RAIL passengers were hit with a raft of new problems this morning as services through Bolton continued to be repeatedly delayed and cancelled.

Issues had been ongoing for several months but have become more severe since Northern brought in timetable changes on Monday.

Commuters at Bolton station this morning told The Bolton News of how difficult the disruption has been to deal with.

Altamas Patel, who was on his way to work in Manchester, said: “It’s been really bad. There’s always delayed trains and its been a lot worse this week. They always tell us that they are improving the service, but it never gets any better.

“I start work at 10.30am and I have to get out of the house two hours before to be there on time.”

Afzal, a student who travels into Manchester every day, added: “The trains have been getting delayed for a year, its not just now. They are delayed at night even when there’s no rush.

“We were told that the new timetable would help but I have an exam today and now it looks like I might be late.”

On Monday, a Northern spokesman said: “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure we minimise any service disruption and keep customers informed as quickly as we can through our website and social media. We are working hard to address the issues we faced this morning and are developing plans to help our customers get where they need to be this evening and for the rest of the week.

“The May 2018 timetable change, which went live today for commuters, has seen around 90% of our services change and an extra 1,300 train services a week introduced across our network, the biggest change to local rail for many years. This remains a significant operational challenge and we continue to expect some localised service disruption, which could happen at very short-notice.”

One commuter said that, when the trains do come, they are often packed with people and stop for long periods at some stations.

He explained: “There was one train stopped still in Manchester for an hour this week and it was a very hot day. They had to let people off to get some air because it took so long to get going.

“We don’t get enough information from staff and it’s just a shocking service. They are only concerned about getting people’s money.”

Fears of further problems are growing, with the Rail, Maritime and Transport union planning strike action on already strained Northern services tomorrow.

The operator has said that it expects to run around 40 percent of scheduled trains during the strike, but it is not clear how this will be affected by the other delays.