We’ve made trains to Blackpool more reliable after cutting repair times and reducing cancellations

Passengers across the North West are facing fewer train delays and cancellations after engineers introduced a new approach to maintaining Northern's Class 331 trains.

The improved maintenance system, developed in partnership with Spanish manufacturer CAF, has helped the trains run thousands of extra miles before developing faults, meaning that routes including those serving Blackpool and the wider Fylde coast are more reliable.

The Class 331 trains operate services used by millions of passengers across the North West, but the new approach means they are now being taken out of service for repairs less frequently.

Since signing a new maintenance contract in April 2025, engineers from Northern and CAF have been holding daily meetings to discuss mechanical problems and collaborate to identify causes. The companies have also improved the way important components are repaired, including traction motors and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units.

Rather than waiting months for parts to be sent to Europe and returned, specialist companies can now carry out repairs within a few days. The changes have led to a significant improvement in reliability - over the past year, the average distance travelled by the trains before a fault occurs has increased by 72 per cent, from 9,031 to 15,549 miles.

The work was recognised at the Rail North Spotlight Awards last month, where the Northern and CAF engineering teams received an Acting as One Team award.

Geraint Bartie, Contracts Performance Manager at Allerton Train Care Centre in Liverpool, said: “We have been working together, making sure we’re all aligned and focusing on the same priorities. Ultimately, we want to do what’s best for the passenger.

“We used to meet with CAF every few weeks to talk about what went wrong and react, but we now review technical issues together every single day and see if they have caused delays for passengers. We work together to get to the root cause much faster and fix it.

“We can closely monitor any issues and plan ahead, so we have the resources and materials in place to fix issues and prevent them from causing failures in the future. This approach helps us deliver a more reliable service through the high-quality maintenance our passengers deserve.

“Fixing the supply chain has also been crucial, ensuring we can now work with local companies to repair key parts within days instead of waiting months. We didn’t have a single air conditioning failure on the 331 trains this summer during the heatwave because we were getting the HVAC units fixed so quickly.”

Raj Basi, Northern’s Engineering Director, said the partnership had delivered significant improvements for passengers across the region. He said: “By working in partnership with CAF, we have delivered significant gains in reliability and performance for the passengers we serve across the North.

“I am incredibly proud of the teams whose expertise, commitment and innovation have made this achievement possible. This demonstrates what can be accomplished when organisations work as one team, united by a shared goal and a determination to deliver a better railway for passengers.”

Northern is the UK's second largest train operator, running 2,650 services every day and serving more than 500 stations across the North of England.