Question: What company jointly owned a British train operating company that had a steering partnership with a rail programme in Northern England to improve and increase train services and reduce journey times between its major cities and towns by electrifying lines and removing a major rail bottleneck in Manchester?
Context: First TransPennine Express was a British train operating company jointly owned by FirstGroup and Keolis which operated the TransPennine Express franchise.  First TransPennine Express ran regular Express regional railway services between the major cities of Northern England as well as Scotland. Go-Op (full name Go!  Cooperative Ltd), is an open access train operating company which is currently proposing to operate a service between Taunton and Swindon, via Westbury.  It aims to become the first cooperatively owned train operating company in the United Kingdom, to improve access to the public transport infrastructure through open access rail services linking main lines to smaller market towns, and co-ordinating services with light rail and bus links and car pools.  Go-Op intended to begin operating rail services in the spring of 2014, however difficulties in obtaining rolling stock and severe financial difficulties incurred by their main partner The Co-operative Bank have delayed these plans. Chiltern Railways is a British train operating company owned by Arriva UK Trains that has operated the Chiltern Railways franchise since July 1996.  It operates commuter/regional rail passenger services from its Central London terminus at London Marylebone along the M40 corridor to destinations in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, as well as long-distance services to the West Midlands along two routes.  Services on the Chiltern Main Line run from London Marylebone to , and , with some peak-hour services to . A railgrinder (or rail grinder) is a maintenance of way vehicle or train used to restore the profile and remove irregularities from worn tracks to extend its life and to improve the ride of trains using the track.  Rail grinders were developed to increase the lifespan of the tracks being serviced for rail corrugation.  Rail grinding is a process that is done to stop the deformation due to use and friction on railroad tracks by removing deformations and corrosion.  Railroad tracks that experience continual use are more likely to experience corrugation and overall wear.  Rail grinders are used to grind the tracks when rail corrugation is present, or before corrugation begins to form on the tracks.  Major freight train tracks use rail grinders for track maintenance based the interval of tonnage, rather than time.  Transit systems and subways in major cities continue to use scheduled rail grinding processes to combat the corrugation common to heavily used tracks.  Rail-grinding equipment may be mounted on a single self-propelled vehicle or on a dedicated rail-grinding train which, when used on an extensive network, may include crew quarters.  The grinding wheels, of which there may be more than 100, are set at controlled angles to restore the track to its correct profile. Merseyrail is both a train operating company (TOC) and a commuter rail network in and around Liverpool City Region, England.  It is a part of Serco-Abellio, and is formed of two electrified lines of the National Rail network known as the Northern Line and the Wirral Line which run underground in central Liverpool.  A third line, separate from the electrified network, is known as the City Line, though this is a term used by governing body Merseytravel to refer to local services it sponsors on the Liverpool to Manchester Lines and Liverpool to Wigan Line operated by Northern. Higher-speed rail (HrSR), also known as high-performance rail, higher-performance rail, or almost-high-speed rail, is a jargon used to describe inter-city passenger rail services that have top speeds of more than conventional rail but are not high enough to be called high-speed rail services.  The term is also used by planners to identify the incremental rail improvements to increase train speeds and reduce travel time as alternatives to larger efforts to create or expand the high-speed rail networks.  Some countries use the term medium-speed rail, or semi-high speed rail instead. Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county in North West England, has a public rail network of 130 route miles (209 km) and 91 National Rail stations.  Transport for Greater Manchester is responsible for specifying fares and service levels of train services operating in the county.  The Northern train operating company provides most of these services.  The four main railway stations in Manchester city centre are Piccadilly, Victoria, Oxford Road and Deansgate which all form part of the Manchester station group. The Northern Hub is a rail programme in Northern England to improve and increase train services and reduce journey times between its major cities and towns by electrifying lines and removing a major rail bottleneck in Manchester.  It is predicted to stimulate economic growth in the region.  The project has several elements but the prime objective is to eradicate the bottleneck in Manchester and allow trains to travel through the city at speed without stopping.  The project was announced as the Manchester Hub in 2009.  The project's steering partnership involves Network Rail, Deutsche Bahn, First TransPennine Express, Northern Rail, East Midlands Trains, CrossCountry, Freightliner, the Department for Transport, Transport for Greater Manchester and Merseytravel. Northern Rail was an English train operating company owned by Serco-Abellio that operated the Northern franchise from 2004 until 2016.  It was the primary train operator in Northern England, and operated the most stations of any train operating company in the United Kingdom.  Northern Rail was replaced on 1 April 2016 by Northern. TransPennine Express (legally known as First TransPennine Express Limited) is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup operating the TransPennine Express franchise.  It runs regular express regional railway, and intercity services between the major cities of Northern England as well as Scotland.
Answer: FirstGroup and Keolis