Business leaders in the north of England are warning rail services could “collapse into utter chaos” by January unless the government takes action.

Members of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership have written to ask the transport secretary to address a crisis they say is “wreaking havoc”.

Rail travel in northern England has been severely disrupted in recent months by strikes and cancellations.

The government agreed the current situation was “unacceptable”.

It said it was “investing billions” in northern transport and was “working closely with train operators” to resolve problems around the recruitment of new drivers.

But Juergen Maier, former chief executive of Siemens UK and a vice chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said the government had failed to “use the levers only it can pull, to sort out or train services”.

Worcestershire Parkway, in Norton, near Worcester, is the first station to open in the county for more than 100 years.

About 50 people waited on the platform of the £22m station to see the first train pull in on its way to London Paddington.

Among those to get on was Mike Bond, who only travelled as far as Evesham. He said: “I just wanted to be on the first train.”

Tom Pierpoint, GWR’s interim commercial development director, said: “We know this station has been a long-held ambition for the people of Worcestershire and we have been pleased to work alongside the county council and our rail industry partners to ensure the delivery of this impressive new facility.”

Councillor Ken Pollock, Worcestershire County Council’s cabinet member for economy and infrastructure, said: “I’d like to thank all those involved in making this station, which has been talked about for more than 30 years, a reality.”

Nearly half of Greater Anglia’s rural trains failed to arrive on time during the Christmas period.

In the four weeks to 4 January, 54.9% of those services did not arrive at the station within 59 seconds of schedule, according to the operator’s statistics.

Cabinet minister Therese Coffey MP previously criticised the “catastrophic performance” of Greater Anglia’s newly-introduced trains in December.

Greater Anglia said it was “very sorry” for the problems in December.

Figures showed that the number of rural services arriving within 59 seconds of schedule dropped by 14 percentage points in December, compared to 69% arriving on time across the previous 12 months.

More than 10% of those services also experienced cancelations or arrived at their final destination more than 30 minutes behind schedule.

Network Rail is to target all “leaf fall” trees for removal alongside its tracks in a new £800m five-year programme of “enhanced clearance”, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.

The policy document for 2019-24 emerged as the environment secretary, Michael Gove, summoned the chief executive of Network Rail for talks over their approach to environmental management following revelations about tree felling across the country by the Guardian.

After discussions with Network Rail, Jo Johnson, the rail minister, set up a review into vegetation management . He called for all tree felling to be suspended during the current nesting season – March to August.

Johnson said: “This review will look at all aspects of this issue, including, for instance, whether Network Rail has the capacity and capability to control vegetation in a way that minimises harm to wildlife, and whether staff need more training to help with tree identification and identifying approaches that would be better than felling.”

The leaked document seen by the Guardian sets out a new programme which appears to go further than any current environmental management. It involves an “enhanced level of clearance” of trees and vegetation from the railway banks along 20,000 miles of lines in the UK, in an attempt to deal with costly delays to services.

The document says Network Rail has to manage the risk from 13 million trees within falling distance of its tracks. If they removed 2% of the trees a year over the five-year period, more than 1 million trees could be felled.

The East Coast rail franchise will be terminated three years early, avoiding the embarrassment of another private firm handing back the keys to the government but potentially forfeiting hundreds of millions in premiums due to the Treasury.

Under a rail strategy announced by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, a new partnership model will replace the franchise contract of Virgin Trains East Coast (Vtec).

The train operator, a joint venture led by Stagecoach with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, had pledged to pay £3.3bn to run the service until 2023 when it was reprivatised in 2015 after six years in public hands.

Instead, Vtec is likely to pay a fraction of that sum, with the bulk of payments due in the final years of the franchise.

The firm signalled that it also expects its payments for the next three years to be cut. In the first full year of operation, it paid £204m. Shares in Stagecoach jumped 12% on the news.

Andy MacDonald, the shadow transport secretary, told the Commons that the strategy announcement was “a total smokescreen”. He said: “The real issue is that the East Coast franchise has failed again and the taxpayer will bail it out.”

Pointing to the share price rise, he said: “Markets don’t lie. The secretary of state has let Stagecoach off the hook for hundreds of millions of pounds. He’s tough on everyone except the private sector.”

In a bid to save money on eye-watering fares, one football fan ended up with 56 separate tickets for his train journey to see his team play in the FA Cup.

Jonny Heywood’s trip from Newcastle to Oxford with his partner took him to seven stations and saved him £30 after he used a split ticket website to get the cheapest fare resulting in him needing more than 50 tickets for the trip.

But despite all his effort his team Newcastle United sadly lost 3-0 to Oxford and he spent the entire match in hospital A&E with his girlfriend after she fell over and injured her face on the way into the game.

“Ministers have asked Network Rail (NR) to explain how train passengers were left “stranded in very uncomfortable conditions” in ultra-high temperatures. A series of incidents on mainline services led to delays and cancellations last night and again this morning as temperatures touched 32C (90F).”

It makes me reflect on the current debate about HS2 the proposed High Speed Rail Link from London to Birmingham and the impact it might have on the countryside it runs though. It makes me think more broadly about rural transport and the need for local authorities to see it more in terms of innovation around community solutions than shoring up bus approaches as the only option. I have an emerging toolkit on some of these almost to hand if you are interested. Most strongly however it appeals to my love of literature and an opportunity to quote from one of the best and less well remembered war poets (this poem – a virtual prize for anyone who can identify it’s author) was written before he go embroilled in the Great War

“Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontendly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name”

Notwithstanding the heat people in balmy times a hundred years ago were much more philosophical about trains, travel and time!