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I don't really buy the reason of merging the former First North Western and Arriva Trains Northern franchisees was set up to reduce the number of rail companies. Prior to December 2004 the Transpennine Express franchisee was a subsiduary of Arriva Trains Northern, rather than an individual company. So at that time all the current Northern Rail and Transpennine Express services were operated by two companies (which incidentally had staff that were always taking part in industrial action)
Although I accept that as the reason for London Midland and East Midlands Trains. As two companies are now running routes that were previously operated by three companies; Central Trains, Midland Mainline and Silverlink. Although, at the same time as that happened an additional train company was created by taking the Cross Country routes off Virgin to form Arriva Cross Country.
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