Transpennine Route Upgrade
The Transpennine Route Upgrade is a major investment being made in the railway between York and Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield in the north of England. It is the northern route over the Pennines, most of which is also known as the Huddersfield line. The TRU is due to increase capacity by adding extra track, electrifying the entire route, introducing digital signalling, and upgrading stations. The number of fast trains between Manchester and Leeds is to increase from two to up to six per hour, and journey times to be reduced from 50 minutes to 42 minutes. Freight capacity is also to be increased.
, the line is heavily used but is slow and lacks capacity. It has Victorian infrastructure, covers difficult terrain including the Standedge Tunnel, and has poor access roads.
Since the closure of the Woodhead line, there are three remaining transpennine rail lines that connect Lancashire and Yorkshire. To the south of the Huddersfield line is the Hope Valley Line which traverses even more difficult terrain including the Totley Tunnel, and which in 2021 was allocated £137million investment to improve capacity and connectivity between Manchester and Sheffield. To the north the Calder Valley line connects Manchester and Leeds via Rochdale and Bradford. This line has been strengthened to allow its use as a diversionary route while the Huddersfield line is upgraded.
Reopening the Woodhead line as a potential alternative Pennine crossing was ruled out early on. The Skipton–East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership is a campaign that is seeking the reopening of the railway line that used to run between the Lancashire town of Colne and the Yorkshire town of Skipton. This could provide an additional transpennine route for both a commuter service and a relief transpennine freight route.
Background
Since the rejection of Northern Powerhouse Rail's aspiration for a new high speed line within Yorkshire, it has been questioned whether an upgraded Huddersfield line will provide sufficient capacity for the region's needs. However, the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands that was announced in November 2021, did include full electrification between Manchester and York, and subsequently W12 loading gauge to accommodate refrigerated shipping containers throughout. The whole £911.5billion programme has been defined as phase one of Northern Powerhouse Rail, and is claimed to be the biggest infrastructure project in the UK. It consists of a succession of sub-projects designed to give incremental benefits to rail users over a period of time, with an anticipated overall completion date of between 2036 and 2041. Following completion of the upgrade trains will be able to run at top speeds of. In Manchester, the project interfaces with the Northern Hub.There were up to 50million passenger journeys per year on this line pre COVID-19 on fast, semi-fast and stopping trains, as well as freight trains. The existing passenger service is widely accepted as being very unsatisfactory in terms of journey time, frequency, punctuality and level of passenger comfort. At its worst, 15% of passengers had to stand in peak times. The railway line between Leeds and Manchester links two key population centres. Leeds is the largest city in Yorkshire, and forms the main area of the City of Leeds metropolitan borough. It is the central city of the Leeds City Region which has a population of over 3million, making it the second most populated metropolitan city region in the United Kingdom, behind Greater London. Manchester is the most-populous city and metropolitan borough in North West England. It lies within the third most-populous county, at around 2.8million people. Manchester is often referred to as the second city of the United Kingdom, although this is disputable. York was voted European Tourism City of the Year in June 2007. Linking these population centres together by a low-polluting, low-carbon mode of transport such as electric trains is now seen as both desirable and essential.
The equivalent transpennine road link is the M62 motorway, which provides the most practical route for heavy goods vehicles and other commercial traffic between Manchester and Leeds. However, the section between junctions 18 and 29 through Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire has been identified as one of the most congested roads in Britain. Three of the five largest metro areas in England that contain a significant number of warehouses requiring deliveries to and from the ports at Merseyside and the Humber, are linked by the M62. Annual average daily traffic flows of 100,000 were recorded east of the Pennines at junction 22 in 2006 and 78,000 west of the Pennines. The UK government has long recognised the advantages of modal shift from road to rail.
Most main railway lines in England radiate out from London with very few, such as the transpennine routes, going at right angles to these. It is widely accepted that there is a North–South divide in England, with government spending per person on drivers of growth such as transport infrastructure, being far higher in the South-East than the North. London has a directly elected mayor with control over public transport whilst most Northern cities have transport policies decided by Westminster. In 2021, the Conservative government launched a Levelling up policy to address the North–South divide as part of a broader objective. All of the above factors mean the Transpennine Route Upgrade is high on the political agenda for all parties.
In March 2021, Parliament's Transport Select Committee published a report in the series of Trains Fit for the Future enquiry. It recommended a rolling programme of electrification. There was also a call for the Department for Transport to publish without delay a list of “no regret” electrification schemes, and then for the industry to act on them. The report also reached the mainstream media with headlines of “MPs call for a rolling programme of electrification”.
Project history
Before 2020
The initial proposal in the 21st century was to electrify the line from Manchester Victoria to Leeds via Huddersfield, with some infill schemes around Manchester. This was announced in the 2011 Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The cost was cited as £290million and the project was planned to start in 2014. In the 2012 High Level Output Specification, it was announced there would be additional electrification from Leeds to Selby.Northern Powerhouse Rail was established in 2014 to substantially enhance the economy of the North of England. It would have provided new and significantly upgraded railway lines to transform rail services between the region's towns and cities. The original scheme would have seen a new high-speed rail line from Liverpool to Warrington then joining the HS2 tunnel which it would share into Manchester Piccadilly. From there, the line would have continued via a new through station at Bradford, to Leeds. However, in November 2021 the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands was published which removed all of the new line in Yorkshire, from the plan.
In March 2015, the Chancellor George Osborne announced there would be an additional rolling programme of improvement and electrification to Hull. In July 2012, the UK government announced £4.2billion of electrification schemes. The Transpennine Route Upgrade from Manchester to York and Selby via Leeds was announced at this time. In November 2014, the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg reported on the government's desire to see the whole route upgraded and electrified.
Manchester Victoria had already had electrification equipment installed as part of the precursor North West electrification programme. On other parts of the route, including between Leeds and York, bridge raising and other civil engineering works were started in March 2015. Other bridges in Tameside between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge were also worked on. Further civil engineering contracts were awarded in 2017. Various local authorities have also provided updates. On a visit to Leeds on 2 March 2018, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said the upgrade would continue.
2020 and beyond
, ten years after the Autumn Statement announcement, the line was still being upgraded in stages. It has been stated that the delays are due to political dithering.In 2021, considerable work was done in the Miles Platting area, to pave the way for wires all the way to Stalybridge, with a compound constructed. Network Rail said that there would be significant disruption over at least a five year period. However, in an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992 published in March 2021, it was said that work on some of the scheme would extend beyond 2029 i.e. into a later Network Rail Control Periods, CP8. A total blockade took place on the route between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge and Rochdale between 31 July and 15 August 2021. This work was completed on time. On 5 October 2021 Proofs of Evidence were submitted by Network Rail to the Department for Transport.
On 26 May 2021, it was confirmed that a further £317million was being spent on the upgrade, and confirmed the electrification of the line between York and Church Fenton, although Network Rail had already started to install masts for overhead line electrification on this route in February 2021. On 4 June 2021, it was confirmed that the £317million was in addition to the £589million previously announced and further confirmed that electrification would go from Huddersfield to Leeds. It was also stated that work would begin immediately. However, this is disputed according to one source.
, Network Rail are working on the sections between York and Church Fenton, Huddersfield and Westtown and Manchester and Stalybridge. It is planned to upgrade the signalling, to increase tracks from two to four in places, and to implement other track changes and renewals that improve line speed and hence give shorter journey times. Parts of the cost of upgrading have been quoted at £2.9billion and £3.1billion in total. In 2021, the government allocated £589million of funding for the section between Leeds and Huddersfield. The route has 285 overbridges and of tunnels including Standedge Tunnel. There are a total of 23 stations including the Grade I listed Huddersfield station, and major viaducts at Dewsbury, Batley, Milnsbridge and Huddersfield. Nine structures along the route require listed building approval.
The planned upgrade of the section between Huddersfield and Westtown is of particular significance. It is the best place on the route to provide a facility for fast trains to overtake slower ones, by increasing the number of tracks from two to four. Also, by building a bridge that will provide grade separation at Thornhill L.N.W. Junction, it will eliminate conflicts between trains travelling along the Calder valley between Brighouse and Wakefield and those travelling between Huddersfield and Leeds. On 27 June 2022, the Secretary of State for Transport's decision to grant the Order under the Transport and Works Act for this section was published. This includes quadrupling the track across most of the route, the provision of grade separation at Ravensthorpe and works to the stations, as well as electrification throughout.
On 18 November 2021 the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands was published. This included a commitment to the Transpennine north railway upgrade to include full electrification. The completion date for all works was cited as 2032. However, the IRP did not include most of the eastern leg of HS2, nor the high speed rail line from Manchester all the way to Leeds. Instead, it says a high speed line would be built east from Manchester to Marsden, which is just over the border into West Yorkshire, at the eastern end of the Standedge Tunnels. Cllr Louise Gittins, Interim Chair of Transport for the North, said that: “Today’s announcement is woefully inadequate. After decades of underfunding, the rail network in the North is not fit for purpose. It is largely twin-track Victorian infrastructure trying to cope with the demands of a 21st Century economy." The leaders of the upgrade held a round table conference November 2022 discussing progress and strategy for keeping disruption to a minimum.
In September 2022 Boris Johnson ceased to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and was replaced by Liz Truss. In her bid to get that job, she had promised that the Transpennine route upgrade would be delivered in full, with electrification all the way between Liverpool and Hull including a stop in Bradford. However, she was succeeded by Rishi Sunak in October 2022, and his government returned to the position of the Johnson administration.
In November 2023, a Freedom of Information Request uncovered by The Northern Agenda newsletter revealed that the government-operated TransPennine Express spent almost £2 million securing advertising for the delayed TRU programme in 2022/23.