Ah, Northern Rail... over the years the franchise has changed hands, again and again, it seems no matter who runs the franchise the main problem is the infrastructure, currently, they are operated by the government as "operator of last resort" after Arriva lost the franchise in March 2020.
I have noticed a huge improvement from Northern of late, it went from being an operator I'd try my best to avoid, to one I'm willing to accept travelling with.
The main highlights of Northern are the staff, the staff on the trains and at their own run stations seem really friendly and happy to help most of the time, and it's much harder to find a staff member that doesn't seem to care in Northern uniform than many other train companies.
Many of their routes are slower, as they are forced to stop at many smaller stations along the way which Avanti/Cross Country and co would simply zoom past.
The new trains are much more comfortable, while they still are average and can't compare to new trains from TPExpress for example, it's still a huge and much-welcomed step up from the recently withdrawn Pacer trains, which still give me nightmares, it's such an embarrassment they used them for so long... a type of train which is banned in Iran.
While Northern wouldn't be my first choice to travel with, they still are improving as much as they can, services seem to be running closer to the actual schedule (I do notice they've added a few minutes onto the stops, so on recent journeys the train is always waiting for a couple of minutes, perhaps to avoid delay complaints). 3* read more