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Northern Rail wins Rail Business of the Year

Northern Rail has been crowned ‘Train Operator of the Year’ and ‘Rail Business of the Year’ at the prestigious 10th annual HSBC Rail Business Awards.
The judges praised the north of England operator for its innovation and hard work in making a real difference to the communities it serves since it started three years ago.

Northern, which is owned by Serco-NedRailways, has successfully attracted more than £60m of external investment to help improve trains and stations and passenger numbers have risen by nearly one-quarter to 80 million per year. The number of trains on time has risen from 83% to nearly 89% over the same period.

The judges said: “We had little difficulty in giving the top marks to Northern Rail. The train operator has faced unprecedented growth (along with the rest of the passenger rail sector) and has had to deal with this without assistance, other than the subsidy agreed when the franchise was awarded to maintain a ‘stand still’ situation.”

“Northern Rail has dealt with the problems in all sorts of innovative ways, including persuading Yorkshire’s regional Development Authority (RDA) to help finance additional rolling stock – something no other RDA in the country has done.

“Northern Rail should be very proud of the way all its staff reacted to this challenge and the high level of service it is providing.”

In addition to winning the two prizes, Northern was highly commended in the ‘Rolling Stock Excellence of the Year’ award.

 
Heidi Mottram. Managing Director, Northern Rail said: “We are delighted to win these awards. They are fantastic recognition of the hard work put in by everyone at Northern and the huge contribution that our partners have made in helping us to make improvements for customers.

“We are just over three years into our franchise and we are determined to build on our achievements so far and keep improving.”

 

Notes to Editor

Northern Rail is the biggest train operator in Britain, providing 2,500 local and regional train services every day across the north of England, serving a population of nearly 15m. We are now carrying 77 million passengers a year, 20% more than when we started our franchise in December 2004.
 
Northern Rail is owned by Serco-NedRailways, a joint venture established in 2002 that combines Serco’s world-class service credentials and NedRailways’ unrivalled rail industry expertise. Serco has run the highly successful Docklands Light Railway since 1997 while NedRailways’ parent, NS Dutch Railways, carries over 1.1 million passengers every day in the Netherlands.
 
In addition to Northern Rail, Serco-NedRailways has the 25-year concession for Merseyrail, which provides urban train services in Merseyside.
 
Recent Northern honours
Public Transport Operator of the Year - National Transport Awards 2007
Winners – Example of Excellence in Rural Action, Business in the Community Awards 2007
Overall Winners - Community Rail Awards 2007