NORTHERN has been named by the DfT as the recipient of five Class 322 units due to be cascaded from ScotRail.
The units are currently in service on the Edinburgh-North Berwick route.
The Class 322s – five units of four cars each – are due to come into service with Northern from December, and will be used to provide additional services between Leeds, Skipton, Ilkley and Doncaster. The cascade from Scotland will also allow some of Northern’s diesel units to be transferred to the Leeds-Bradford-Manchester route.
The Department for Transport described the trains as ’additional’ – claiming they are part of 650 extra vehicles which have been promised by 2014.
The transport secretary Philip Hammond said: “Even at a time of severe pressure on public spending we cannot afford not to invest in Britain’s future – and that’s why we are investing more than £10 million in providing these extra carriages for Yorkshire commuters. These extra trains will ease crowding and provide passengers with more comfortable journeys.
“The tough decisions the Government has taken on rail fares allow us to continue to deliver this sort of much needed improvement to the railways. We are investing in 2,100 extra carriages to increase capacity across the rail network and in the longer term we have plans for a high speed rail network which will ease overcrowding and make our railways fit for the 21st century.”
But the new trains connected with this development are actually Class 380s which are currently being delivered to ScotRail by Siemens. The 380 project has been delayed, partly by software problems during their commissioning, but when the whole fleet is available some of these new units are due to enter service on the North Berwick line, thus making the 322s available to Northern.
The Class 322s themselves are far from new – or additional – having been built by British Rail for Stansted Express in 1990.
A spokesman for the Department for Transport told Railnews he would attempt to seek clarification.