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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.”
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