Angry rail passengers say Grand Central’s Sunderland-London service is ‘cancel, cancel, cancel’

The train operator’s Monday-to-Saturday timetable schedules six Sunderland to London King’s Cross return trains, first stop Hartlepool, with five on Sundays.

However, angry passengers say cancellations are numerous. A councillor has written to Grand Central and says the operator “is simply not shaping up”.

Another customer bought June 25 tickets for King’s Cross-Sunderland through Grand Central’s website, but had to find out for himself that all their services on June 24 and 25 are cancelled due to engineering work.

However, shorter notice cancellations are causing most difficulty. Grand Central says there are “reliability issues with the current fleet of 180s”. The British Rail Class 180 has not been built since 2001.

Patrick James of Ashbrooke, who owns property in London and uses the service often, said: “I travel with Grand Central pretty much every day; Sunderland to London. It seems like there’s been cancellations virtually every day in the last seven or eight months.

“There are two morning trains. One day last week they cancelled both. About 20 of us were told there was nothing else in place; so we couldn’t jump on LNER or whatever.

“If you look at their Twitter, every day it’s cancel, cancel, cancel. I was talking to another guy who was supposed to get a flight from Heathrow. He missed it. They need new trains. It’s really unfortunate for the people of Sunderland.”

Lib Dem councillor Dominic McDonough said: “Due to old and dilapidated trains we are seeing services cancelled regularly and many simply refuse to rely on the service anymore.

“The Grand Central link is important and we want to see it thrive, but at the moment it is simply not shaping up. The people of the city deserve a reliable train service and I hope the Grand Central team will respond with a positive plan to make things better.”

Sean English, chief operating officer for Grand Central, said: ‘We’re very sorry to any customers who have been affected by cancellations to services between Sunderland to London Kings Cross.

“Unfortunately, several factors have led to recent reliability issues with the current fleet of 180s, and have left us suffering from unit availability problems.

"We have been working closely with train maintainers to resolve the position through a recovery plan that is being managed at a senior level across Grand Central, Arriva UK Trains and our maintenance supplier.

“As it stands, the position is seeing some improvements, perhaps not at a pace we would like, but nonetheless an improvement.

“Additionally, we are also reviewing some options to obtain additional trains.

"This process can take some time to implement but we are working as hard as we can, both on the recovery plan and the possibility of acquiring additional trains to return to a level of service our customers both expect and deserve from Grand Central.

“With regards to informing customers of cancellations directly, we are only able to do that when bookings are made through our app or website, and not through a third party, such as Trainline, or at a ticket machine.

“Our social media channels carry live updates and we would always recommend customers book directly with us and check timetables before they travel.”