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“CONSTANTLY UNRELIABLE”

written by Squonchy on 08/01/2014

If I told you all the hassle this company has caused me in my daily travel to and from work I would be here all day.

I had to do a daily Dewsbury to Halifax return trip to get to work. The way to such a nearby location (25-30 mins driving) is ridiculously long and arduous. Mainly because of Northern rail's ridiculous service. There were two possible ways to get to work in rush hour. The Manchester Victoria line changing at Sowerby bridge (and then for some weird reason taking the same train backwards as it only stops at Halifax on the way back!) and the Manchester airport line and changing in Huddersfield. The Victoria line left me 10 minutes to change trains (or wait an hour for the next connection) and the Airport line left me 7 minutes (or wait over an hour for the next connection).

The Victoria line was usually on time or a couple of minutes late that fortunately allowed me to get to work on time (meaning 45 minutes early). However, the Airport line was severely late every single day, even on a Saturday. And that train is due to arrive only 5 minutes after the Victoria line which means that whenever it is late, they make the Victoria train late as well as they force that train to pull aside and wait for the Airport line to overtake!

Now every time that happened I had to leave the station and try to find ANY other way of getting to work, be that bus or taxi.I have so frequently had to fork out £20-30 for an emergency taxi that was 30-40% off my daily wage. Some days it was inevitable to be late for work when I didn't have that amount readily available.

Queue in the new rules of pre-purchasing your tickets before you board the train. When my train was delayed they always left it to the last minute to let us know (how can you not know 20 minutes before the train is due that the train is 20 minutes late??). So I had already pre-bought my ticket (at £7 a day) and then I had to fork out another £20-30 for an unused train ticket!!

This happened 99% of the time at all times of the day (I worked different hours every week and the trains were late constantly). Because of them my 8 hour shifts became 13 hour shifts and I had the stress of being late on a daily basis (even though if on time the trains got me there 45 minutes early). The reason they get away with it is because they make up the lost time by the time they have arrived in Manchester. What about the intermediate stops and the fact you are ALWAYS late?


In the end they cost me my job before I had a chance to learn how to drive (that I was saving for). Northern Rail you are DISGRACEFUL. Someone needs to show you how punctuality is a priority with your line of work!


In addition, some examples of what I had to go through.

-They made a whole train full of passengers wait for 40 minutes in Huddersfield because there was no driver for it!

-Train driver advised me to get the next train as it would overtake that one and the next train arrived 30 minutes late (which means the earlier train had already finished its journey).

-Train arrived 35 minutes late and there was NO SPACE for any more passengers so it left us there