A few weeks ago I caught a refurbished 150 running the 13:11 Blackpool North to Buxton service with a timetabled arrival time of 15:32. That train calls at quite a few stations without toilets and the train that was running the service had a toilet door which was stuck in the closed position. The longest wait that the train had at a station was 3 minutes, which obviously wouldn't be enough time to leave the train, use the toilet and rejoin the same train. Rejoining a later train may have resulted in someone's journey taking more than an hour longer if they were going to a station south of Stockport.

I accept that life isn't made easy for Northern Rail. The trains they acquired included a large number of 142s and they never got their hands on the 175s which were built for First North Western. But it was their decision to move a number of trains including all 158s that were in the North West to Yorkshire and to send some smaller trains in the opposite direction. Also they've spent a lot of money repainting trains and erecting new signs at stations which clearly say 'Northern' while spending nothing on refurbishing interiors of trains (which some are in desperate need of), or on buying new trains.

That is because Northern don't run the trains at the right times !

Most, if not all of the money that Merseytravel have invested in to the Railways has been spent. On the Northern network money has been spent bringing in some additional 156s, which I believe were previously in Yorkshire but have been replaced by 158s. These are primarily used on trains between Liverpool and Wigan and between Liverpool, Earlestown and Manchester. On the Merseyrail network this has included refurbishing 507 and 508s, replacing parts of the track and cleaning the Merseyrail platform at Lime Street station of chewing gum.

I understand that is more than GMPTE has invested (I think they've only invested enough to allow some of the 142s which were being kept in storage to be used more reguarly.)

Having said that it's worth noting that Transpennine Express run a local service from Oxenholme (Lake District) to Windermere. The total journey duration is 19 minutes and guess what trains are running that service? 3 car 185s!

One other problem with Northern is that they have no ambition and their head office is in York. Under North Western and First North Western new class 323s were brought in to run local services on electrified routes to and from Manchester, which are now over 10 years old and class 175s were made for services in the north west, which are mainly operating in Wales now. As well as refurbishing 150s.

Under Northern they've swapped 142s round so there are ones with more seats in the Yorkshire area, but ones with less seats in the North West. Likewise they've swapped 158s from the North West with unrefurbished 150s from Yorkshire. While Northern are bringing in some 158s they all seem to be going to Yorkshire, with some 156s being cascased to the North West.

I appreciate that there are problems with overcrowding, particuarly in Leeds and West Yorkshire, but there are also overcrowding problems in the Manchester and Liverpool areas.

Northern Rail really need to look at changing frequencies of the Manchester to Buxton/Chester/Crewe/Alderley Edge trains. Their excuse is always we run the number of trains that we are told to run. Currently Buxton and Chester get one per hour with a couple of extra ones at peak times, some of these can get very crowded. Crewe gets two local trains per hour with an additional two local trains running part of the Crewe routes as far as Alderley Edge. The Alderley Edge trains mainly run at least three quarters empty. Northern should really run two trains per hour to Buxton, Chester and Crewe. Although they would need to swap some 323s for diesel trains to be able to do that.