Monthly Performance Figures

Four week period ending 6 March 2010.

Overall our reliability, the number of trains we ran, was 99.5%. Our punctuality, the number of trains arriving within our Passengers’ Charter target was 95.8%.

Factors affecting performance included:

A power supply problem affecting signalling equipment in the Salford area on 8 February, resulted in 8 cancellations and disruption to evening peak services between Manchester Victoria, Southport, Clitheroe and Blackpool North.
On 14 February a fatality at Burnage caused 9 cancellations and disruption to evening services between Manchester Stations and Liverpool Lime Street.
Power grid problems affecting signalling equipment at Huyton on 19 February, resulted in 19 cancellations and disruption throughout the day to services between Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Stations, Wigan North Western and Blackpool North.
On 20 February a Northern service collided with level crossing gates left open by vandals near Saxilby causing significant damage to the train and the track. Due to the extent of the damage, the railway line was closed until repairs were carried out, resulting in 22 cancellations and disruption to services between Scunthorpe, Doncaster, Sheffield and Lincoln.
A skip lorry struck a bridge near to Gainsborough Lea Road on 24 February causing 16 cancellations and disruption throughout the evening to services between Leeds, Scunthorpe, Sheffield and Lincoln.
Also on this day, a signalling failure outside Huddersfield caused by a cable fault resulted in 10 cancellations to services between Sheffield, Huddersfield and Manchester Victoria.

We continue to work with Network Rail and British Transport Police to tackle attacks on signalling equipment, which resulted in 95 cancellations and 5941 minutes delay to Northern services between 7 February and 6 March. Some of the worst incidents included:

On 15 February cable theft at Edge Hill caused 11 cancellations and disruption to afternoon services between Liverpool Lime Street, Blackpool North and Manchester Stations.
Cable theft in the Wakefield area on 17 February resulted in 14 cancellations and major disruption to morning peak services between Leeds, Doncaster and Sheffield. Further disruption was also caused by a separate incident on 27 February resulting in 12 cancellations and disruption to services between Leeds, Wakefield and Knottingley.
On 26 February cable theft at Miles Platting, outside Manchester Victoria caused 34 cancellations and major disruption to morning peak services between Manchester Stations, Southport, Buxton, Leeds and Selby.

All of Northern’s service groups are currently above the required standards, therefore no discounts apply to season tickets renewed between 14 March – 10 April 2010 inclusive.