Rail chaos will ‘continue endlessly into the future’ unless government FINALLY signs off on promised upgrades to Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations, northern leaders are to be told - six years after they were first pledged by George Osborne.

A pan-northern meeting of council chiefs will hear tomorrow how the delayed expansion of both stations has been a 'key' cause of the chaos that has been crippling the north’s network.

They will also hear that the opening of the £85m Ordsall Chord link through Castlefield, an investment regularly celebrated by ministers, has actually made the overall situation worse - because it was not coupled with the rest of the investment originally proposed.

A report going before Transport for the North says there are only three choices now facing government: pay for the infrastructure, cut train services or accept ‘the very poor reliability’ that comes from running current number of services through the existing bottleneck.

It recommends northern leaders call on government to finally sign off on the platform expansions originally proposed, costed at between £700m and £800m.

(Image: PA)

Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations had originally been in line for significant upgrades as part of George Osborne’s ‘Northern Hub’ plan in 2014, of which the Ordsall Chord was also part.

At Piccadilly, two extra platforms 15 and 16 were planned, while at Oxford Road remodelled platforms would have allowed for longer trains.

But although the necessary legal processes - including a public inquiry - for the station upgrades were completed in 2015, the decision has been sitting on ministerial desks ever since .

That then meant that the beleaguered Northern Rail franchise, let in 2016, was designed for an improved corridor that didn’t materialise.

“As a consequence of historic long term underinvestment, the current railway infrastructure in central Manchester does not support all the services that need to operate and which have been planned to be run to accommodate current passenger levels,” says the report going before TfN tomorrow, “so that some train services that have been contracted in the current franchises are not able to operate; and services that do run have far lower reliability than is required.”

(Image: Martin Rickett/PA Wire)

It goes on to outline that while some of the issues on the network are down to problems within Northern Rail and Transpennine Express - such as train crew availability - ‘much of the unreliability’ suffered by northern passengers ‘can only be resolved by infrastructure enhancement, without which that large element of unreliability will continue endlessly into the future’.

The absence of the promised upgrades, it adds, is ‘a key part of why the infrastructure is inadequate and has contributed to the very significant deterioration in reliability of train services’.

Less than half of the trains serving all northern cities currently run on time, it notes.

In a damning indictment of government transport policy, it also says that the Ordsall Chord itself - regularly cited by ministers as an example of transformative northern investment - has actually made things worse.

“Services through central Manchester go to/from virtually the whole of the North of England, so delays caused there have a serious detrimental impact right across the north,” says the report.

(Image: Sean Hansford Manchester Evening)

“The opening of the Ordsall Chord has made this more complex and transmits more delay across a larger area.

"Provision of adequate infrastructure in central Manchester is therefore essential for improving reliability of train services across the North of England.”

The report recommends that ministers be urged to sign off on the Piccadilly and Oxford Road investment immediately ‘rather than long-term reductions in services or unreliable operation’ and that ‘detailed design’ be begun ‘without further delay’.

But it also notes that some short-term cuts to services may well also be necessary in the interim.

It comes as ministers have repeatedly refused to directly answer questions from the M.E.N. about the extra capacity promised for Piccadilly and Oxford Road by George Osborne.

Most recently, on Monday, Chancellor Sajid Javid - while promising an ‘infrastructure revolution’ in the north - said the decision would be up to the Department of Transport and local leaders .

During the election, when the M.E.N. asked transport secretary Grant Shapps the same question during a walkabout in Bolton, he suggested the plan formed part of Northern Powerhouse Rail - the entirely separate high-speed rail project across the north still being planned.

(Image: Getty Images)

When told the extra platforms predate that plan and are part of pre-existing proposals by George Osborne to increase capacity, he said: “You may have more detail than I do on that,” and promised to provide more details on the situation.

In September, the M.E.N. asked northern powerhouse minister Jake Berry about the delay.





“We are spending taxpayer’s money - and what we have to be driven [by] isn’t shiny new platforms, it’s by outcomes," he said.

“And therefore, the government has to be sure that the new platforms are what is required to deliver that desperately needed capacity."

However the TfN report, written by the body’s head of investment Jim Bamford, says the government's own rail officials already believe the improvements are the only way forward.

Network Rail - the government’s rail infrastructure body - has already reviewed the original plan and found ‘that there is no simpler and cheaper set of works on the Castlefield corridor itself’ that would allow for the current number of train services, it notes.

The report is set to go before northern leaders in Leeds on Wednesday afternoon.