THE new transpennine express franchise was officially launched yesterday with bosses saying the hand over had been trouble free.

A consortium of First Group and Keolis (FGK) will now operate inter-city services across the North of England, replacing Arriva Trains Northern.

The hand over saw 900 employees from 30 stations coming together under the umbrella of FGK.

Edith Rodgers, customer services director of transpennine express, and Ernie Preston, secretary of the Rail Passengers Committee for North Eastern England, were at York Station yesterday to launch the franchise.

They "flagged away" a transpennine express train from Manchester Airport to mark the start of the franchise.

FGK has promised more than £250m of investment over the first eight years of the franchise. This includes a new fleet of 50 trains, which will be introduced in 2006.

But David Mallender, PR manager for transpennine express, has warned passengers not to expect immediate improvements on the service.

He said: "It is all about making incremental progress. People will not find the trains or timetables have changed to start with, but now we are running the service, and we are confident that in 12 months time people will be saying we have made a difference.

"We want to improve customer services, have better training and development of staff and we are going to make sure that trains are cleaned more often, both inside and out."