Northern train passengers to see cheaper fares

Publicly owned train operators, LNER, TransPennine Express and Northern, are collaborating with Network Rail to launch a joint initiative to provide more options for those travelling across the North by making routes cheaper.

This will mean that passengers in the North of England will benefit from cost and carbon savings by making advance fares available across publicly-owned operators at the same time.

This will be rolled out following a successful pilot launched on 24th June 2025, which was found to deliver significant passenger savings by making advance fares across the whole route at the same time, and also generated £200,000 in additional revenue for the railway, encouraging people to choose public transport.

In June 2024, a pilot was launched by publicly-owned train operators between Leeds and Manchester to make fares cheaper for customers to provide more options for people travelling across the North. It found that, for passengers booking in advance, they could only get cheaper fares for one leg of a cross-operator journey, with the walk-up fare on the other, which created an unattractive incentive to book ahead.

Rail minister, Lord Peter Hendy, said: "This is exactly the type of collaborative work public ownership enables, allowing us to put passengers first by making train travel simpler and more affordable.

"Through these cheaper fares we're opening up more options to people travelling across the North, putting more money in working people's pockets and boosting connectivity and growth as part of our Plan for Change."