{"id":306,"date":"2011-02-25T16:05:17","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T16:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smart-rail.co.uk\/?p=306"},"modified":"2011-02-25T16:05:17","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T16:05:17","slug":"you-could-not-make-this-up-or-could-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/?p=306","title":{"rendered":"You could not make this up, or could you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Henryk Zientek, <\/span>Huddersfield<\/span> Daily Examiner<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Feb 22 2011<\/span><\/p>\n

A <\/span>RAIL<\/span> firm running services through <\/span>Huddersfield<\/span> has been named Train Operator of the Year.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Northern Rail, which operates services from <\/span>Huddersfield<\/span> to <\/span>Barnsley<\/span>, <\/span>Sheffield<\/span>, Halifax, <\/span>Bradford<\/span> and <\/span>Wakefield<\/span> and stopping trains to <\/span>Manchester<\/span> and <\/span>Leeds<\/span> was praised by judges for improving punctuality, reliability and customer service.<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>he improvements helped Northern Rail secure a two-year extension to its franchise, meaning it will run until at least September, 2013.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Judges said that Northern\u2019s joint owners \u2013 Serco and Abelio \u2013 had been required to invest \u00a3250,000 a year as part of their franchise agreement, but that so far they had invested \u00a325m and had attracted \u00a380m from outside sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Northern Rail was also highly commended in the Rail Business Awards in <\/span>London<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Northern Rail is the <\/span>UK<\/span>\u2019s biggest train operator.<\/span><\/p>\n

END<\/p>\n

Readers might wish to note that SMART has written to the Secretary of State for Transport \u00a0requesting her to take note of the lack of accountability of train operating companies \u00a0(TOC’s) such as Northern when deciding on the new 22.5 year franchises she is considering. SMART has suggested that another 25 years of the poor quality of Northern might be more than local people could bear.<\/span><\/p>\n

TB<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Henryk Zientek, Huddersfield Daily Examiner Feb 22 2011 A RAIL firm running services through Huddersfield has been named Train Operator of the Year. Northern Rail, which operates services from Huddersfield to Barnsley, Sheffield, Halifax, Bradford and Wakefield and stopping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-northern-rail","category-services","tag-northern-rail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smart-rail.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}