UK: TransPennine Express has signed an agreement with Transport Scotland and the Rail North Partnership which will see it operate five services each way per day between Edinburgh and Newcastle from the December 2021 timetable change.
The trains will serve Edinburgh Waverley, Dunbar, Reston, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Alnmouth, Widdrington, Morpeth, Cramlington and Newcastle. TPE notes that the calls at Widdrington and Cramlington ‘are subject to completion of industry procedures for operational and safety requirements, meaning these calls might be introduced after the start of the December 2021 timetable’.
In addition, from the May 2022 timetable change, TransPennine Express will introduce a further two return trips per day between Edinburgh Waverley, Dunbar, Reston and Berwick-upon-Tweed; this means that all seven services will call at Reston in both directions once it has opened, which is expected imminently with construction work largely complete. These seven trains will also serve East Linton, a planned station between Dunbar and Edinburgh which is expected to open by the end of 2024. The services are to be jointly funded by Transport Scotland and the Department for Transport.
The original franchise commitment included the introduction of 17 trains a day between Newcastle and Edinburgh as an extension of services between Liverpool Lime Street and Newcastle via Manchester Victoria and Leeds.
Some of these were introduced with the December 2019 timetable change, but delays to the introduction of the Class 802 Nova 1 fleet and associated driver training meant that the full timetable was not operated before the start of significant service cuts as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently just three TPE trains per day are running between Newcastle and Edinburgh in each direction.
No return to December 2019
A series of changes to the TPE timetable is being implemented as part of a plan to improve performance through congested areas of the network in northern England, particularly the Castlefield Corridor in Manchester. This means that the Newcastle – Edinburgh trains will operate as a standalone service, with trains from Liverpool terminating at Newcastle.
In addition, TPE is expected to continue for the medium term with its current service pattern for the northern trans-Pennine corridor which sees a single hourly train linking Liverpool with Newcastle. The December 2019 plan had complemented this with a Manchester Airport – Newcastle service. The net result now is that one train per hour in each direction can be removed from the most capacity constrained sections of the central Manchester network.
Rail Business UK notes that TransPennine Express had been due to lose all access rights between Newcastle and Edinburgh from the December 2021 timetable change as these conditional rights were only granted by the Office of Rail & Road until that date in the TPE 35th Supplemental Agreement.
This was subsequently extended to May 2022, which was expected to be the date for an extensive timetable change on the ECML. Whilst the five trains a day service will initially be operated under this agreement, it is expected that ORR will agree provisional access rights until the revised date for the ECML change; as these trains will provide the bulk of calls at the two new stations in Scotland. Industry insiders are of the view that the paths will be retained once the new ECML timetable is finally introduced.
The maintenance agreement for TPE’s Class 802 trainsets involves work on the 19 units being undertaken at Hitachi’s Craigentinny facility in Edinburgh, so TPE would have continued to operate a number of empty stock moves over the route each day in any case. The new service is therefore described by TPE insiders as ‘an efficient solution’.
