Services have suffered from widespread delays and cancellations over the past year.
By Spencer Stokes & Victoria Scheer
BBC Look North
Train operator TransPennine Express has announced it will cut services to improve punctuality and reliability.
The government-controlled firm said services between Leeds and Manchester would be reduced from four to three during off-peak times.
It will mean the company runs 300 services a day instead of 320.
Managing director Chris Jackson said the temporary change would clear the backlog of driver training and put the firm on a more “stable” footing.
He told BBC Look North: “This plan to slightly step back the timetable in December will help to fix the business in the long term and operate a much more stable and reliable timetable for customers.
“If we are able to, we will reintroduce services through 2024 or if not, we will reintroduce the full timetable in December 2024.”
TransPennine Express managing director Chris Jackson
Under the firm’s Making Journeys Better blueprint, TransPennine will also remove Nova 3 locomotives from timetables after December.
The firm said their fleet had been “underutilised” due to operational and noise restrictions.
Mr Jackson said even with the removal, TransPennine, would have “sufficient” capacity to meet demand.
While he said most routes would not be affected by the timetable shake-up, he said Hull passengers would see “marginal” increases to off-peak journey times to Manchester.
The troubled train operator came under government control in May after years of complaints about service levels.
Figures showed the equivalent of one-in-seven services being cancelled in the first four weeks of April, more than any other operator.
According to the government operator which now runs the routes, in early 2023 it operated 276 services on a daily basis with around 50 to 60 train cancellations each day.
The company also came under fire in February for its high use of p-coding, which is used to cancel trains the night before in response to poor weather or damage to rail infrastructure.
Because the announcements are not made on the day, these cancellations are not included in official performance statistics.
Mr Jackson said the firm had reduced its use of the process “significantly” since May but said it would continue to employ it “as a last resort”.
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