Rail upgrade slammed as Hull to Leeds journeys to be cut by ‘one minute’
IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED: Paragon Station, which is currently served by diesel trains
By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor
Liberal Democrat Peer Lord McCobb has called a £1bn investment in battery-electric trains “an insult” after being informed they will only cut journey times between Hull and Leeds by “up to a minute”.
Last month, the Department for Transport announced £1bn of investment in a new fleet of 29 battery-electric TransPennine Express trains that are due to enter service in 2034.
The battery-electric Adessia Stream trains, the first of their kind on a UK main line route, will provide emission-free travel on non-electrified sections of the railway, and operate between key destinations across the North including Manchester Piccadilly and Hull.
But in a written answer to Lord McCobb yesterday on expected journey improvement times from the new fleet, Lord Hendy, the Labour Rail Minister, said: “We expect to see a journey time improvement of 5-6 minutes between Hull and Manchester and up to a minute between Hull and Leeds in comparison to today.”
Lord McCobb, who was appointed to the House of Lords last month after 24 years as a member of Hull City Council, is demanding the Government honours its commitment to electrify and improve the line speed between Hull, Leeds and Sheffield, as stated in the Hull and East Yorkshire devolution deal.
The devolution deal says this would “cut the journey between Leeds and Hull from 58 to 48 minutes; and from Hull to Manchester from 107 to 84 minutes”.
Lord McCobb said: “Just one extra minute. Is that all the people of Hull and East Yorkshire are worth?
“After years of promises, a devolution deal that committed to improve travel times and a billion-pound announcement, Hull is being offered just one minute off the journey to Leeds — and we'll wait up to eight years to get it.
“This is an insult to every commuter, traveller and business in East Yorkshire. We were promised electrification by the last Conservative Government and again by this Labour Government. It’s there in black and white in our signed devolution deal.
“Earlier this week Hull’s Labour MPs were writing letters cheering these new battery powered trains, as though they were the answer to improving Hull’s connections across the Pennines.
“Now their own Minister has confirmed they will make virtually no difference to the Hull to Leeds travel times, and are up to eight years away. It’s an outrage, and our part of Yorkshire deserves better.
“I will keep pressing ministers until Hull and East Yorkshire get the faster travel times we were promised. Our area has waited long enough.”
In a joint letter to the managing directors of Hull Trains and Northern Trains this week, Hull Labour MPs Diana Johnson and Emma Hardy urged the operators to follow TransPennine Express by investing in battery-electric trains when they next upgrade their fleets.
The MPs said battery-electric trains would:
Radically reduce the cost of electrification compared to installing continuous overhead cables;
Cut operators’ running costs by up to a half;
Provide a more resilient rail network as overhead cables are “prone to storm damage”.
The letter continued: “Above all else, battery-electric bi-modal trains serving the whole North would realise the benefits of faster speeds, typically saving around ten per cent on route journey times. This speed improvement has always been the main point of our long campaign for rail electrification.”
The MPs also said they were “particularly concerned” about the impact on air quality at the city’s Paragon Station by the continued use of diesel trains, noting that England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, had recently reiterated his view that “diesel should be eliminated from the rail industry”.