The two rail operators serving Huddersfield will continue for a further two years.
Franchises run by First Trans-Pennine Express (FTPE) and Northern Rail were due to end in 2014 but will now be extended until April, 2016, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has announced.
FTPE operates trans-Pennine express services linking Huddersfield with cities including Leeds, York, Hull, Newcastle, Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool while Northern Rail runs local routes across the North including services from Huddersfield to Manchester Victoria serving Slaithwaite and Marsden.
With both franchises due to expire at the same time, this keeps open the option of combining the two franchises from 2016 onwards.Another two years of Northern Rail is something of a mixed blessing. They are good at some things, rather less so at others.
On the plus side, it’s impressive how they have managed to keep the trains going with minimal delays during the recent bad weather, even when just about all road transport in the Colne Valley was snowbound. As passengers, we probably don’t give the railway industry and railway staff sufficient credit for the way they cope with adverse weather.
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On the minus side, train cleaning continues to be a weakness.
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Also on the minus side, it’s become the norm when travelling from Slaithwaite and Marsden for the conductor to apologise for not being able to sell tickets. The standard explanation given is a shortage of working ticket machines. There isn’t really an excuse for this. Failure to issue conductors with ticket machines is a management failure, no more, no less. Now that Northern have another two years on their franchise, perhaps they could invest in some ticket machines to replace those which no longer work properly.
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And better not to mention the station announcements………….