Northern Rail under fire as Freedom of Information figures reveal 285 abandoned services to Knottingley station

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal services to or from Knottingley have been cancelled on 285 occasions over a two-and-a-half year period.

Northern were forced to disclose the information to a passenger who regularly uses the station to travel to work in Leeds.

He submitted the FOI request to the operator after becoming dismayed at the number of times services from Knottingley were cancelled or he was left stranded on his journey home when the service was terminated at Pontefract Monkhill Station.

Knottingley, a six minute journey from Monkhill, is the last stop on the Pontefract Line service from Leeds.

Tom Gordon, Lib Dem councillor for Knottingley, said the situation is causing "absolute havoc" for people who rely on trains in Knottingley.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority have also accused Northern of "letting down" passengers in Knottingley.

Coun Gordon said: "Over two years, over 200 journeys haven't made it here to terminate at Knottingley.

"This has come about after a resident had seen people complaining online and he himself had struggled getting home after a day at work, and he put in a Freedom of Information request.

"We don't know why these services are terminating at Pontefact and failing to make it here to get people home from work or see their friends and family.

"But what we do know is that a significant number of journeys aren't making it here."

Coun Gordon said he is calling on Northern Rail and West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin, who has responsibility for transport, to look into the issue and find a solution to ensure passengers have a timetable they can trust.

Coun Gordon added: "We know that people are turning up not knowing that trains are cancelled or terminating early and it is causing absolute havoc

"We have already got an issue with buses and we want people to use public transport.

"We need a rail network that works for people.

"I am calling for actions, not words, from the West Yorkshire Mayor and Northern Rail to fix this problem for people in Knottingley."

A West Yorkshire Combined Authority Spokesperson said: “Passengers at Knottingley are being let down by the current level of service from Northern Rail.

“This isn’t good enough and is one of the reasons why the Mayor led recent action to urge the Transport Secretary and the Prime Minister to hold rail operators to account.

“We have also raised this issue with Northern because last minute cancellations are making life miserable across the North and causing long-term damage to our economy.”

Tony Baxter, regional director at Northern, said: "We operate thousands of services every single day with the huge majority being completed as per schedule.

"Unfortunately, there are times when some services either need to be cancelled in full or for part of their planned journey.

"Cancellations can occur for a large number of reasons, many outside of Northern's control and may include for example, bad weather, faulty infrastructure (signals and track etc), line blockages (i.e. fallen trees), incidents of safety, staff sickness, other train operator problems and train faults.

“We continue to work closely with colleagues from Network Rail, and the other operators, to keep this disruption to a minimum and our customers on the move.”