Philip Haigh
With new trains and new timetables improving rail links between the major cities in the North, PHILIP HAIGH examines how the region’s transport ambitions are being realised
New trains in the North.
ENTHUSIASTS rejoice! Locomotive-hauled trains once more ply the Pennines.
TransPennine Express (TPE) has introduced 3,800hp Class 68s and rakes of five Mk 5A coaches to Liverpool-Scarborough services. They run in push-pull formation, with a driving trailer included in the set to remove the need to run the locomotive to the front of the train at each terminus.
They replace three-car Class 185 diesel multiple units which arrived in 2006, but which soon proved too short for the burgeoning traffic that resulted from the attention TransPennine Express paid to the route. The ‘185s’ themselves displaced Class 158s that British Rail introduced in 1991 to replace locomotivehauled stock, chiefly powered by Class 47s.
The upshot of this is that in recent history, trans-Pennine passengers have witnessed new DMU fleets roughly every 15 years, which suggests that railway managers are well aware of the route’s importance. Yet it’s never quite broken into the inter-city league.
TPE now lies poised to reach that status. The Mk 5As are not the only new stock coming. TPE is busy planning the imminent introduction of 19 five-car Class 802 electrodiesel units for Newcastle services, and plans to extend them to Edinburgh. They are from the same family as those used by LNER on its King’s Cross services and Great Western Railway on its trains from Paddington. (For completeness, I’ll add that TPE’s West Coast services to Glasgow and Edinburgh will soon switch to brand new Class 397 EMUs.)
If this builds a sense that the region’s railways are witnessing the improvements its supporters have so long called for, then there’s further evidence with Class 195 DMUs and Class 331 EMUs now working for Northern.
Both classes are new. With these and other stock cascaded from other operators (for example, Class 170s from ScotRail), Northern has been planning its ‘Connect’ network of inter-urban services.
‘Connect’ promises faster services with “differentiated marketing and customer service”. However, and despite a December 2019 launch date, there appears to be very little marketing at the moment - Northern’s website simply advises visitors to check back for more information.
Of course, Northern was thoroughly caught in May 2018’s timetable collapse, and has struggled with poor industrial relations that led to strikes by guards. Both have taken the shine from what should have been welcome improvements of new trains, new timetables and the withdrawal of old Pacer railbuses.
TPE was also caught by the impact of the timetable problems, and punctuality fell away. Coupled with overcrowding from short trains, the result was a general view of rail as a problem.
That’s set to change, with new stock and new timetables linking the North’s great cities and towns. With its crowded roads, such as the M62, there’s certainly scope to attract more passengers to rail.
From today’s 800 seats an hour between Manchester and Leeds, tomorrow there should be 2,000 per hour. And Network Rail’s TransPennine Rail Upgrade project should push this to over 3,000. In total, this upgrade consists of 31 separate interventions, although most remain under wraps with Network Rail only revealing those around Huddersfield because it needs a Transport and Works Act Order.
NR plans to quadruple the track from Ravensthorpe to Huddersfield, with fast trains crossing the lines coming from Wakefield on either a flyover or a dive-under at Ravensthorpe. It plans a new viaduct over the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble canal. This viaduct will sit south of the current bridges, taking the railway outside its traditional boundary - hence the need for the TWAO.
Ravensthorpe’s station would be moved westward to accommodate the new flying junction. This gives its passengers services from both routes.
Further west, at Heaton Lodge Junction, the southernmost pair of tracks will be the fast lines and will be realigned for higher speeds, once again taking them beyond the railway’s current boundary. Only the northernmost pair of lines (the slow lines) will have access to the Calder Valley route towards Sowerby Bridge.
A similar situation with the slow lines applies at Bradley Junction, which gives access to the Calder Valley for trains heading east from Huddersfield. The fast lines curve uninterrupted towards Huddersfield, where they run straight into what are Platforms 1 and 4 today. NR plans to expand the station with a fourth through platform and an east-facing bay reached from the slow lines.
Finally, NR’s consultation page includes the welcome phrase “Electrification of the railway from Huddersfield to Ravensthorpe - and right through to Leeds”.
Good news indeed. There’s further good news that NR has spent the past year working to make its proposals easier to deliver from a passenger perspective. Major Programme Director Chris Montgomery told September 12’s board meeting of Transport for the North (TfN) that it had moved away from plans to close the railway for up to 39 weeks a year. They hadn’t gone down well, he noted.
However, you can’t build the sort of railway
NR plans at Huddersfield without disruption, and Montgomery reckoned it would still need eight weeks of blockades a year. He explained to TfN’s board that NR had three diversionary routes available: the Castleford route between York and Leeds; Healey Mills (Wakefield) between Leeds and Ravensthorpe; and the Calder Valley between Mirfield and Manchester. He promised that there would only be one blockaded section at a time, and that these closures would not clash with major sporting or cultural events.
The eagle-eyed will notice that trains using the Calder Valley or Healey Mills routes must run over the very section that NR plans to upgrade to four tracks. Montgomery made no mention of a fourth diversionary route, via Bradford, that avoids NR’s planned worksite entirely. Time will tell whether it’s used.
The overall result from trans-Pennine’s upgrade should be 40-minute journeys between Manchester and Leeds (62 minutes Manchester to York), and capacity for six interurban services per hour and two local services, in both directions.
TfN’s ambitions don’t end there. It plans Northern Powerhouse Rail using a mix of the new tracks provided by HS2 and its own new lines to further boost links across the region. This could boost Manchester-Leeds seats to 5,500 per hour, and could give Bradford a station on a fast link across the Pennines.
It might also provide the space for more freight. TfN Chairman John Cridland stressed the importance of freight as he opened September 12’s board meeting. From an economic perspective, he said, the big opportunity was enhanced rail freight and “getting the economy really buzzing”. It would also give a chance of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, he added.
Cridland called for W10/W12 gauge clearance. This is needed for high-cube containers to run on standard wagons, and comes as container traffic has recently replaced coal as rail freight’s staple traffic (comprising 39% of rail freight in 2018-19, the TfN board heard).
When NR assessed various gauge improvement schemes for its April 2017 freight network study, it placed clearing the transPennine route for W12 third of 15 schemes.
TfN could usefully explain the importance of rail freight to passengers who are calling for more trains. This challenge is starkly illustrated when a container train rolls through Manchester Piccadilly’s crowded Platforms 13 and 14. There’s no other route for the trains from Trafford Park, and while each one is the equivalent of 78 lorries, it’s easy to see why harassed commuters might complain.
With government’s £3 billion backing for NR’s Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade, and new rolling stock entering service, northern England is witnessing the biggest improvement in its rail services for many decades. It should go some way to countering the view that southern England gets all the money.
It has also hastened efforts from the Midlands to improve its lobbying for better rail services. Indeed, September’s publication of Midlands Engine Rail from Midlands Connect included comparisons with northern England. Noting the roughly 50:50 split between rail and road for Manchester-Sheffield, ManchesterNewcastle and Liverpool-York, this new document said the equivalent for Coventry to Leicester was just 1% by rail, Derby to Stoke 3%, Nottingham-Birmingham 18%, and Birmingham-Leicester 13%.
Amid all the talk of reviewing and changing the railway’s structure, and the Labour Party’s noises about nationalisation, these figures show what an important role rail can play in keeping the country moving. Whatever changes are made, rail’s funders and managers must not forget this greater goal.
“Trans-Pennine passengers have witnessed new DMU fleets roughly every 15 years, which suggests that railway managers are well aware of the route’s importance. Yet it’s never quite broken into the inter-city league.”