Passenger fury at Northern Rail as train chaos hits Blackpool, Bolton and Manchester Airport on first day of new timetable

Rail passengers in northern England have been venting their fury on social media as the introduction of new timetables unravelled on the first day of the working week.

Dozens of morning rush hour trains to and from Blackpool North, Preston, Bolton and many other stations were cancelled or heavily delayed.

Professor Sheila Pankhurst, dean of the School of Environment and Life Sciences at the University of Salford, tweeted: “Multiple cancellations of trains running into Salford Crescent this morning. Come on Northern Rail – Manchester and Salford deserve much better than this.”

From Bolton station, Lydia German tweeted: “All trains at Bolton are delayed and hundreds of people can’t get on due to overcrowding, disappointed but not surprised.”

Chorley Luke tweeted: “Hats off to Northern Rail for making a simple train journey from Leyland to Manchester take over two hours.”

Northern Rail blamed “a shortage of train drivers” for many of the problems, telling passengers on Twitter: “Unfortunately there have been some issues as we continue to train our 400+ drivers.”

At one stage the train operator was warning passengers of “severe disruption” on five of its key lines.

By the end of rush hour the problems were reduced to the key routes from Blackpool North and Barrow-in-Furness to Preston, Bolton, Manchester and its airport.

Buses are still running instead of many trains between Blackpool North and Preston as six months of engineering work draw to a close. The trains running on the newly electrified line are old Thameslink stock from the 1980s which have been “cascaded” to the northwest as new trains are introduced in the southeast.

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Travellers using Northern Rail face further problems on Thursday and Saturday because of a strike by members of the RMT union in a dispute over the role of guards.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has called for an official investigation into Northern Rail, saying: “Northern Rail passengers, the people of Greater Manchester, deserve so much better than the dire service they have been forced to endure in recent months.”

The RMT union summed up the rail chaos in northwest and southeast England as “Meltdown Monday”. The general secretary, Mick Cash, said: “A hopeless lack of planning, combined with a shortage of crew and fleet, which has reduced the Monday morning journey to a nightmare for many passengers.

“It is our members dealing with the anger at the sharp end not the well-paid top brass.”

Robert Nisbet, regional director at the Rail Delivery Group, which represents the rail industry, said: “We’d like to thank customers for bearing with us as we introduce the biggest timetable change in a generation.

“In the long term these changes will see customers in many parts of the country benefit from more and faster services, better connecting communities and boosting the economy.

“Retiming over 100,000 services is a huge operational challenge. We’re working together to deliver the best possible service but continue to advise customers to check their train times before they travel.”