BLUNDERING bosses at Britain’s worst-performing train company were handed the keys to Manchester’s huge tram network yesterday.

Keolis, the French firm that co-owns Southern with private transport firm Go-Ahead, will take over the Metrolink in a venture with outsourcing giant Amey.

Keolis is 70 per cent owned by French state rail operator SNCF, with a minority stake controlled by a Canadian state pension fund.

The successful bid was ratified by the leaders of Manchester’s new combined authority. Greater Manchester Mayor Tony Lloyd said KeolisAmey offered an “ambitious approach, with a big focus on the customer and the community.”

KeolisAmey already operates London’s Docklands Light Railway. It will take over the Manchester trams from RATP Dev UK, which has operated the Metrolink for 10 years and is also owned by the French state.

Meanwhile, Southern bosses finally returned to the negotiating table yesterday for talks — jointly chaired by TUC leader Frances O’Grady and private rail chief Andy Meadows — with drivers’ union Aslef.

The union offered to suspend its planned strikes next week if bosses agreed to the talks.

A source close to the talks told the Star that bosses had finally indicated that workers and the Department for Transport were keen to settle the long-running dispute over unsafe driver-only trains. But they said it was unlikely that significant progress would be made on the first day.

Rail union RMT, which is fighting the company’s deskilling of conductors, will stage a 24-hour walkout on Monday.

But Southern management claim that 70 per cent of services would be running.

After months of scaled-down services, the company said it would return to its “normal” service from next Tuesday.

Its passenger services director Angie Doll said: “The RMT should now recognise that their industrial action is wholly futile.

“They should stop the strikes, get back round the table with us and move forward together with us, delivering a better railway for our passengers.”

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