TransPennine Route Upgrade shows North can deliver major rail projects - trust us with funding

That was a whopping £4bn or 28 per cent more than was planned for in 2010.

While HS2 is thought to be around £20bn over budget, just to build the leg from London to Birmingham.

This is only slightly less than the cost of the entire leg to Manchester, and it was this overspend which caused Rishi Sunak to scrap the Northern part.

For years, transport projects in Yorkshire and the North have been delayed or cancelled over funding fears.

Think about the Leeds mass transit system, that has been promised for decades, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, also known as High-Speed 3.

However, the TransPennine Route Upgrade, the biggest infrastructure project apart from HS2, is currently on time and on budget.

This £11.5 billion project involves electrifying the 76-mile route between Manchester, Leeds, Huddersfield and York, building new tracks, installing digital signalling equipment and upgrading stations. It is due to be completed by 2033.

TransPennine Express managing director Chris Jackson told me: “We will have a railway system in the North, I’m convinced of it, that will rival or better that which you see in Crossrail, and that’s pretty exciting.”

That’s being built and delivered by thousands of engineers based in the North, on time and on budget.

Hopefully this shows the Government that when we’re given a big infrastructure project we deliver it, as more investment is needed.

Leeds Station is currently over capacity. At a minimum it needs more platforms and ideally a whole new building to cope with the increased demand.

At Bradford, the long-promised through station will connect West Yorkshire’s mass transit system with trains going to Huddersfield and Manchester.

In North Yorkshire, potential new stations at Haxby, Malton and Seamer outside Scarborough could kickstart new housing and growth in the region.

Then there’s the North’s “nirvana”, as Tracy Brabin calls it. Northern Powerhouse Rail, which would connect Hull to Liverpool with high-speed trains, would revolutionise transport in the region and could lead to £118bn of growth.

The current success of TRU, with well managed rail diversions and replacement bus services, should show the Government that these other projects can be delivered.

Rachel Reeves has announced a review of the Green Book, the Treasury bible which is used to assess the value of big infrastructure projects.

This is expected to favour investment in the North, and has got policy wonks very excited.

West Yorkshire Mayor Ms Brabin says the North must seize the opportunity and momentum of having all the TRU engineers trained and living in the region.

“Let’s keep the engineers in our region, so the programme of work rolls on, one after another,” she said.

“So you’ve got 20 years of work for the engineers that can be in this region, making those priorities come to fruition because the people of the North have been promised so much and there’s been such little delivery.”