RAIL 'chaos' has resulted in almost 200 cancelled trains at Warrington Central in the past two weeks.

Since the introduction of the new timetable on May 20, many commuters have faced significant delays, cancellations and overcrowding.

Network Rail and Northern have since announced that they will be commissioning an independent report, as well as recommendations, into the ‘preparations and processes’ leading up to it.

Northern confirmed Warrington Central has faced 188 fully cancelled services in the past 14 days, while there have been 10 partial cancellations, where a train was due to stop at Warrington Central but it was skipped.

Northern cancelled three trains to Manchester from Warrington before 9am today, Friday.

In total, around 2,200 of its services have been cancelled in the past two weeks.

Northern's franchise runs until 2025.

Cllr Judith Wheeler (LD – Appleton) hit out at the train operator.

She said: "I have travelled on trains all my life – from university days and throughout my working life.

"Over 20 years have been spent commuting from Warrington to Manchester.

"Never in all this time have I experienced the utter shambles and fiasco Northern Rail is inflicting on passengers commuting into and out of Manchester.

"Warrington to Manchester can take less than 20 minutes.

"Journeys are now taking hours, particularly returning from Manchester.

"Plans for the evening have to be cancelled, appointments missed and childcare rearranged.

“It is utter chaos.

"I don't know the full details of how Northern Rail has been able to take over the running of more services but it is wholly incapable of doing so."

Northern has today announced a temporary change to its timetable to help reduce last-minute cancellations.

From Monday, six per cent of daily train services, which is 165 out of its normal 2,800 daily services, will be removed until the end of July.

The interim timetable aims to enable the firm 'to start to stabilise service levels over the next few weeks and, importantly, start to reduce the number of last-minute train cancellations'.

Managing director David Brown: "We have been experiencing some significant disruption to train services, especially around north Manchester, Bolton, Liverpool, Blackpool and up to the Lake District.

"I’d like to apologise for this unacceptable situation and for the disruption and inconvenience many passengers have faced.

"We’re truly sorry for this and are working hard to fix this.

"Again, I would like to apologise on behalf of Northern for the unacceptable service many customers have been subject to.

"We are absolutely committed to resolving the service issues and the interim plan will help ensure we start to get back on track and start to give customers more certainty around the services we operate."