Railways: Pennines

(asked on 14th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his policy is on (a) the electrification of, (b) the introduction of new rolling stock to and (c) other improvements to TransPennine services on the Huddersfield rail line.


Answered by
Chris Heaton-Harris Portrait
Chris Heaton-Harris
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
This question was answered on 22nd January 2020

The TransPennine Route Upgrade programme is expected to be the Government’s biggest single investment in our country’s existing railway in the next five years. We expect to make a decision later this year to progress the programme to the next phase of design and construction, during which we will confirm our approach to electrification and other improvement activity.

As part of its £500m investment in trains, TransPennine Express (TPE) is currently introducing three state-of-the-art fleets made up of 44 new trains into passenger service, which will provide 13 million extra seats a year once they are all in service in 2020. Passengers along the Huddersfield line will benefit from these high quality trains and their extra capacity - equivalent to a rise of more than 80 per cent on a seven day a week timetable across the TPE network.

The above demonstrates that this Government is committed to levelling up all parts of this country.

Reticulating Splines