SOMETIMES you just can’t catch a break. Train company Northern Rail is certainly going through something of an annus horribilis in 2018, although to be fair most of the problems are of its own making.

It has been at loggerheads with its staff over plans to abolish train guards for months.

Its implementation of the new timetable has been a fiasco – although the blame should be apportioned equally between Northern, Theresa May and her feckless Transport Secretary Chris Grayling – and now just when it seems the company has a good news story for a change, it goes and botches plans for longer trains on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines.

Extra capacity is desperately needed on these lines but Northern’s six-carriage trains will be too long for some of the station platforms.

So passengers who find themselves in the wrong carriage will have to make their way down the train until they find a carriage that allows them to step out onto the platform – and not into thin air.

Sounds easy, but the Airedale line in particular is one of the most overcrowded in the UK. How would you fancy racing down a carriage filled with fed-up commuters who can’t find a seat?

It’s hard to see how Northern can operate longer trains without allowing for extra station standing time so people can find a carriage where they are able to get off. This will add extra time and frustration to passengers’ journeys.

In short, it’s another PR disaster that will only add to the frustration of travellers heartily sick of the Northern service.