains.
Yesterday (25 July) two of the Cleethorpes to Manchester trains were cancelled with other trains arriving at the station coming late.
Cleethorpes MP, Martin Vickers, has called on the Department of Transport to consider withdrawing the Cleethorpes to Manchester franchise from rail operator TransPennine Express.
Speaking in the House of Commons, he outlined what he described as “an absolutely appalling service” and that his constituents throughout northern Lincolnshire deserve better.
The service between Cleethorpes and Manchester should be hourly but in recent weeks there have been occasions when there were four-hour gaps with no guarantee that alternative taxis or buses would be provided and no dedicated TPE staff to advise passengers.
After the debate, Mr Vickers said that he would continue to press Trans Pennine to meet the service obligations they are contracted to provide and said that he would be meeting the Rail Minister to urge her to consider withdrawing TPEs franchise.
A spokeswoman for TransPennine Express said “Earlier this year, in response high levels of staff sickness, we brought in a reduced timetable to help provide a more reliable service for customers.
“Sadly, we continue to see high levels of staff sickness across our network which is impacting our ability to run trains on several routes. This, coupled with industrial relations issues, means that we have needed to pre-plan some cancellations and also cancel a small number of services at short notice.
“This is not the service we want to provide for our customers and we are sorry for any disruption caused. We are continuing to recommend that customers check carefully before travelling and allow extra time when making journeys.”
