Arriva Trains Merseyside was a

train operating company In the railway system of Great Britain, a train operating company (TOC) is a railway undertaking operating passenger trains under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways ...

in England owned by

Arriva Arriva Ltd. is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England. The company was originally established on 24 October 1938 as T Cowie Ltd. Initially focused on the sale of motorcycles, it relaunched shortl ...

that operated the Merseyrail Electrics franchise from January 1997 until July 2003, when the Merseyrail railway franchise was transformed into the local

Merseyrail Merseyrail is a commuter rail network which serves Merseyside and adjacent areas of Cheshire and Lancashire in the North West England, North West of England. Merseyrail serves 69 Railway station, stations, 67 of which it manages, across two lin ...

concession, owned by the Merseyrail Passenger Transport Executive (

Merseytravel Merseytravel is a public transport body and the passenger transport executive of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority responsible for delivering Public transport and other transport functions in the Liverpool City Region. It was origin ...

History

The Merseyrail Electrics franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising to MTL with operations commencing on 19 January 1997. MTL retained the Merseyrail Electrics brand. On 18 February 2000, MTL was purchased by

, and on 27 April 2001, rebranded as Arriva Trains Merseyside. On 23 April 2003, Serco-Abellio were awarded the Merseyrail Electrics franchise with the services operated by Arriva Trains Merseyside transferring to

on 20 July 2003.

Rolling stock

Arriva Trains Merseyside inherited a fleet of Class 507 and Class 508

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a number o ...

s from

Regional Railways Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after Privatisation of British Rail. The sector was originally called ''Provincial''. Regional Railways was the most sub ...

. It also inherited a fleet of Class 73 locomotives and Class 936 EMUs for use on infrastructure trains; these were sold in 2002.

Depot

Arriva Trains Merseyside's fleet was maintained at Birkenhead North Depot.

History

Rolling stock

Depot

References

Further reading