County Durham railway station to see rise in hourly services as operator increases capacity

A North East train station is set for hourly TransPennine Express services from next month.

The rail operator is increasing services from Chester-le-Street to Newcastle, and Liverpool Lime Street via Manchester Victoria. Services heading south from Chester-le-Street will call at Durham, Darlington, York, Leeds, Huddersfield, Manchester Victoria, Newton-le-Willows and Liverpool Lime Street.

The changes come as train operators across the UK switch to a new timetable on Sunday, December 15. Across the entire TransPennine Network, there will be a 12% increase in seats, which equates to around 1,300 more each day.

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Chris Jackson, managing director at TransPennine Express, said that returning to a historic timetable would make a difference to customers across the network. He also noted that there had been a reduction in cancellations in the past 12 months, and said that TPX was now the second-fastest growing rail operator in the UK.

TransPennine Express's Performance Transparency Report shows that in the period between October 13 to November 9, 2024, 3.52% of their services were cancelled and 44.69% were on time. For TPX services operating in the North East, a slightly lower figure of 1.9% of services were cancelled, with 44.5% arriving on time.

It marks progress from last September, when the operator had an overall figure of 5.5% of their services cancelled, even after the franchise was nationalised.