To the region's beleaguered rail passengers, this might not seem to be the best of times for Arriva Trains Northern to be announcing its intention of bidding to renew their franchise and for its managing director, Euan Cameron, to be talking about running services for another 15 years.

Today, as on too many other days recently, many of Arriva Northern's passengers will have made alternative arrangements to get themselves to and from work. Others will have coped as best they can with the reduction in services caused by yet another strike by conductors who are members of the RMT union.

The strikes are the latest on-going problem to beset Arriva's customers, who not so long ago had to cope with cancellations caused chiefly by a shortage of drivers which led to the adoption of an emergency, reduced timetable. They also had to endure replacement bus services as a result of modernisation work at Leeds Station, which disrupted rail links for a long time.

Now Leeds Station is fully open again. Arriva has trained-up a new batch of drivers. The emergency timetable has been scrapped and services are virtually back to normal. Everything is looking good - except for the couple of strike days each month.

Let us hope that Arriva Trains Northern, having solved its other problems, can resolve this dispute quickly, partly for its own sake (its bid for the franchise is bound to look better if it come unencumbered by an industrial dispute) but largely for the sake of its long-suffering customers.