28 May, 2009

Metro has welcomed news that this week Northern Rail ran a record 97.73% of its Area East trains, which serve busy West Yorkshire destinations, on-time.

On Tuesday 26 May, 1,120 of the 1146 Northern’s scheduled services in its Eastern operations area, which includes busy commuter routes to Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield and Halifax, ran on time.

"These results, which comes in a week that showed another rise in the rail company’s annual punctuality rating to 89.6% is good news for West Yorkshire rail users,” said Metro Chairman Councillor Chris Greaves. “I would like to congratulate Northern on this achievement and the improvements they have made.

“Late-running and cancelled trains have become a favourite cliché of newsreaders and media pundits but these results show that in reality the vast majority of trains run, and run on time,” added Councillor Greaves

“And where there are delays,” he continued, “they are increasingly the result of mindless track-side vandalism or the theft of signalling cables which cause great inconvenience and put passengers at risk.

"I would urge anyone who witnesses or knows anything about this vandalism or theft to report it to the Police and can reassure passengers that Metro will continue to work with Northern, Network Rail, British Transport Police and other agencies to reduce these incidents and give train operators the best chance to continue running their services on time."

Councillor Greaves went on to say that he was pleased to see that punctuality for First TransPennine Express services had remained just over 90% and that National Express services to London Kings Cross were at almost 87%.

He added that Metro was continuing to work with operators to secure the extra train capacity and network improvements that would mean continued growth of rail use.

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