Transpennine Route Upgrade

The Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) is a major project to upgrade the railway between Manchester and YorkviaHuddersfield and Leeds in the north of England. The 76-mile (122 km) railway over the Pennines, consisting mostly of the Huddersfield line, is heavily used but is slow and lacks capacity. It has Victorian infrastructure, traverses difficult terrain including the 3-mile (4.8 km) Standedge Tunnel, and lacks electrification. The TRU aims to increase capacity by adding extra track, electrifying the entire route, introducing digital signalling, and upgrading stations.

The £11.5billion programme consists of a succession of sub-projects designed to give incremental benefits to rail users over a period of time, with an anticipated overall completion date of between 2036 and 2041. Following completion of the upgrade trains will be able to run at top speeds of 125 mph (200 km/h). The number of fast trains between Manchester and Leeds is to increase from two to up to six per hour, and journey times will be reduced from 50 to 42minutes. Freight capacity will also increase.