Names of major railway stations worst in terms of cancellations were revealed.

Manchester Victoria, the UK’s busiest railway station, has been the worst hit by cancellations so far this year.

According to National Rail figures collected by train data website On Time Trains, about 1 in 10,506 scheduled stops were canceled between January and November 2024.

This contributed to the North-West of England becoming the region with the highest rate of canceled railway stops across the UK at 6.5%, with 611,047 cancellations.

The government said it was committed to undertaking the largest reconstruction of the railways in a generation, returning services to public ownership and reinvesting in them.

Mehar, 22, a recent graduate from Bolton, has experienced regular cancellations at Manchester Victoria.

She said that as a student at Preston, she probably missed hundreds of hours of university time due to train cancellations.

“I think most of the time, we were more stressed about our trains than about our work,” he said. “It was mostly evening time when we were going back, so we were getting home later than expected and missing the mosque a lot.”

Mehr said canceled trains often mean traveling home in the dark, “If it’s dark, it’s too bad and you’re alone too. It affects your safety.”

Daniel, 19, who also attends university via Manchester Victoria, said he usually aimed to arrive an hour earlier in fear of his journey being cancelled.

Although staying at home meant he saved money, he said relying on trains had proven stressful.

“A lot of my friends live on campus and it’s very easy for them – but I wouldn’t want to pay for housing,” he said.

More than three million train stops have been canceled in Britain from January to November this year – about 3.8% of the 83 million scheduled.

This breaks down to a 3.9% cancellation rate in England and Wales and a 2.9% cancellation rate in Scotland.

BBC analysis calculated the percentage of scheduled stops with canceled arrivals and/or departures using data collected by National Rail Trains on time.

This differs from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) cancellation analysis, which covers full and partial cancellations, changes to planned timetables, strikes and reduced staffing.

Amber, 21, regularly travels from Liverpool Lime Street, but she said her train was canceled about 25% of the time.

“It is disturbing that minimum service is not being followed,” he said. “This would be unheard of in the South.

“Cities in the north will just have to deal with it, because there is no other option.”

With 12,062 trains (5.9%) canceled between 1 January and 30 November this year, Liverpool Lime Street had the 11th highest cancellation rate of any station in the UK.

Of the 100 UK railway stations ranked by ORR as the busiest, three of the five worst stations in terms of cancellations were in Manchester: Manchester Victoria (9.5%), Manchester Oxford Road (8.1%) and Manchester Piccadilly (6.7%). .

In England, the areas with the worst overall cancellation rates were the North West at 6.5%, followed by the South West at 4.8% and the North East at 4.6%.

Of the five areas across Britain with cancellation rates lower than the overall national rate, three were in the south or east of England.

Michael Solomon Williams of the transport charity Campaign for Better Transport said that due to “far greater” investment made in the south, passengers in the north had “suffered for a very long time”.

“For many years there has been a case of economic and social inequality that is directly related to transportation inequality,” he said.

“We need to invest more in the North than in the South to balance things out.”

Network Rail manages 20 of the UK’s busiest and largest stations. It leases the remaining operations to train companies who manage them but are not responsible for the punctuality of other operators using the stations.

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents national rail and train operators, said cancellations could be caused by weather, industrial action, encroachment and track, train or signaling faults.

It said this is unacceptable and everyone is working hard to ensure train services are reliable and punctual.

Northern, which manages Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road stations, said it is working hard to address train crew availability issues to improve reliability.

It said an agreement had been reached with drivers to work on rest days and that it would continue to work with the RMT union to find a “new way forward” following conductors’ recent… Rejected a proposal regarding working on Sunday,

RMT said it wanted to pursue further negotiations with the company.

Transportation Secretary Heidi Alexander told bbc radio 4 today program She was worried about the figures of train cancellations. “I am not happy with the performance of Northern Rail at the moment,” he said.

He said the issue with Northern was “specifically related to train crew availability on Sundays”.

“One of the things we had to do while working through a solution with the trade union and local workers is that we decided to reduce the timetable a bit to improve reliability,” he said.

He said that in the new year the government will consider how to reduce dependence on work during rest days.

Network Rail, which manages Manchester Piccadilly station but does not run train services, said its job was to “help passengers move safely”.

It said it understood how frustrating the disruption was for passengers and supported the train operators at the station to deliver a reliable service.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Passengers are becoming frustrated by poor services, which is why we are committed to the biggest rebuild of the railways in a generation.”

He said bringing services back into public ownership would put passengers at the center and allow the government to reinvest in the railways while holding operators accountable.