Every Northern service to and from Windermere is now operated by brand new trains from CAF and Northern.
Cumbria was the first region in the North to receive Northern's new trains and now seven of the state-of-the-art fleet will connect Windermere, Barrow and Manchester Airport.
Tim Farron, Member of Parliament for Westmorland and Lonsdale, joined Northern at Windermere station on Wednesday 21 August to wave off one of the new trains serving customers on the famous Lakes Line.
Class 195s feature free Wi-Fi, air-conditioning, at-seat power and customer information/media screens with real-time information. They are also more spacious for customers and are fully accessible with spaces for wheel chairs and cycles.
Northern has ordered 101 new trains as part of a £500m investment in rail in the North. There are already 15 trains operating on a number of routes and more will follow throughout 2019 and into 2020.
What did the officials say?
Tim Farron said:
“It is great to see these brand new trains now serving Windermere and the Lakes Line. After the problems of 2018, I'm hopeful these brand new trains will deliver local people and businesses a big improvement in their rail services.
“Given the fantastic response of local residents to our cross community campaigns over the past year, I'm delighted that Cumbria has been chosen as one of the first places for these brand new trains, supporting local businesses and families and encouraging more people to visit the Lake District by train.”
David Brown, Northern's Managing Director said:
“The Northern network is busier than it has been for a generation – more than 100 million customer journeys will be made on Northern services in 2019 – and the introduction of new trains is at the heart of our transformation for customers.
“We are delighted therefore that customers travelling between Windermere, Oxenholme and Manchester Airport will now be served by brand new trains every hour.
“These fantastic trains are a true step-change in travelling experience and we are extremely proud to be delivering a £500m investment.
“We now have 15 brand new trains carrying customers, with more to come throughout 2019 and into 2020.”
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Also why is Northern ordering 18 new trains from 2022 as they have already ordered the Class 195 and Class 331 Civity. And those new trains are in service. Does Northern really need more new trains.
They could instead inherit more Class 170s cascaded from ScotRail, Class 323s cascaded from West Midlands Railway and Class 153 & Class 156 cascaded from Greater Anglia to introduce more extra trains on services that need extra trains and to improve better rail services that Northern have promised to improve.
Northern could operate more new services such as York-Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed as they are to retain the Class 323s and to inherit the Class 323 from West Midlands Railway.