A travel giant has confirmed services linking the North East to the North West disrupted over the Christmas period have now been fully reinstated.

Keen-eyed commuters in Leeds have noticed this week that services linking the North East to parts of North Yorkshire and the North West.

This comes after the new hourly service, which links Saltburn with York, Leeds, and Manchester Airport, faced a slew of timetable cancellations in December last year.

TransPenning Express (TPE) have now confirmed their services, some of which were temporarily removed at the start to transition to a new timetable, have now been fully reinstated.

Read more: North East rail route extension already hit by raft of cancellations

In a statement today, a TPE spokesperson said: “Our new timetable, introduced in December 2022, has brought in a range of enhancements for customers including a boost to connectivity between key destinations.

“These enhancements included the extension of Manchester Airport – Leeds – Redcar Central services through to Saltburn.

"Some of these Saltburn calls were temporarily removed at the start of the timetable change to help the new timetable to bed in and to allow us to focus on providing greater reliability across the route.

“Those services have now been fully reinstated and customers are now benefitting from additional calls to and from Saltburn.”

Residents who first spotted the returning sevices on a Leeds station departures were left overjoyed at the news.

In a social media post, one said: "Great to see Saltburn on the departures boards from Leeds (yes it is actually running.)"

While another confirming its return said: "Seen it in Saltburn yesterday."

Read more: Two people rushed to hospital following crash on the A169

Adding to this, another delighted but wary resident said: "Goes to Manchester Airport via Manchester City, York, Leeds. Quite a busy, important line. I used it to go to the airport and it was a great service. Worry is its reliability."

Previously, many services linking to and from Saltburn station, to Manchester Victoria, Machester Airport, and York had been removed by TPE.

Before the introduction of the new timetable, only the first and last service of the day to Redcar from Manchester Airport was being extended through to Saltburn.

It said this was done due to concerns around staffing issues concerning the availability of train crews.

Back in December, Tees Valleys Mayor Ben Houchen said: “I’m very pleased that the new timetable has extended more services to Saltburn after years of tireless effort to secure the route for the people of Saltburn and East Cleveland.

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“It gives people better access for direct travel to York, Leeds and Manchester – and I’m pleased TransPennine has committed to the change. 

“We’re pushing on with crucial upgrades to all of our stations across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool to give people the rail network they deserve and need.

“It’s frustrating that weather and political disruption has led to cancellations and disruptions just as the service is being introduced, but these are short term issues and the medium and long term are bright for better connectivity for local people.”