Northern announces December timetable changes for Yorkshire

The additional service, which comes into effect on the 10 December and stops only at Church Fenton, is part of Northern’s wider planned December timetable change.

The new service is an extension of Northern’s current Preston to Leeds route and will open new journey opportunities for customers in Yorkshire, providing an additional link between Leeds and York. The change will mean the local stopping service will no longer call at Church Fenton.

Steve Hopkinson, Regional Director at Northern said: “The new fast service provides an excellent new link between York and Leeds and builds on existing services to give commuters and leisure travellers more choice.

“And, of course we will retain the current stopping services to ensure our customers along the route are still able to get where they need to be.”

Further changes to the timetable will now also require some customers travelling across Leeds to the east or west to change at Leeds. This will particularly affect customers travelling towards Bradford and Halifax and towards Cross Gates and Garforth.

Steve added: “We have made some changes to the timetables to address some of the issues our customers have experienced during the past few months. These alterations will bring further stability and reliability for our customers and the timetables have been designed to allow plenty of time at stations where changes are necessary.”

December’s timetable switch will see few other changes – 95% of Northern’s services will not be altered – with the focus firmly on delivering a new timetable in which customers can have greater confidence.

Steve said: “We have only made small changes with the December timetable as we, and the wider rail industry, aim to provide further stability for customers following the difficulties with the May timetable change.

“We have taken the opportunity, where possible, to make small improvements to the robustness of the timetable in order to address some of the problems that arose in May. This was because the May timetable was a compromise timetable due to it being entirely re-written and delivered in 16 weeks rather than the normal 40 weeks following delays to Network Rail infrastructure improvements.

“These improvements have in some cases, as with the new service between York and Leeds, enabled us to provide more journey options for some customers.”

The service enhancements will go hand-in-hand with further modernisation across the Northern network.

In spring 2019 Northern will introduce the first of its brand new trains on the network, giving customers an entirely new journey experience.

The multi-million pound improvement programme will also see the full refurbishment of the rest of the Northern fleet (243 trains, investment in better stations and more ways to buy tickets. And, of course, Northern’s oldest trains – the Pacers – will also be completely removed from the network.

For further details about Northern’s new timetables please visit our website.