TRAIN drivers believe Furness line rail services provider Northern should be stripped of its franchise for failing to deliver the promises made to passengers.

Trains between Lancaster and Barrow, and beyond, are delayed or cancelled daily for a number of reasons including a shortage of drivers.

The Mail asked both Northern and ASLEF, the union which represents train drivers, why there wasn't a sufficient number of drivers to run the scheduled trains. ASLEF said Northern simply wasn't providing the service it promised.

A spokesman for the union said: "Train companies – and Northern is no exception – always like to blame anyone but themselves for problems which are usually self-inflicted. It’s the fault of staff, passengers, or leaves on the line. Never the train operating company which has a licence from the government to make lots and lots of money.

"The truth, though, is that Northern – in common with most of the other privatised train companies – does not employ enough staff to deliver the service it promised, in its franchise application, to deliver. It is interested not in running a public service, but in making money for its shareholders.

"The report published on Friday April 27 by the Public Accounts Committee said the franchise model is ‘broken’ and not fit for purpose and the MPs are right. That’s why we want Britain’s railways brought back into public ownership.

"Before that happens, Northern needs to employ the number of drivers it needs to run the service that passengers in Cumbria deserve."

Northern, which has been forced to apologise regularly to passengers over the last 12 months and more, said a shortage of train drivers was because of training taking place.

Sharon Keith, regional director at Northern, said: “I would like to apologise for the frustration our customers have undoubtedly felt during the past few weeks following delays and cancellations in Cumbria.

“We are currently working towards the delivery of our May timetable change which will see more services introduced in Cumbria with additional direct trains from Barrow to Manchester Airport and more services in the evenings and on Sundays between Barrow and Carlisle.

“To achieve this we are taking some drivers out of normal duties to provide the necessary training in readiness for the timetable change.

“To tackle the existing delays and cancellations we are working with our staff to develop the best possible solution for our customers; one which enables us to increase the availability of our drivers to operate as many services as possible.

“Alongside this we are growing our staffing levels and, during the past few years, we have significantly increased the recruitment of drivers as we work towards delivering 2,000 extra services each week across the network by 2020."