TransPennine Express promises full timetable return in December

TransPennine Express (TPE) is remaining confident that the reintroduction of services in the December 2024 timetable switch will go as smoothly as possible.

TPE originally scaled back its timetable in December 2023 from 320 services to just under 300 a day as it struggled to get to grips with driver training and crew availability as well as a need to look at operational issues that had complicated service delivery.

However, since then, services have gradually returned to the previous levels with some services reinstated in June made possible in part because of rest-day working agreements with ASLEF and RMT being reinstated. The current rest-day working agreement is now in place until March 2025.

Speaking to RAIL, managing director Chris Jackson confirmed that 4tph between Leeds and Manchester would return in December and was confident that other services would return, ensuring that TPE would be able to deliver on the promises it made last year to the Transport for the North committee as well in a recent meeting with the new Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh.

“We’re confident as a group that the December timetable will happen, the way we want it to. If I wasn’t confident, I wouldn’t have made the changes. But we know that we must deliver, and our efforts in improving driver training and simplifying our operations is working.

“As well as improving on our driver training hours, our station readiness is also making progress. So, I’m confident we’re ready.”

As well as the return of the fast services between Leeds and Manchester it is hoping to reintroduce services from Scarborough and York into Manchester and adjusting its fleet to accommodate longer trains on its Sheffield services. To do that, it will be ending some of its services early in Redcar, instead of running through to Saltburn which Jackson added was for “capacity and demand reasons.”

This will mean that the majority of services operated on the Liverpool – Sheffield – Doncaster – Cleethorpes route will be operated by six carriage trains.

He was keen to highlight the progress made by the operator on clearing its driver training backlog which it had inherited when it moved into an operator of last resort arrangement with the DfT last year.

“We’ve made some excellent progress, with 20,000 driver training days delivered and it’s got down to a more manageable level now, hovering around 4,000 days. We’ve still got a little work to do to get it down to around 2,000 which is about right for a TOC of our size.”

Jackson did however acknowledge that he expected TPE to be reliant on rest-day working through to 2025.

The decision last December to remove the “Nova 3” Class 68 locomotives has meant more strain has been added to its fleet of 185s. TPE’s Service Delivery Director, Paul Staples confirmed to RAIL that the fleet would be undergoing a refresh over the coming year to overhaul the interiors and update some of the external liveries.

“The 185s have borne the brunt of the stresses of the last few years of the previous operator. It has been seven years since we substantially refreshed them, so they are definitely due”, he added.

Staples also spoke on the operator’s fleet reliability, which has seen the fleet mileage-before-fault average increase from 1,500 miles to nearly 9,000 which he attributed to better remote conditioning and the removal of the Mark 5A coaches last year from regular maintenance.