Engineering news
Work to electrify TransPennine and Midland Mainline railways will resume under plans announced by the government.
Network Rail will work with the Department for Transport and Rail North to develop a new plan for electrification of the TransPennine line between Stalybridge and Leeds and on to York and Selby.
The new plan will deliver faster journey times and significantly more capacity between Manchester, Leeds and York. The upgrade is expected to provide capacity for six fast or semi-fast trains per hour, take up to 15 minutes off today’s journey time between Manchester and York and be complete by 2022. When the work is finished, the whole route from Liverpool to Newcastle (via Manchester, Leeds and York) will be fully electrified and journey times will be significantly reduced compared to today’s railway.
Network Rail will also recommence work to electrify Midland Mainline. It is proposed that line speed and capacity improvement works already in hand are added to, with electrification of the line north of Bedford to Kettering and Corby by 2019 and the line North of Kettering to Leicester, Derby/Nottingham and Sheffield by 2023.
New Northern and TransPennine rail franchise awards will be announced before the end of the year. The new franchises will deliver new train carriages and remove out-dated Pacer trains, introduce free Wi-Fi on trains, offer a one-third increase in capacity with 200 additional services on weekdays and Saturdays and 300 more train services on Sundays.
Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin said: “As a one nation government we are making sure every part of Britain benefits from a growing economy. Connecting up the great cities of the north is at the heart of our plan to build a Northern Powerhouse.”
Chairman of Network Rail Sir Peter Hendy said: “The temporary pause in the programme has given us the space to develop a better plan for passengers. People can expect more services and faster journeys. We face some difficult challenges, and there is more work still to do, but the Secretary of State’s decision means we can now move forward with our plans to electrify TransPennine and Midland Mainline.”
The Railway Industry Association has welcomed the news. Director general Jeremy Candfield said: "The pause to these major schemes affected the whole of our membership, from design engineers to train builders, from contractors to consultants, and manufacturers of everything from rails to computer systems.
"Delivering projects of this scale efficiently requires considerable planning and investment in skills and resources across the whole supply chain. We will continue to work closely with Network Rail in developing a robust and achievable programme for these and the ongoing electrification work."
However, the news has not been well received by everyone. Mick Cash, general secretary of largest rail union RMT, said: “This politically motivated stop-start approach to crucial rail developments is no way to run a transport system and it is no surprise to us that this U-turn comes in the run up to the Tory Party conference where RMT will be exposing the nonsense of the “Northern Powerhouse” as part of the mass demonstration in Manchester on Sunday.
“This announcement does nothing to tackle the immediate threat to jobs, safety and services wrapped up in the new Northern and TPE franchises which RMT will continue to kick up the political agenda while George Osborne rattles on about his fantasy-world light years off in the future,” he added.