A quarter of the 70-mile Transpennine main line has now been electrified by SYSTRA, a fantastic milestone in the project to bring faster, greener and reliable services between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York. The Transpennine main line is stretching across the North of England, connecting Manchester to Leeds and York via Huddersfield. It serves 23 stations and is the subject of the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU), a multi-billion pound, long-term railway programme to make the line faster, more frequent, more reliable, and greener.
Sunday 3rd August 2025 marked a major step forward in the work, with the first electric passenger train running between York (Colton Junction) and Church Fenton, UK. This was possible thanks to the successful implementation of an Automatic Power Change Over system.
To celebrate this progress, Heidi Alexander MP, Secretary of State for Transport, visited the route on Tuesday 5th August and travelled on a TransPennine Express bi-mode train between Leeds and York.
As part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) East Alliance, alongside Network Rail, Murphy, Siemens and VolkerRail, SYSTRA is delivering a raft of upgrades along the eastern section.
Gareth Hanson, Project Manager at SYSTRA, said:
To reach the milestone of a quarter of the Transpennine main line being electrified is amazing news, and something every member of the SYSTRA TRU East Alliance team is rightly proud of. The benefits are already being felt by passengers, including myself, and the environmental impact is also immediate, meaning travel by train is now faster and greener, with more improvements still to come.
Benefits of the Transpennine Route Upgrade include:
- Carbon emissions cut by up to 108,000 tonnes per year
- More freight by rail, removing more than 1,000 lorries from the road daily
- Reduced journey times making it quicker to travel between key towns and cities
- Increased capacity by more than a third, enabling more frequent, faster trains
- Lasting social and economic value, with more than 5,000 jobs already supported and a peak workforce forecast of 8,000
- Stations fit for everyone, with increased accessibility and improved customer facilities
Find out more about SYSTRA’s work on the Transpennine Route Upgrade.
Source: SYSTRA