Another terrible weekend for TransPennine Express as over one third of trains are late or cancelled

Despite the new timetable introduced last week, which promised to bring an end to ongoing disruption, performance is yet to improve with many trains running very late or not at all on a daily basis.

This weekend was one of the worst in recent weeks with more than one third of trains on the company's North route either late or cancelled.

On Friday, according to rail data website trains.im, 41.3% of services were affected by disruption while on Saturday and Sunday over 31% of trains were either delayed by more than half an hour or cancelled all-together.

Scarborough resident Faith Young is among those regularly affected by the poor service.

She said: "I travel for work purposes and I would love to be able to rely on train services from Scarborough. I live literally five minutes' walk from the railway station so it would make total sense for me leave the car at home when possible.

"Sadly, I've just not been able to do this as there simply isn't a trustworthy train service from the coast to York or beyond.

"The weekend of the 21st December was terrible for train users. I was very fortunate in that I didn't get directly affected, however, close friends and local businesses felt the impact.

"Most train users accept some delays and cancellations can't be avoided. However, I think many people would agree this weekend's debacle was completely unacceptable, particularly at such a busy time of year for festive travelling and for retail businesses.

"For the time-being, I won't be using the train services between here and York. There are alternatives such as a public bus service or private transport. Until things improve, it's simply not worth the risk of relying on the railway."

So far today, TransPennine Express has been the worst-performing rail company in the country with only 72 of 124 trains running on time.

Rail operator Northern, which links Scarborough to Hull, is the second worst with 743 of 1031 trains running on schedule.

Leo Goodwin, Managing Director for TransPennine Express said: “I am really sorry for the disruption to our customers journeys. I know what a busy time it is with people travelling during the festive period.

“We have had a number of issues to contend with; crew training caused by the late delivery of some of our new trains, a maintenance backlog and the implementation of a temporary timetable along one of our routes. This has unfortunately had a knock on affect to other services.

"We are working really hard to sort this for our customers and as we introduce more new trains we should see an improvement to people’s journeys.”