SUMMER holiday makers travelling to Blackpool face misery following the latest train timetable changes.

Rail commuters who currently travel on the line from Colne to Blackpool, which passes through Accrington, Burnley and Blackburn, will not be able to get their directly for the next seven months.

Instead passengers who use the hourly service will have to depart the train at Preston and wait for a connecting train to get to Blackpool and other parts of West Lancashire.

The latest timetable changes, which will take effect on Sunday, May 20, have been made following the recent upgrade on the Blackpool line which has caused major disruption because of delays and driver shortages.

Retired pensioner Steve Livesey, from Burnley, has said he will never travel to Blackpool again by train because of the inconvenient train schedule changes.

The 70-year-old, of Queens Road, described the revised timetable as 'absolutely horrific' and said: "The service is appalling and horrific for the passengers.

"When they said there would be a better service coming to Blackpool they did not say it would cause this chaos. I won't be using this service to get to Blackpool again."

Liam Sumpter, the regional director for Northern, has apologised on behalf of Northern for the delays and cancellations passengers have experienced in recent weeks.

He said: “The root cause of the delays and cancellations we are facing on some lines around Manchester is the major engineering work to electrify the Blackpool line, which overran by approximately three weeks.

“Once the line was handed back to us we decided to run a very limited train service for passengers on the Blackpool line, whilst we continue with the driver training programme, rather than keep the line fully closed for even longer.

“These temporary driver shortages mean we are very thin on the ground and lack resilience when things go wrong meaning we are having to make last-minute changes to a number of services, which in turn, is causing the delays and cancellations.”

Minor timetable changes have also been made to the Manchester to Clitheroe line, which passes through Blackburn and Darwen. These can be viewed via www.northernrailway.co.uk