Northern Rail to introduce more carriages

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Passengers with Northern Rail are set to benefit from the introduction of more carriages in December to help ease overcrowding.

The Department for Transport (DfT) today announced a further 22 carriages will be joining Northern’s fleet to provide extra seats on some of the busiest services in and around the major cities of the North from December 2011.

Ian Bevan, Managing Director, Northern Rail said:

“We are delighted that we will be able to provide much needed additional capacity for our passengers from December. These carriages will deliver an extra 800,000 seats on peak time services across the north of England every year.

“Overcrowding has been one of the biggest challenges we have faced and one of the biggest causes of complaint tor passengers.

“I would like to thank our stakeholders for their support in helping demonstrate the clear need for more carriages for the north of England.”

This is the latest announcement under the DfT’s rolling stock programme, which has secured a total of 60 additional carriages for Northern, 10 of which are already in service and the remaining 50 will be introduced in December (subject to cascade from other operators).

In total the 60 carriages will provide an additional 2,200,000 additional seats on peak time services, including six additional services on the electrified network around Leeds.

Northern serves five main urban centres (Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield), all of which experience varying levels of crowding at peak times.

The additional carriages have been planned to reduce crowding on the busiest trains. In total 20% of all major urban centre peak time trains will benefit from additional carriages.

With a lack of surplus trains across the industry, it is recognised that these additional carriages will not eradicate overcrowding completely but they will deliver significantly improved journeys for many passengers.

To help cope with the maintenance requirements of an enhanced fleet Northern is working with Network Rail to reopen Allerton depot on Merseyside, creating additional jobs within its engineering division.

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