On Trains & Buses

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More Sunday Trains Return Across Northwest England

Posted on November 12, 2026

Reading time: 4 minutes.

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Northern is restoring Sunday services across north-west England after reaching an agreement with the RMT union. As Railnews reported, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced in early November 2026 that a dispute running since 2017 had ended. The first extra trains begin running on Sunday 15^th November.

Why Sunday Services Had Been Reduced

The dispute concerned voluntary Sunday working and whether the driver or the conductor controls the train doors. Northern relied on voluntary overtime to staff Sundays, and Rail Business UK notes that nearly a fifth of Northern’s services were cancelled every Sunday while the dispute continued.

Public ownership did not resolve this by itself. Northern returned to public ownership in March 2020, and it later explained that it had inherited an agreement under which Sundays sat outside the working week for most conductors in the North West. The new deal changes that arrangement.

Sundays Join the Working Week

The agreement makes Sundays a permanent part of the working week for RMT members, with conductors rostered across any of the seven days. The DfT describes it as a deal with conditions attached, since it replaces the overtime payments that Northern previously made to conductors who volunteered. The department expects the restored services to raise fare revenue by about £4 million a year.

Drivers will open the doors while conductors remain responsible for closing them, although this will be introduced gradually as new trains enter service. Northern’s older diesel units have no door controls in the cab, so the change depends on the new fleets. Conductors also receive a 4.25% rise in basic pay in place of the overtime premium, and the DfT says every Northern train will keep its conductor.

Where Trains Return First

Northern has set out a phased restoration that gives priority to routes without Sunday trains for more than two years. Some services return from Sunday 15^th November, and about 70 further trains follow from mid-December, which the DfT says adds roughly 10,000 seats to the Sunday timetable.

Several of the early additions are on corridors around Manchester, as the amended Sunday timetables show. The Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester Piccadilly route, which has been served by buses since December 2024, regains five trains in each direction from 15^th November. A few extra trains also run between Manchester Piccadilly and Hazel Grove from 22^nd November, on a route that has had a two-hourly service since December 2024.

Commuter routes into Manchester Victoria gain trains from 22^nd November as well. Bolton receives 14 additional trains, while Rochdale and Wigan North Western (via Atherton) receive ten each. More Sunday trains between Blackburn and Clitheroe return from 13^th December.

Routes With Reduced Sunday Services

Not every route sees an early change, and some continue to run less often for now. The Barrow-in-Furness to Manchester Airport route has four trains a day cancelled, and Windermere services to Manchester Airport have two cancelled while evening trains are replaced by buses. The Blackpool North to Manchester Airport route has six daily cancellations, and Liverpool to Manchester Oxford Road has five trains cancelled in each direction.

Other routes run at a lower frequency without losing trains outright. Liverpool to Manchester Airport runs every two hours with six-car trains, and buses replace trains between Manchester Airport and Wilmslow late in the evening, when the 23:10 from Manchester Airport and the 23:30 from Liverpool are cancelled. Southport to Manchester Victoria and Manchester Victoria to Blackburn are both two-hourly, while Manchester Piccadilly to Crewe via Stockport has changed from hourly to two-hourly.

A few corridors have larger reductions. Manchester Piccadilly to Sheffield via New Mills Central has two trains every three hours, and Manchester Piccadilly to Hadfield and Glossop has two trains every 90 minutes instead of a half-hourly service. Manchester Victoria to Chester has been withdrawn, Lancaster to Morecambe and Wigan North Western to Stalybridge are covered by buses and the 23:15 from Liverpool to Blackpool North does not run.

A Full Sunday Timetable for the North West by May 2027

Northern plans to restore around 230 Sunday trains by May 2027, covering routes from Blackpool and Barrow-in-Furness through to Sheffield. Restoring services in stages gives Northern the chance to monitor performance and match crews to demand as the new rosters settle in.

Anyone travelling over the coming weeks can check the Northern service updates or National Rail before setting out. Some routes continue to use buses in the late evening, so checking in advance is worthwhile.