Yorkshire Metro-sponsored services. First North Western (descended from Regional Railways North West) had eight Class 158s, which were based at Newton Heath and used on various mid- to long-distance routes, which were transferred to Leeds Neville Hill depot to join the rest of the 158 fleet at the start of the Northern Rail franchise. A number of 158s have been sponsored by Merseytravel despite the fact that they do not go near Merseyside; the sponsorship arrangement was to ensure that Class 156 DMUs were cascaded from West Yorkshire to the busiest Merseyside services. During 2006, First TransPennine Express started to replace its Class 158s with newer Class 185 Desiro and Class 170 Turbostar units. The Class 158s were subsequently transferred to Northern Rail, Central Trains, South West Trains and First Great Western. Following a franchise change, all Northern units were passed to Arriva Rail North in April 2016. Throughout the 2010s, Northern conducted a refurbishment programme on its Class 158s, starting with the three-car DMUs and later progressing to the two-car members of the fleet. In 2018, Northern acquired an additional eight Class 158 units from Abellio Scotrail; the first few units being transferred during February 2018 while the remainder followed in December 2018. On 1 March 2020, the units transferred to the franchise's new operator Northern Trains. South Western Railway Currently South Western Railway operates Class 158s from and to Waterloo; and on the Salisbury to via service. South Western Railway also operates Class 159 units. Virgin CrossCountry Five units (158747–158751) were delivered to British Rail's InterCity business unit to operate services from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh via the West Coast Main Line. All five Class 158s were transferred to Virgin CrossCountry as a result of the privatisation process; these were subsequently used on services between Swindon and Birmingham via Stroud. During 2003, the company's Class 158s were displaced by the newly-built and high speed diesel tilting trains. Liveries Accidents and incidents On 3 December 2005, unit 158856 was involved in an accident at in which two passengers were killed whilst crossing the line. The RAIB criticised the risk assessment at the crossing as inadequate. On 1 February 2008, the same unit 158856 collided with debris from an overline footbridge, which had just been accidentally demolished by a tipper lorry, near Barrow-upon-Soar. The lorry driver had forgotten to fully lower the tipper body after delivering materials to a site