RAIL workers’ leaders have expressed fury over revelations that government plans to axe northern rail investment were made largely by politicians and officials who live in the south.

The group at the Department for Transport (DfT) drew up the government’s Integrated Rail Plan, which abandoned the Northern extension of the HS2 link to Leeds and cut spending on improved regional services.

But of the group’s 24 members, 18 live in the south.

The details were obtained through Freedom of Information requests submitted by the Guardian newspaper.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: “We knew that the downgrading of rail investment in the north was always a half-baked idea with negative economic ramifications for the area.

“Now we also know that [those] behind the latest government plan won't be affected by them as they don’t live in the north. 

“Northern communities were promised new railway lines and better connectivity, instead they were given lies and spin.

“The myth that the Tories have the interests of northern communities at heart has been debunked.

“Johnson and his cronies have no real interest in ‘levelling up.’ Their interests begin and end with serving the wealthy.”

Train drivers’ union Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said: “This government isn’t levelling up, it’s punching down. 

"And we should not be surprised. Why? Because does anyone, now, believe a word that Boris Johnson says?

“It’s not just the officials at the DfT, although those figures are interesting, it’s the people at the top who set the tone. 

"And that’s the Prime Minister and his Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps. They have no real interest in — or concern for — people who live in northern England.”

The cuts to northern rail investment ignored the recommendations of Transport for the North, the statutory body set up by the government to advise on the region’s transport needs.

The group includes northern mayors and business leaders.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said: “You don’t have to spend long travelling on the north’s fragmented, unreliable, overpriced public transport system to realise that it has been built by people who don’t live here and don’t use it.”