Friday 5th July 2019 saw a milestone for TransPennine Express and their new trains as they officially welcomed the first of their brand new Nova 1 train following formal acceptance from the Office of Rail and Road.
The trains have been build by Hitachi Rail and financed by Angel Trains. The bullet-style Nova 1 trains will mean more carriages and extra seats for passengers.
TPE will be receiving 19 five carriage Nova 1 trains, each containing 342 seats. This is an extra 161 compared to its current trains.
The fleet will carry passengers on the route between: Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Morpeth and Edinburgh and will start to be phased into service, as planned, before the end of the year.
Rigorous testing of both the Nova 3 and Nova 2 fleets is currently ongoing and three Nova 3 trains have now been accepted. However as a result of further faults that have emerged, the first of the Nova 3 trains will now enter service towards the end of summer 2019.
What did the officials say?
Chris Nutton, Major Projects Director for TransPennine Express commented:
“Today's acceptance of the first Nova 1 train is a key step towards the introduction of more trains and more carriages for customers.
“Together with our partners, we are working hard to get each of our Nova fleets into service as soon as possible. By the end of this year, trains from all three fleets will be operating across the North and into Scotland providing 13 million extra seats.”
Karen Boswell, Managing Director Hitachi Rail said:
“This is another fantastic milestone which will soon see the Northern Powerhouse connected with modern reliable trains. They will double the number of seats for TransPennine passengers on intercity services between major cities across the North.”
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Just when will new trains be running between Newcastle and Manchester I’m sick of not getting a seat and being crushed in the stampede when the doors open at Newcastle where only the fastest and fittest get a seat .no point in having the priority seats they are for the fittest….and will cheeper tickets be forthcoming after all double the seats
The TPE Class 802 Nova 1 is also to replace the Desiro Class 185 DMUs and to transfer or cascade the Class 185 to other routes that TPE will use them on. Or to cascade them to another train operator which perhaps Northern could have some of the Class 185s back and to operate them on other services to boost their services.