Scope of Manchester to Leeds upgrade to be confirmed early next year
THE GOVERNMENT has released £589 million of funding to begin work on upgrading the trans-Pennine line between York, Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester. It is also to establish a new Northern Transport Acceleration Council, dedicated to accelerating vital infrastructure projects and better connecting communities across the North’s towns and cities.
Russ MacMillan, Senior Responsible Officer for the programme at the Department for Transport, told Transport for the North’s board on 29 July the route upgrade would increase capacity from six to eight trains per hour and would deliver modest journey time reductions, with a six-minute improvement on Leeds to Manchester schedules and seven or eight minutes cut from York to Manchester journeys.
The scheme as currently approved by Government does not include full electrification of the route. It is expected the stretches from Manchester to Stalybridge and Huddersfield to Leeds will be electrified, while Network Rail is already progressing plans to install overhead wires between Church Fenton and the intersection with the East Coast main line at Colton Junction, with this five-mile stretch due …
