New Trains for Arriva Trains North

22nd January 2016

It has been revealed that Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) will build 281 carriages for "Arriva Trains North Limited", in a deal worth £490 million.

The contract is for 31 three-car and 12 four-car electric multiple units and 25 two-car and 30 three-car diesel multiple units.

The carriages will be owned by "Eversholt Rail", and all will be in traffic by December 2018. This is 98 trains.

In addition Class 319 trains continue to be cascaded to the north from the London area as they are replaced by newer trains.

“These new trains will bring much-needed improvements in comfort and capacity for passengers on this important part of the network, and we look forward to working with our partners to bring them into service,” said "Eversholt Rail Group" Chief Executive Mary Kenny.

Arriva’s UK Trains Division Managing Director Chris Burchell acknowledged that the timetable for delivery was demanding, but added: “I hope that today’s announcement once again makes clear our determination to deliver on our promises to passengers.”

This will enable the withdrawal of the fleet of class 142 and 144 Pacer railbuses by 2019. The new  DMUs will operate "almost all" diesel Northern Connect services, which will link northern England's core cities (Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and Newcastle) with destinations including Chester, Barrow-in-Furness, Lincoln, Nottingham, and Hull. This will therefore include services on the Manchester - Warrington - Chester and possibly Ellesmere Port/Hooton lines. We await further details with interest.

However our trains remain mostly operated by "Arriva Trains Wales" and no news of additional rolling stock for them yet, operational difficulties continue with the loco hauled trains which operate our peak services and a daily return train to Holyhead.

Rumours say that this train will be heading for another line soon and that consequently capacity problems will again raise their head between Chester and Manchester; this is a particular problem as footfall figures at Runcorn East for example have increased by 16% in the last year.

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