Let’s bash Northern seemed to be the cry. Led by Secretary of State Chris Grayling, with the unlikely agreement of Labour Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, and supported by the excitable mass media of the north, Northern suffered a daily drubbing for the number of its trains that ran late or were cancelled in the first two weeks of the new May timetable. Mr Grayling said the rail industry had ‘failed the passengers it serves’ and that there were ‘wholly unsatisfactory levels of disruption’ on Northern. And on the face of it, all that was certainly true.
