£680 million investment for West Midlands Trains

A £680 million ($897million) order for new trains has been welcomed by West Midlands Rail (WMR), a consortium of 16 local councils set up to manage the regions rail services. The order, made up of 413 carriages, comes from West Midlands Trains (WMT) who will run local services on behalf of WMR and Department of Transport (D0T) from December onwards to help increase capacity and improve journey times. WMT will operate local services until March 2026.
October 19, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
A £680 million ($897million) order for new trains has been welcomed by West Midlands Rail (WMR), a consortium of 16 local councils set up to manage the regions rail services. The order, made up of 413 carriages, comes from West Midlands Trains (WMT) who will run local services on behalf of WMR and Department of Transport (D0T) from December onwards to help increase capacity and improve journey times. WMT will operate local services until March 2026.


WMT is made up of Abellio, JR East and Mitsui and the order is part of a near £1 billion ($1,319 million) investment into the franchise.

513 Bombardier Trains and Construcciones y Auxilar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) will manufacture 107 new trains for the next West Midlands franchise. CAF will also produce 80 diesel carriages to provide dedicated services for journeys to towns and cities around Birmingham.  

A total of 333 of the new trains will feature air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and in-seat power sockets provided as standard – produced by Bombardier in Derby.

Cllr Roger Lawrence, chair of WMR and transport lead on the West Midlands combined authority, said: "This is a very significant investment in new trains that will bring more space, more services and improved comfort for passengers.  

"We know a key issue for passengers is overcrowding at peak times so we are pleased that these new carriages will provide space for an extra 85,000 passengers on rush hour services into Birmingham and London.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • DfT to conduct UK road markings health check
    August 1, 2019
    The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) has awarded £2 million to develop a national health-check of road markings. The DfT is to analyse nearly 10,000 miles of road with the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) to understand where investment is needed. The council will use Gaist’s machine learning artificial intelligence technology to review close to 150 million high definition images. Stu McInroy, chief executive of the Road Safety Markings Association, believes the study will provide “ha
    Read More
  • UK driver information improvements near completion
    March 27, 2015
    A major investment in technology to help tackle congestion and give better information to drivers across parts of the UK’s north west will be completed by the Highways Agency by the end of the month. Improvements worth more than US$8.5 million, with extended CCTV coverage of the region’s motorways and new electronic variable message signs (VMS), are being delivered by the Highways Agency as part of the Government’ US$470 million pinch point programme. Work on installing new electronic signs and CCTV c
    Read More
  • Cowlines app aims to bring MaaS to North America
    May 8, 2019
    Europe is seen as leading the charge as providers battle to gain traction for their Mobility as a Service apps. But that could be about to change with the roll-out of Cowlines in North America It is widely agreed that Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platforms have the potential to replace a lot of urban private car journeys – more than 2.3 billion of them by 2023 in fact, according to Juniper Research. Implementation of MaaS options is likely to be quicker in Europe than in the US for a number of reasons (
    Read More
  • Using electricity to power road freight
    October 22, 2014
    Next year sees the start of the first real-life electrified road system for transporting freight. Worldwide freight transportation is predicted to double by 2050 but despite expansion of global rail infrastructure only one third of this additional freight transport can be handled by trains. This means that the largest proportion of freight transport will continue to be by road and as a result, experts expect global CO2 emissions from road freight traffic to more than double by 2050.
    Read More

Highlighted Content