THE GOVERNMENT’S Northern Powerhouse minister has revealed that a set of trains brought on to railways in the 1980s will finally be removed from service.

Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen, has promised that the “awful” pacers will be scrapped by next year and replaced with new electrical services.

Pacers were first introduced by British Rail between 1980 and 1987 as the answer to a shortage of trains, made using the same parts as buses, which is why the trains have a similar seating format to an older bus. They were originally intended as a short-term solution only to be used on smaller rural lines.

However, Northern still uses the trains on a number of lines, including regular services between Bolton and Manchester.

Recently, the operator has spent around £500 million on new, electric trains, and Berry says will begun to be phased into service next year.

He said: “Good news - £500 million of new trains are on their way. They are undergoing final testing and the first ones are scheduled to start operation in December this year.

“All the awful Pacer trains will be scrapped by next year and the new, fully accessible trains will have air conditioning, at-seat power sockets, free Wi-Fi, and an electronic seat reservation system. By 2020 there will be around 350 new trains running on Northern, providing an extra 2000 rail services every week.

"We are investing billions in improving our rail network and although some disruption is to be expected, I know that the performance of Northern and the problems that people experienced over recent months was completely unacceptable.”

The new stock will include a mix of 98 diesel and electric trains, with the first of the vehicles arriving in the UK in June ready for testing.

It comes at a difficult time for Northern, after passengers suffered heavily with delays following the national timetable change in May.

The government has since introduced a new system of compensation for people who were hit by the problems.

The scheme includes compensation for anyone who bought weekly or monthly tickets within allotted times.

More information can be found on Northern’s website.