The service provided rail links for major towns and cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull, Leeds, York, Scarborough, Cleethorpes, Middlesbrough and Newcastle upon Tyne.

The decision to bring the service under the control of the operator of last resort was described as temporary, and it was said to be the then-UK government's intention that the franchise would be privatised again.

[7] On 11 November 2007, the services from the Manchester station group to Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central via the West Coast Main Line formerly operated by Virgin CrossCountry were transferred to First TransPennine Express.

[15] On 11 May 2023, after months of continued cancellations and service disruptions, the DfT announced that the company's contract would not be renewed with TPE ceasing operations on 28 May 2023.

[23] Originally it was planned after all the new trains in the Nova fleet entered service, 22 of the 51 Class 185 DMUs would be returned to Eversholt Rail Group.

[27] Reportedly, the franchise also aimed to reorientation its operations towards inter-city services over its inter-urban routes, although it shall continue to transport large numbers of commuters regardless.

As a means of addressing these factors, TPE launched Project Nova, under which the vast majority of their existing rolling stock would be replaced by new-build trainsets with greater capacity.

[27] The Nova 1 fleet had originally been ordered by TPE's predecessor as part of plans to bolster route capacity by 80%; having contracted with Hitachi Rail Europe for the latter to supply 19 five-car bi-mode trainsets.

Davis also noted that, in the event of largescale electrification being funded and implemented, the Class 802s could have some of their engines removed to reduce roughly 15% of their weight and thus raise their efficiency.

[27] Davis observed the Class 397 procurement to be a natural fit in light of TPE's desire to rapidly increase capacity and CAF's reputation for speedily producing limited batches of trains.

Davis claims that the expense of constructing DMUs suitable for inter-city services was prohibitive in comparison, and notes that it is to be operated as a fixed-formation push-pull train, not relying on run-arounds as historically performed by locomotive-hauled sets.

[27] From the onset, it was planned for these to be hauled by a small fleet of Class 68 locomotives, requiring minor control-oriented modifications by Stadler to do so.

These include Arnside, Barrow-in-Furness, Birchwood, Burneside, Carnforth, Grange-over-Sands, Kendal, Staveley, Ulverston, Warrington Central and Windermere.

[39] The new EMUs and loco-hauled sets were to be maintained by Alstom, on behalf of TransPennine Express, at Longsight (Manchester), Edge Hill (Liverpool) and Polmadie (Glasgow).