PICKETS moved into action yesterday at railway stations across northern England in protest against threatened a slashing of jobs, services and safety provision.

Rail union RMT is targeting 16 stations over the next 10 days to raise passengers’ awareness of the looming danger as two key northern regional rail networks are put up for grabs by private sector profiteers.

Northern Rail and Trans Pennine Express operate services linking east and west coasts and all the major towns and cities of northern England.

They include heavily used commuter services around cities such as Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester.

New franchises for the networks will be awarded by the government’s Department for Transport (DfT) after a consultation exercise ends in two weeks’ time.

RMT said the services faced “transport carnage” and was running its own “consultation” campaign with passengers. 

It has listed a catalogue of issues, proposed driver only operations, possible “alliancing” between franchisees and Network Rail, encouraging “local delivery models” and community rail, increasing fares, and promoting third party funding of services.

The union’s acting general secretary Mick Cash said: “The response we are getting from the public has been totally supportive, people know what’s at stake.

“RMT is stepping up the fight to both inform the public and fight the savage cuts being lined up for these northern rail franchises. We have been getting fantastic support, thousands of post cards have been distributed and the political and public pressure is growing across the region.”