THE COMPANY which ran Bolton's train services during a disastrous timetable change last year has been praised for its reaction.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) was tasked with investigating Northern's efforts around the May 2018 timetable shift which was followed by record numbers of delays and cancellations.

Investigators credited Northern's response to the chaos and said providing advanced information for all passengers at the time was "an impossible task".

In comparison, London-based firm GTR, which runs the Southern and Thameslink rail networks, was fined £5m by the ORR for its "persistent and prolonged failures".

Stephanie Tobyn, deputy director at the ORR, said: "The disruption experienced by many passengers as a result of the May timetable introduction was awful.

"When disruption happens, poor quality information makes an already difficult and frustrating situation worse."

Due to overrunning engineering works, the rail timetable - which involves a number of companies trying to organise trains to run safely on the same lines - was developed in 16 weeks rather than the usual 40-week period.

As a result, when the timetable changed there were major problems with staffing as the company was trying to teach drivers to run routes they had never operated on previously, leading to huge disruption.

Despite this, the ORR said Northern "took reasonable steps" in these circumstances to give passengers "appropriate, accurate and timely information both prior to and during the disruption".

Investigators also credited the interim timetable produced by Northern on June 4 - two weeks after the initial problems - for "stabilising" services and reducing uncertainty for commuters.

Following the release of the review, a spokesman for Northern said: "We welcome the ORR's findings on Northern and are reviewing the detail of the investigation report.

“Last year was very difficult for our customers for well-known reasons, particularly the ongoing impact of delays to infrastructure upgrades. This meant we did not meet people’s expectations and we are sorry for that.

“Following the experience of 2018 Northern has made improvements, and we continue to invest in better customer information systems and processes.

"We are determined to deliver a better service for our customers in 2019 with improved punctuality, the delivery of new and refurbished trains, and better stations."

Passengers were hit with further issues following the timetable chaos as an ongoing dispute with the RMT union led to months of weekend strike action. This was resolved in February 2019.

The quality of Northern's service appears to have improved in the latest figures produced by Network Rail, which manages the UK's railway infrastructure. Between February 4 and March 3 of this year, the company has nearly halved the number of trains which are cancelled or arrive more than 30 minutes late, from 5.3 down to 2.7 percent.