Northern, which manages Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road stations, said it had been working hard to address train crew availability issues, to improve reliability.
It said a rest day working agreement had been reached with drivers and it would continue to work with the RMT union to find a “new way forward” after conductors recently rejected an offer relating to Sunday working.
The RMT said it was seeking further talks with the company.
The Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she was concerned by the figures on train cancellations. She said: “I’m not happy about the performance of Northern Rail at the moment.”
She added that the issue with Northern “is related to the availability of train crew specifically on a Sunday”.
“One of the things we’ve had to do there whilst we work through resolving that with the trade union and local workers is we’ve actually decided to reduce the timetable slightly to improve reliability”.
She said that in the new year, the government will be looking at how to reduce reliance on rest day working.
Network Rail, which manages Manchester Piccadilly station but does not run train services, said its job was to “help keep passengers safely on the move”.
It said it understood how frustrating disruption was for passengers and it supported train operators at the station to deliver a reliable service.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Passengers are being let down by poor services, which is why we are committed to delivering the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation.”
They said bringing services back into public ownership would put passengers at the heart and allow the government to reinvest in railways, while holding operators to account.
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