Transpennine Express

**Transpennine Express** (**TPE**) is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup and Trenitalia FS Group that operates the Transpennine Express franchise. It runs regional and intercity rail services between the major cities of Northern England and Scotland.

The franchise operates all its services to and through Manchester covering three main routes. The service provides rail links for major towns and cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull, Leeds, York, Scarborough, Middlesbrough and Newcastle. TPE also run trains 24 hours a day, including through New Year's Eve night. Trains run between York, Leeds and Manchester Airport at least every three hours every night of the week.

## History

The Transpennine Express brand was launched in the early 1990s by British Rail's Regional Railways sector. It became part of Regional Railways North East and on 2 March 1997 was privatised with Northern Spirit and its successor, Arriva Trains Northern maintaining the brand.

In 2000, the Strategic Rail Authority announced that it planned to reorganise the North West Regional Railways and Regional Railways North East franchises operated by First North Western and Arriva Trains Northern. A TransPennine Express franchise would be created for the long-distance regional services, the remaining services being operated by a new Northern franchise.

In July 2003, the TransPennine franchise was awarded to a joint venture between FirstGroup and Keolis, and the services operated by Arriva Trains Northern and First North Western were transferred to First TransPennine Express on 1 February 2004. On 11 November 2007, the services from Manchester to Edinburgh and Glasgow via the West Coast Main Line formerly operated by Virgin CrossCountry were transferred to First TransPennine Express.

In August 2014, the Department for Transport announced FirstGroup, Keolis/Go-Ahead and Stagecoach had been shortlisted to bid for the next franchise. In December 2015, FirstGroup was awarded the franchise with TransPennine Express taking over on 1 April 2016. The franchise will run until 31 March 2023 with an option to extend for two years.

As part of a recasting of the franchise map by the Department for Transport, services from Manchester Airport to Blackpool North, Barrow in Furness and Oxenholme to Windermere were transferred to the Northern franchise on April 1st, 2016.

## Services

The Transpennine Express routes are subdivided into three operations:

* *North TransPennine*, which includes all routes that pass through the core section between Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds;
* *TransPennine North West*, which consists of services on the West Coast Main Line;
* *South TransPennine*, which includes services running on the Hope Valley line and the South Humberside Main Line.

Details of each route, including maps and timetables, are on the TransPennine Express official website *(see External links, below)*. In May 2018, following the transfer of the Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield Northern stopping service to TPE, regular services ceased between some of the intermediate Pennine stations, most daytime services either stopped at Mossley and Slaithwaite, or Greenfield and Marsden. Following the December 2018 timetable change, however, regular services resumed between Mossley, Slaithwaite, Greenfield and Marsden.

As of December 2019, the following services operate off-peak, Mondays to Saturdays, with frequencies in **trains per hour** (tph).

## Rolling stock

TransPennine Express inherited a fleet of 4 Class 170 and 51 Class 185 DMUs as well as 10 Class 350/4 EMUs from First TransPennine Express, however the Class 170s left for Chiltern Railways to be converted to Class 168s shortly afterwards. It is planned that when all new trains in the *Nova* fleet enter service, 22 of the 51 Class 185 DMUs will be returned to Eversholt Rail Group. In 2020, all ten of the Class 350 EMUs transferred to West Midlands Trains following a delayed introduction of the Class 397 *(Nova 2)* sets

The new trains in the *Nova* fleet have now began to enter service. The *Nova 3* sets (Class 68 + Mark 5A coaches) were the first of do this on 24 August 2019. This was followed by the *Nova 1* sets (Class 802 units) on 28 September 2019 and finally the *Nova 2* sets (Class 397 units) on 30 November 2019. TPE officially launched the *Nova* fleet on 22 November at Liverpool Lime Street station.

## Managed stations

TransPennine Express services run over a large area of northern England and southern Scottish Lowlands. Many of the largest stations they serve are managed by other train operating companies or Network Rail.

TransPennine Express manages the following 19 stations:

* Barnetby
* Brough
* Cleethorpes
* Dewsbury
* Grimsby Town
* Huddersfield
* Hull Paragon
* Malton
* Manchester Airport
* Middlesbrough
* Northallerton
* Scarborough
* Scunthorpe
* Seamer
* Selby
* Stalybridge
* Thirsk
* Thornaby
* Yarm

Some stations from the former TransPennine Express franchise (First Keolis) were transferred to Northern. These include Arnside, Barrow-in-Furness, Birchwood, Burneside, Carnforth, Grange-over-Sands, Kendal, Staveley, Ulverston, Warrington Central and Windermere.

## Depots

Siemens maintains the Class 185 fleet at Ardwick depot in Manchester with a smaller facility in York. Scottish stabling points for both stock include Polmadie TRSMD (Glasgow) and Craigentinny T.&R.S.M.D. (Edinburgh). Hitachi will maintain the AT300 fleet at Doncaster Carr and Craigentinny. The new EMUs and loco-hauled sets will be maintained by Alstom, on behalf of TransPennine Express, at Longsight (Manchester), Edge Hill (Liverpool) and Polmadie (Glasgow).

TransPennine Express have depots for its train crews at Cleethorpes, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Hull, Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Airport (conductors), Manchester Piccadilly, Newcastle, Preston, Scarborough, Sheffield and York.