Thursday 15 Feb 2024
New leadership begins on TRU West Alliance
- Region & Route:
- North West & Central
Pete Sollitt has started as Managing Director of TRU West Alliance, with a crucial year ahead on the route between Manchester and Leeds.
The Transpennine Route Upgrade is a multi-billion-pound programme that will bring faster, cleaner and more reliable trains across the North of England, transforming rail travel across the Pennines.
Pete is stepping up at a vital time for TRU - the Department for Transport's recent announcement of a £3.9bn funding boost for the programme means that 2024 will see significant progress made on a number of projects between Manchester, Leeds and beyond.
Once the core benefits of the programme have been achieved, the 70 miles of railway between Manchester and York will be electrified, a new fully digital signalling system will be in place and key areas of the line will be double tracked, enabling more frequent, faster and greener trains to stop at improved, accessible stations along the route.
The Transpennine Route Upgrade follows an enterprise business model – led by TRU Managing Director Neil Holm – in a structure that consists of individual projects that are delivered via Alliances both East and West of Leeds, with Pete now overseeing operations in the west.
Pete Sollitt, newly appointed Managing Director of the TRU West Alliance, said: “I’m really excited to be joining at such a pivotal moment for the West Alliance. I recognise this is a complex, fast-moving programme with many facets.
“A key priority of mine at this early stage is to ensure that every single person working on the Alliance is safe and well. We all need to play our part in supporting a vigilant culture that protects ourselves and our colleagues.”
Pete added: “In terms of the delivery of the programme, we need to maintain and enhance our performance so that excellence becomes a habit.
“Looking at what the Alliance has achieved so far, I’m certain that we have the capability, expertise and experience required to achieve that.
“We now have the opportunity to all pull together as one team and take it to the next level – I’m looking forward to the journey ahead and the role the West Alliance will play as part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade.”
Pete joins the TRU West Alliance with a wealth of major infrastructure projects expertise after over 10 years of leading roles, most recently with the HS2 programme, where he was the Phase 2A Delivery Director.
His time within the rail industry is preceded by over two decades of senior leadership positions within the British Army, with multiple deployments in the Middle East, Balkans and West Africa.
Notes to Editors
TRU will bring better journeys for passengers:
More trains to choose from and more seats. Our improvements will enable more trains to run between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York with up to six fast services every hour between Leeds and Manchester and up to two stopping services for local connectivity.
Faster journeys so you can travel to your favourite towns and cities more quickly. Our fastest journey times are forecast to be 63-66 minutes between Manchester and York and 41-42 minutes between Manchester and Leeds.
More reliable journeys with trains that run on-time.
Better stations across the Transpennine route, bringing passengers a better travel experience through improved, more accessible station.
Greener travel, reducing our carbon footprint and improving air quality. Our plans aim to save up to 87,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year – supporting the government’s Net Zero objectives. We’re also developing a proposal to move more goods by rail (up to 15 more freight trains each day), taking lorries off the road. Together, these freight trains are expected to remove over 1,000 lorries off the road each day.
TRU will bring local communities:
Jobs for local people. Our workforce will be local, with 80% employment from within a 40-mile radius of the route, and 60% employment from within a 25-mile radius.
Improved natural environments near the railway through 10% biodiversity net gain across the route. This will create or enhance habitats for wildlife.
Contact information
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Network Rail
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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
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