Chris Grayling accused of being ‘asleep at the wheel’, with MPs set to review handling of botched timetable changes

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, could be called to face MPs over the botched timetable changes that have led to chaos across England’s rail network.

As the mass cancellations of trains by Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) continued into an 11th day, Lilian Greenwood, the chair of the transport select committee, said she would ask the committee on Monday to review the situation, which may lead to a full parliamentary inquiry.

Greenwood, the Labour MP for Nottingham South, said Grayling, Network Rail and the train operating companies all had questions to answer about the introduction of the timetables on 20 May and how they managed the subsequent disruption, which has become a “complete shambles”.



Fury as train delays and cancellations in UK enter second week Read more

“The ongoing timetabling chaos is making the lives of passengers very difficult. The transport committee has discussed the problems and is watching the situation carefully,” she said.

On Thursday, the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, accused Grayling of being “asleep at the wheel”.



The mass cancellations have particularly hit Thameslink services in and out of London, and Northern trains to and from Manchester.

Grayling angered passengers on Thursday after he appeared to blame all the problems on Network Rail, rather than examining his own department’s role in the fiasco.

On Wednesday rail user groups and one MP called for the Department for Transport to introduce emergency measures to restore a reliable service.



Despite working on the new timetable change for more than a year, Network Rail, GTR and Northern have blamed the problems on the “sheer number of changes” and late running engineering projects. They said they were now working on a recovery plan.



Station staff have told passengers the companies failed to train staff to drive the new routes, or to have enough trains to operate the new timetable.



Burnham was among a group of northern leaders who spoke with Grayling to discuss what he described as the “shambolic” state of rail services in the region.



Burnham told BBC Radio 4: “I am left with the clear impression that nobody – least of all the transport secretary – has got a grip on this situation.

“He now needs to take personal responsibility and set a deadline by which services will be brought back up to an acceptable standard.”



