THE widely-disliked Pacer diesel units are set to disappear from Cumbria's railway lines, following the arrival of a new fleet of 100mph trains.

Arriva, which takes over the Northern Rail franchise in April, has signed a £490m contract for 281 carriages to be built by CAF in Spain and leased from Eversholt Rail Group. The first should be delivered by October 2018.

Features include air conditioning, audio and visual on-board passenger information systems, power sockets for charging phones and laptops, CCTV and free wifi.

Chris Burchell, managing director of Arriva’s UK trains division, said: “The contract signing allows us to replace the outdated, unpopular Pacer trains as soon as possible.”

Pacers are often used on the Carlisle-Newcastle line and less frequently on the Carlisle-Whitehaven-Barrow route.

They are disliked by many passengers because of their poor ride, slow acceleration and unreliability.

Pacers were built by British Rail between in the 1980s as a cheap way of replacing old diesel units.

They used the bodies of Leyland National buses, made at Lillyhall, Workington, mounted on a freight chassis.

Meanwhile, the RMT rail union has criticised the decision to award the contract for the new trains to a Spanish manufacturer rather than Bombardier in Derby.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “This is yet another kick in the teeth for train building in the nation that gave the railways to the world. It is nothing short of scandalous this contract has been sent overseas.”