Northern TrainCare Centre teams recognised at prestigious awards

The annual ‘Golden Spanner’ awards showcase rail operators across the country whose trains have performed the best and most reliably.  

Northern won a golden spanner for most reliable loco-hauled fleet, recognising its work on LNER’s InterCity 225 fleet at Neville Hill. 

The train operator also received a silver spanner for its Class 195 trains recognising work from the engineering team at Newton Heath. 

For the first time, judges used Miles per 701D (the rail industry fault code) to measure reliability. The Rail Delivery Group collects the fleet reliability data as part of the Fleet Challenge initiative. 

Jack Commandeur, engineering director at Northern said: “As the Golden Spanner awards recognise improvements in maintenance practices and reliability, measured by miles per technical incident, it is always good to see our teams mentioned and shows us we’re heading in the right direction.”  

Modern Railways magazine runs the Golden Spanner Awards, which are considered to be the rail industry's most prestigious awards for fleet reliability, and which celebrate the best of the UK.'s rolling stock maintenance and practices. 

On Sunday 10 December, rail timetables across the North of England will change in line with the rest of the National Rail network. Customers are encouraged to use the ‘Check My Timetable’ feature on the Northern website for more information about their local station.    

Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.