A UNION is calling on Government to take action to put Northern Rail franchise routes back in public ownership as its bail-out cost soars to £282m of taxpayers' cash.

The general secretary for the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) is calling for Arriva and Deutsche Bahn – the parent company of Northern – to be stripped of its current operation.

The taxpayer subsidy to cover the Northern franchise bail-out has reached £282m, with the company now locked in crisis talks with the Department for Transport.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Arriva Rail North, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, is a basket case rail franchise sucking up well over a quarter of a billion pounds a year in public bail-outs while wrecking service standards, ripping up the safety rule book and threatening to throw the guards off over half their trains.

“This scandal needs to end immediately and that means the Government taking immediate action to bring the Northern routes into direct public ownership and control with the services run on the basis of safety, security and access and not private profit.

Earlier this year, Virgin Trains collapsed on the East Coast Mainline and returned to public ownership.

A spokesman for Northern said: “We are delivering on all of our commitments and are investing more than £600m to transform local rail in the North – with new trains, better stations, more services and faster journeys.

"But the franchise has faced a number of exceptional circumstances – especially the infrastructure delays – which were out of our control and which have impacted growth in passenger numbers."