London’s scrapped trains to revamp rail line

The ambitious £150m scheme to electrify the line between Leeds and York via Harrogate has been unveiled today to drag the current beleaguered services into the 21st century.

The upgrade is earmarked to be completed by 2015 and would slash journey times by up to 12 per cent, dramatically increase the number of services and provide a long-awaited replacement to existing diesel trains on the 38-mile stretch of track.

Business leaders and politicians are petitioning the Government to secure funding from £25bn that is due to be spent on improving the nation’s rail network up until 2013/14.

Hopes are high that the money will be obtained as the plans meet many of the credentials set out by former Civil Aviation Authority chairman Sir Roy McNulty in a report published in May outlining a radical overhaul to save Britain’s railways £1bn a year.

Trains currently being used on the London Underground’s District Line that are due to be scrapped by 2014 would instead be re-deployed to the Yorkshire route. The upgrade would also provide the foundations for a long-term vision for new stations, including a stop-off for Leeds-Bradford International Airport.

The Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce’s chief executive, Brian Dunsby, is spearheading the project which has been developed over the past nine months.

Mr Dunsby helped secure a major boost to Harrogate’s rail links when a new direct return service to London was introduced in May. But he claimed the new project would represent the biggest boost to Yorkshire’s rail network since the electrification of the Airedale line in the mid-1990s.

He said: “This project will provide what we believe is a financially-viable option to improve services from Harrogate to Leeds and York. It is an issue that has long been talked about, but we believe we have a feasible solution.”

A low-cost ground-level electrification system would be introduced, similar to technology already on London’s Docklands Light Railway and in Copenhagen and Berlin. A fleet of 20 trains from London would undergo modifications costing £500,000 so they can be used on the Yorkshire route.

Passenger capacity would increase by about 40 per cent from the existing diesel stock with seat numbers rising from 207 to 280. Space for standing passengers would also increase dramatically.

The remainder of the £150m would be spent on electrifying the line, and building a maintenance depot near Harrogate. Project director Mark Leving, a former managing director of Hull Trains, claimed the lightweight metrostyle trains provide a ready-made, tried and tested solution to lowering the cost of running the route.

The scheme has already attracted praise from Welcome to Yorkshire’s chief executive, Gary Verity, and North Yorkshire County Council’s chief executive, Richard Flinton. The Tory MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Andrew Jones, is co-ordinating a campaign to glean backing from the region’s politicians.

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