Northern upgrades Hull TrainCare Centre

Northern has upgraded its TrainCare Centre in Hull – a move which seeks to improve service reliability for passengers. Now completed, work at the Hull Botanic Gardens facility will increase the Centre's maintenance and servicing capacity – helping keep more trains on the tracks across Yorkshire. Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with nearly 2,000 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.

The train operator's Class 170s will be homed at the depot along with the team responsible for their routine servicing, maintenance, upkeep and repair; much of which is carried out at night to keep trains in passenger service during the day.

New modern equipment has been installed, including a crane, train roof access platforms and jacks as well as an additional fuelling road. The train shed at the depot has also been given a new roof, with Northern and Network Rail working closely together on the project.

Northern will continue with other work to improve the working environment for the team to help ensure the TrainCare Centre is the "most-effective it can be". Four maintenance teams are now in place to deliver the Class 170 maintenance plan and overnight servicing including work for Hull Trains and TransPennine Express.

A new driving team has also been recruited and trained to deliver new operational working practices to ensure that diagrammed maintenance work is delivered back to the Northern team at Hull on time. The new teams have been trained on the new infrastructure and are now delivering their second Class 170 'B exam'.

Jack Commandeur, engineering director at Northern said: “We want to make sure we can get as many trains as possible in service for customers and to do that we need modern engineering facilities and expert technicians, engineers and operators.

“I am confident our improved maintenance centres will deliver more trains into service on a daily basis and help improve services for our customers.”