Arriva Trains Northern (Arriva)

Member Name: GraWar

Product:	Arriva
Date:	25/07/04 (1475 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliable & punctual service, Theyve invested in station facilities & longer trains, Very good value for money

Disadvantages: Some trains are getting on a bit

Arriva Trains Northern is the train company that took over the old Northern Spirit franchise in the North East of England. MTL (Mersyside Travel Limited) were the previous incumbents of the old Regional Railways North East franchise but 3 or 4 years ago they ran into serious financial difficulty. To counter this they made heavy cutbacks in their train operations which saw a cutback in drivers leading to severe shortages and a cutback in rolling stock which saw them running a threadbare service. Due to the financial problems MTL were facing, Arriva saw their chance to get into the rail market and bought MTL out. Unfortunately for Arriva and the rail customers of the area the damage was already done. Due to the massive cutbacks of staff, Arriva were cancelling a large number of services everyday simply due to the fact that they were left with not enough drivers to run the trains that they were contracted to. In the end Arriva agreed with the Rail Authority to pemanently cancel a number of services every day for several months and replace them with buses. Although this was a pain for people affected (I was myself as no trains ran on the Pontefract line) it was actually a very good decision because at least it gave people some certainty unlike before when you would turn up to the station and there was a real chance (and you knew it) that you wouldn't be going anywhere. This break allowed Arriva to train up hundreds of drivers (a process which takes upto 9 months) and other frontline staff to enable them to run the services that they were contracted to. This showed a significant investment by Arriva and one that certainly I welcomed as a regular user of their services.

Anyway thats a bit of background info but that no 3 or 4 years ago, so what exactly is the service like now? Well Arriva have removed all of the cancellations due to lack of staff. Of course with any business like this you cant avoid cancellations entirely because you get infrastructure proble
ms like signal failures at times and excess train failures which means you just have no more spare trains to replace them with, however it is important that operators like Arriva get the fundamental things right such as something as simple as having enough staff. I also find punctuality to be a strong point with Arriva. I cant recall the last time i've been heavily delayed and overall they run a very punctual service. One possible complaint would be down to the age of their trains. They have had some brand new electric trains which operate around the Bradford area of West Yorkshire but they also have a number of the old trains still running around, you must have seen them they look like buses on train wheels!! However having said that they have refurbished most of these to a high standard to which includes brand new seating and interiors and a fresh paint on the outside. To show their continued investment, Arriva in partnership with Metro (west Yorkshire transport authority) have bought extra carriages for their brand new electric trains to increase their length and also extra coaches for some of their older bus style trains. These kind of things do cost many millions of pounds so show good investment.

Arriva have also supported Metro with investment in stations. In partnership they are overseeing a new station being built at Glasshoughton in West Yorkshire to link another town to the Arriva Trains Northern network. Also there have been a number of other improvements including refurbished waiting rooms at a number of smaller stations, a superb refurbished booking office at Leeds and amongst other things a number of CCTV schemes at stations all over their network.

Overall any people who have never tried taking the train in Arrivas network should really give them ago. Since Arriva took over the franchise i've found a very good overall punctuality figure (normally over 90% of trains arriving on time) and cancellations as I say are now typicall
y around half a percent. This shows massive investment to turn around the franchise in the way that Arriva have. Unfortunately the rail authority have chosen a new operator to take over the Northern franchise in a few months time so I suggest people get on board with Arriva and give them a crack - Hopefully the new operator when they come in will continue the hard work Arriva have put in to continue turning around the Northern rail passenger services. I have also found that Arrivas ticket prices are very competitively priced in comparison to other operators such as Central and Virgin and they also offer a wide range of special offers. Anyone interested can have a look at www.arrivatrainsnorthern.co.uk

Note: Arriva operate a wide range of routes stretching from Chesterfield and Lincoln in the south, Blackpool, Manchester & Blackburn in the west, Carlisle and Chathill in the north and Scarborough, Whitby and Hull in the east.

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