Transpennine Express stripped of contract after months of poor service

Ministers have pulled Transpennine Express from its contract after months of canceled trains and poor service, leaving service in northern England and parts of Scotland in government hands.

The Department for Transport said the contract for TransPennine – owned by British firm FirstGroup – would not be renewed on May 28 and would instead be run by the state-owned “operator of last resort”.

Around one in six POS services were canceled in March, the highest rate in the UK, causing hardship for commuters in northern cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.

“After months of northern commuters and businesses bearing the brunt of continued cancellations, I have made the decision to make Transpennine Express the operator of last resort,” said Transport Secretary Mark Harper.

The company has previously blamed its poor service on high levels of staff sickness, a backlog of driver training and a lack of overtime agreement with Aslef, the train drivers’ union.

First Group said it was “disappointed” with the decision, and said the disruption was due to “circumstances not fully within the control of the operator, principally the difficult industrial relations environment”.

One of the company’s other flagship rail operations, Avanti West Coast, was granted a temporary contract extension by the DfT earlier this year after suffering a similar meltdown in its relationship with Aslef, although its services will are largely restored.

Harper said there had been “some improvements” since the government put TPE on a recovery plan in February, but said he had decided the contract and the underlying relationship needed to be “reset”.

He insisted that the decision to place the TPE under state supervision was “provisional” and that he intended to hand it over to the private sector. And he called on Aslef, who rejected a pay offer from Britain’s 16 rail companies in April, to end his long-running industrial action.

“We have played our part, but Aslef must now play theirs by canceling the strikes and the ban on working on rest days, and putting the very fair and reasonable wage offer to a democratic vote of their members.”