Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has written to the interim directors of CrossCountry Trains to raise “serious concerns” about poor performance, and threatened to take action if services do not improve.
She “reluctantly” approved its request for a temporary reduction in services, which the operator said was necessary because of a backlog of driver training.
CrossCountry, which operates to most of Britain’s biggest cities outside London, said it would lead to a more resilient timetable.
It had announced the smaller timetable in July, to run for three months from 10 August.
It said the prolonged industrial action meant it had been unable to deal with a backlog of training days required by drivers. The temporary timetable would reduce the number of on-the-day cancellations, which caused the most inconvenience to passengers.
Haigh said CrossCountry passengers had been suffering from a substandard service “for too long.”
She told the operator: “The level of train cancellations across your company has increased significantly, and by your own forecasts you expected to breach your contractual targets for cancellations in the coming months.”
She said the reduced timetable was not a satisfactory response.
“Put simply, the only reason I accepted your proposal was to give passengers more certainty on which services will run.”
The Transport Secretary said the company would be put on a “remedial plan” and would be barred from making more profit from running a smaller number of services.
She said she would take further action if the company did not deliver.
The government intends to return services to the public sector as the contracts of train operating companies expire. It introduced the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill last month.
But CrossCountry started its contract in October 2023 and it is due to run until 12 October 2031, with a break point in October 2027. If CrossCountry is in breach of its agreement, there may be options to terminate it earlier.
CrossCountry said 97% of its normal number of seats would be available each day. It apologised to passengers and said service had “fallen below the standards our passengers should expect from us.”
It issued a series of identical statements attributed to each of its regional directors. Each was quoted as saying: “Removing services from the timetable is always a last resort. I’m sorry for the inconvenience this will cause.”
Services affected:
Nottingham-Cardiff via Gloucester will have fewer services, and some will start or finish at intermediate stations.
Some Newcastle-Birmingham-Reading trains will not run.
Some Manchester-Bristol-Paignton services will not reach Devon.
CrossCountry stated there would be “minimal” alterations to its core Scotland-South West, Manchester-Bournemouth and Birmingham-Stansted routes.
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