CAF is building 12 five-car trains for TPE under a £120m deal funded by British rolling stock leasing company Evershot Rail Group. The 200km/h trains will enter service on the Manchester/Liverpool - Glasgow/Edinburgh route in 2019 and will replace Siemens class 350/4 177km/h EMUs. The new trains will be maintained at Alstom’s depots at Longsight, Manchester, and Polmadie, Glasgow.

Passengers using the new trains will benefit from comfortable seating, plugs and USB points, expanded luggage space, free Wi-Fi, and an onboard entertainment system which will enable users to download the latest films, news and TV shows to their personal devices.

“The trains are the high-speed variant of the Civity electric train, are capable of 200km/h operation, and will provide passengers with a new journey experience,” says Mr José María Muguruza, CAF project manager.

As well as the Civity UK EMUs, CAF is building 13-sets of five-car locomotive-hauled coaches for the franchisee, which will be hauled by class 68 locomotives leased to TPE by Direct Rail Services. The new trains will serve TPE’s Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds - Newcastle routes where they will replace class 185 DMUs.

TPE says together the new fleets will offer 13 million more seats per year for passengers, an 80% increase in capacity on its trains serving the north of England’s five largest and Scotland’s two largest cities.