Northern Rail has reached an agreement with the Department for Transport (DfT) to introduce electric trains onto its network from December 2014.
The operator is to receive 14 Class 319 trains at the end of the year to operate on a newly electrified section of railway between Liverpool and Manchester.
Last week, Northern was given an extension to continue operating services on the route until February 2016.
Alex Hynes, managing director, Northern Rail said: “This is fantastic news for our customers. These electric trains will bring much needed extra capacity, more reliable and sustainable journeys.
“More trains also bring job opportunities as we recruit more people to crew and maintain them.
“This is the first step to unlocking more capacity for customers across the north of England. We’re committed to continuing our work with our partners to campaign for more trains, better trains and electric trains for our customers.”
The first of the four-car trainsets will enter service in December, with more set to arrive in 2015.
The vehicles, which will be leased by Porterbrook, were formerly operated by First Capital Connect.
Photo licensed under Creative Commons
Sounds very good on Northern Rail to get the cascaded Class 319’s to be used in the Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool services but also they would like to get the cascaded Class 321’s to be operated on the Leeds-Doncaster route cascaded from Abellio Greater Anglia along with Class 322’s already being used on that service.
The 40 year-old Class 319s, which will not be refurbished/re-engineered prior to transfer to Northern, are to be used on Liverpool – Manchester, Liverpool – Wigan/Blackpool and Manchester – Blackpool services. It is thought that