Previously Class 175 "Coradias" operated the services provided by First North Western and TPE until 2006. Class 158s can also occasionally be seen on the route as a replacement for booked units. Services over the line are operated by the new Northern franchise, having taken over from First TransPennine Express in April 2016, however, only one service a day continues past Oxenholme to Manchester Airport. On 4 June 2018 Arriva Rail North announced that all trains on the line would be suspended and replaced by a bus service to allow for driver training. The service suspension was initially to be for 2 weeks until 18 June 2018 but this was later extended until 2 July 2018. However, on 17 June 2018 charter train operator West Coast Railways introduced its own services on the line, which attracted substantially more passengers than the regular Arriva Rail North services. The reason for this may be that no fares were charged to passengers. The £5,500 per day reported cost (total approx £80,000 over two weeks of operation) is said to have been paid for by the Department for Transport. Electrification proposal In August 2013, the Department for Transport announced that the line was to be electrified as part of the wider scheme to wire many other routes in the North West of England such as the Manchester–Preston line. The £16 million scheme would have allowed through trains from and points south to use electric stock (such as the Class 350 "Desiro" units) rather than the current DMUs and also improve capacity on the route to allow new direct services to London Euston. Funding was approved in 2014 and electrification was planned to be undertaken in CP6, which covers 2019–2024. However, on 20 July 2017 it was announced that electrification of the Windermere branch had been cancelled. As an alternative, Northern originally planned to utilise multiple units on the route; these are electric multiple units converted to function as bi-mode units, which would operate under electric power between Manchester and Oxenholme and then under diesel power on the Windermere branch. However, it was later announced that new Class 331 'Civity' units would be installed with batteries with trials starting from 2021. Platform 3 at Oxenholme Lake District was electrified in 2018 despite the cancelled branch line electrification. The line in fiction The branch line appears in fiction in Arthur Ransome's children's novel Pigeon Post; with