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East Midlands franchise prospectus

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class26

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I was referring to Birmingham to Nottingham, and as 220's already operate at very fast speeds on Birmingham to Derby, I assumed that 222's would be fine.

Are there are severe speed restrictions Derby - Nottingham?

Yes, but for all trains. Derby to B`ham there is alot of 120mph (with 50 through Burton) so the 220`could definitely make use of their acceleration and higher speed.
 
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MichaelAMW

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Sheet Stores is 10mph one way and 15mph the other, and the curve round to Trent is 30mph. Between Derby and Sheet Stores most of the line is 100mph or possibly a bit more, with lower speeds on the Nottingham branch. There are no differential speed restrictions. Even if it isn't possible to get over 100mph the greater acceleration of the 222 ought to shave a minute or two off this section. Several evening London-Nottingham trains reverse there and run to Derby, either empty or in service, so it would be possible to compare their timings with the 170s that work the hourly non-stop.

There are some differential speeds between Sheet Stores and Derby, up to 110HST on the Up and 115HST on the Down, with the normal speed up to 100. 80 Trent to Nottingham.

The 2315 St Pancras to Derby is a non-stop 222 and is given 19 minutes; the Cardiff trains generally get 21 minutes.
 

NotATrainspott

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Yes, but for all trains. Derby to B`ham there is alot of 120mph (with 50 through Burton) so the 229`could definitely make use of their acceleration and higher speed.

Why is the limit so low through Burton? A reduction like that has a massive impact on journey times.
 

43074

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Sorry to dig this thread up, but attached is a sample of the proposed 6tph pattern - I stumbled across it on a Rail Users group on Facebook, but I've also seen it referenced elsewhere.

In summary:
2tph Corby calling at Luton Airport (1tph), Luton (the other tph), Bedford, Wellingborough, Kettering & Corby
1tph Nottingham - calls Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, East Mids Parkway & Nottingham
1tph Nottingham - calls Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Beeston & Nottingham
1tph Sheffield - Leicester, East Mids Parkway, Derby, Chesterfield & Sheffield
1tph Sheffield - Leicester, Loughborough, Long Eaton, Derby, Chesterfield & Sheffield.

It doesn't seem to have extra stops at peak times, but it's disappointing that Nottingham in 90 won't be achieved any time soon, and also that to get from, say, Loughborough to Bedford requires 2 changes.
 

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whhistle

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Honestly in many ways Birmingham to Nottingham is the perfect route for 153s...
No route is suitable for the 153's any more. The only route they need to take is the scrap yard.
Yes, there are many routes which need minimal coaches, but todays people want modern trains, not reconditioned units. Sorry for the neg.
 

HH

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People want new cars, holidays in Malibu and country estates as well. They don't usually get them...
 

DanTrain

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In summary:
2tph Corby calling at Luton Airport (1tph), Luton (the other tph), Bedford, Wellingborough, Kettering & Corby
1tph Nottingham - calls Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, East Mids Parkway & Nottingham
1tph Nottingham - calls Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Beeston & Nottingham
1tph Sheffield - Leicester, East Mids Parkway, Derby, Chesterfield & Sheffield
1tph Sheffield - Leicester, Loughborough, Long Eaton, Derby, Chesterfield & Sheffield.

Is this serious? What sort of service is this. It adds a completely superflous extra stop to the Sheffield fast, meaning EMT can not longer roll out their glossy bilboards of '2 hours to London'. It removes any connection whatsoever from Sheffield to the southern towns or to Thamelink, cutting out Luton Airport. Nottingham doesn't get a proper fast either, with stops a Market Harborough which have always seemed unnessesary to me on both Notts trains. 2tph to Corby, whilst great for connectivity to London, seems to me like a waste of rolling stock and paths, soaking up all of the stops nearer London and so providing frankly appauling connections north. Clearly the concept of a 'fast' and a 'slow' service has eluded the EMT timetablers whatsoever, instead this is just a bunch of semifasts, stopping at useless places like East Mids Parkway on a fast service.

Sorry, rant over :)
 

ashworth

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I thought almost the same!

Why do both trains each hour to Nottingham need to call at Market Harborough?
Why don’t any trains to Sheffield call at Kettering or Bedford. Doesn’t anyone from south of Leicester ever travel north. For example Bedford or Luton to Loughborough, Derby or Sheffield will require 2 changes of train.

Many years ago there used to be fast and slow trains from Nottingham and Derby to London where the fast overtook the slow at Leicester with cross platform changes. The fast train then ran non stop to London whilst the slow train stopped at Market Harborough, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford, Luton and St Albans. Perhaps with the Corby services every one of those stops wouldn’t now be needed. However, north of Leicester the slow trains could stop at Loughborough, East Midlands Parkway, Long Eaton/Beeston to allow fast trains to both Nottingham and Derby/ Sheffield.
 

tbtc

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Sorry to dig this thread up, but attached is a sample of the proposed 6tph pattern - I stumbled across it on a Rail Users group on Facebook, but I've also seen it referenced elsewhere.

In summary:
2tph Corby calling at Luton Airport (1tph), Luton (the other tph), Bedford, Wellingborough, Kettering & Corby
1tph Nottingham - calls Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, East Mids Parkway & Nottingham
1tph Nottingham - calls Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Beeston & Nottingham
1tph Sheffield - Leicester, East Mids Parkway, Derby, Chesterfield & Sheffield
1tph Sheffield - Leicester, Loughborough, Long Eaton, Derby, Chesterfield & Sheffield.

It doesn't seem to have extra stops at peak times, but it's disappointing that Nottingham in 90 won't be achieved any time soon, and also that to get from, say, Loughborough to Bedford requires 2 changes.

Is this serious? What sort of service is this. It adds a completely superflous extra stop to the Sheffield fast, meaning EMT can not longer roll out their glossy bilboards of '2 hours to London'. It removes any connection whatsoever from Sheffield to the southern towns or to Thamelink, cutting out Luton Airport. Nottingham doesn't get a proper fast either, with stops a Market Harborough which have always seemed unnessesary to me on both Notts trains. 2tph to Corby, whilst great for connectivity to London, seems to me like a waste of rolling stock and paths, soaking up all of the stops nearer London and so providing frankly appauling connections north. Clearly the concept of a 'fast' and a 'slow' service has eluded the EMT timetablers whatsoever, instead this is just a bunch of semifasts, stopping at useless places like East Mids Parkway on a fast service.

Sorry, rant over :)

I thought almost the same!

Why do both trains each hour to Nottingham need to call at Market Harborough?
Why don’t any trains to Sheffield call at Kettering or Bedford. Doesn’t anyone from south of Leicester ever travel north. For example Bedford or Luton to Loughborough, Derby or Sheffield will require 2 changes of train.

Many years ago there used to be fast and slow trains from Nottingham and Derby to London where the fast overtook the slow at Leicester with cross platform changes. The fast train then ran non stop to London whilst the slow train stopped at Market Harborough, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford, Luton and St Albans. Perhaps with the Corby services every one of those stops wouldn’t now be needed. However, north of Leicester the slow trains could stop at Loughborough, East Midlands Parkway, Long Eaton/Beeston to allow fast trains to both Nottingham and Derby/ Sheffield.

Is this proposal really so terrible? It gives Sheffield/ Nottingham/ Derby something closer to a half hourly London service - rather than the slightly unbalanced service that those cities get. Presumably there's a much bigger market in doing that than worrying about the number of people doing journeys like Long Eaton to Luton or Kettering to Beeston (much as us enthusiasts like to focus on smaller markets).

Sheffield doesn't have direct off-peak services to Bedford/ Luton etc, but then Sheffields services have been non-stop south of Leicester for a while, so no real change there.

Why do both trains each hour to Nottingham need to call at Market Harborough? Well, something does - the locals will want a half hourly service, but if you stop one Sheffield and one Nottingham there then that means giving those cities a 15/45 split to London, which isn't much use.

Talking of 15/45 splits, I don't see how we can have a "Nottingham in 90" and a good stopping pattern at Luton Airport, Luton, Bedford, Market Harborough etc without giving Nottingham/ Derby/ Sheffield just one "fast" service to London - e.g. stopping only at Leicester (and a tediously slow one that might have eight or nine intermediate stops and run so slowly that it almost gets overtaken by the one "fast" service). Presumably someone at EMT has data to show that passengers would prefer two reasonably fast services per hour - which may be why the two Sheffields services are being spread out better with the East Midlands Parkway stop moving to the current "fast", which speeds up the current "slow", so that the two services should run much better spread out than the current xx:41 and xx:59 arrivals in the Steel City - meaning three trains from Derby arriving in Sheffield in less than twenty minutes, then only one arrival in over forty minutes). There's broadly similar xx:55 and xx:18 arrivals into Nottingham.

If it wasn't for Corby, I'd suggest a half hourly Leicester - London "stopper", with the remaining four services per hour running non-stop. But whilst the Corby service can deal with Wellingborough/ Kettering, there still needs to be two services an hour stopping at Market Harborough (which Corby trains obviously can't help with), and something allowing journey opportunities from Market Harborough to intermediate stations.

Given the lack of paths south of Bedford, the two track sections, the need to give a simple timetable, the desire for Leicester to have a well-spaced four/hour to London... I'd say that this looks an okay timetable. I might be tempted to slow down the other Nottingham service (currently non-stop south of Market Harborough) with alternate stops at Bedford and one of the Luton stations, but this seems a fairly robust compromise in the circumstances.
 
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The proposal is not terrible but it seems to be designed to provide moderately fast services to many places rather than fast services to fewer places and it's not obvious to me that's the way to go. The 2tph to SHF and Nottingham today are actually alternative fast and slow trains: they get their fast headline times by missing stops and therefore have to fall outside a regular 30 minute 'taktfahrplan' clockface times either at the top or bottom of the route.
But fast trains to the centre of cities (pace InterCity in the 80s and 90s) bring in loads of revenue so it's highly likely that this nwe pattern would reduce revenue (albeit increasing traffic at smaller stations such as Market Harborough and so on which will see slightly higher frequency). 30 min frequency to Corby is clearly quite generous, when Kettering would be a good turn round point (Bedford is far too constrained to be and, slightly strangely, none of the plans put forward so far do anything about this).
As Ashworth notes, the connectional timetable first introduced by NX which used Leicester as a changeover point between fasts and slows seems to me the one to beat, with 'extra' trains to Corby slotted in around it once the branch is electrified. This timetable offered good journey times to/from all stations, albeit with one change at Leicester for some, and no doubt could be adapted to offer the 2hours 7 mins time to SHF by making that the core train once an hour that is allowed dwell time of just 2 mins at Leicester and also offers connections to/from all stations to Nottingham and to/from all stations to Market Harborough with a train that leaves c. 3-4 minutes after the fast. Sure, it's a bit of a challenge to operate (XC services wouldn't be able offer to connect very well and one might have to concede 4 mins dwell at Leicester to keep people on board) but our Dutch/Swiss colleagues provide something like this reliably and have been doing so for over 30 years!
 

al green

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Here is a copy of my submission to DfT. It addresses some of the problems raised in this thread, although, of course, it was written many weeks ago. I have circulated it to several people in the industry and campaign groups who have generally welcomed the ideas.
 

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MG11

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Hi. Does anyone know if the Connect services (Liverpool - Peterborough, Ely, Norwich) are still rumoured to be merged into the TPE network?
 

LowLevel

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Hi. Does anyone know if the Connect services (Liverpool - Peterborough, Ely, Norwich) are still rumoured to be merged into the TPE network?

There are more rumours than you can shake a stick at. Split and move to TPE. Not split and move to TPE. Not split and not move to TPE. Merge with Cross Country 170 routes and have a recast of routes within the EM franchise to give Birmingham Norwich and Nottingham Cambridge services if desired.

No one will know anything until the invitation to tender is published
 

Kneedown

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Rumour amongst staff was that it was to be issued in April and published in May. We're now in June. A lot of staff are on tenterhooks at the minute.
 

SC43090

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EMT have been given an contract extension until at least August 2019.....

Information as come from a press notice from Stagecoach Group this morning.....

SC 43090
 

ChiefPlanner

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People want new cars, holidays in Malibu and country estates as well. They don't usually get them...

I think Withnail got it right - "I want the finest wines available to mankind , I want them here - and I want them now" (or similar) ...
 

Class 170101

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For the record also in the public domain

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.c...ins-franchise-extension-with-dft-until-august

12.02.19
Stagecoach secures East Midlands Trains franchise extension with DfT until August
Stagecoach has reached a new agreement with the DfT to continue running East Midlands Trains for at least another five months.

With the current East Midlands Trains franchise due to end at the beginning of March, Stagecoach will now run the franchise until at least August 2019, and its short-term extension with the DfT includes the option to extend this agreement by up to six rail periods.

In a written statement to Parliament, rail minister Andrew Jones said the operator had achieved good performance levels and passenger satisfaction levels during the time it had been operating the franchise.

Jones said this deal would allow a “smooth transition” into the next competitively-tendered franchise, and in the next few months the minister expects to see a £150,000 investment into improving accessibility at stations and a simplified application process for Delay Repay.

Under the new agreement, Stagecoach and East Midlands Trains will support the delivery of the £1.5bn Midland Main Line upgrade, and the continuation of the investment programme to improve stations and trains.

The agreement, which means Stagecoach will run the franchise till at least 18 August, also includes a commitment to continue the rollout of smart ticketing in March 2019 as part of National Rail’s wider programme.

Martin Griffiths, chief executive of Stagecoach Group, said: “We are pleased to have been given the opportunity by the DfT to extend our successful tenure of the East Midlands Trains franchise until at least August.

“We are very proud of the improvements we have delivered for our customers and our people over the past 11 years, and we look forward to continuing this successful track record.”

The firm said it has proved to be the most punctual inter-city rail operator over the past decade, and provided over £200m in payments from Stagecoach to the taxpayers over its 11-year period.

Griffiths added: “In addition, East Midlands Trains will be focused on ensuring readiness for the subsequent franchise that is currently being tendered by the DfT, including helping to put in place plans for extra seats from 2020.”
 

superalbs

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156497 has received a slightly wonky version of the East Midlands Trains livery, as seen on Facebook.
 

MML

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Any chance the 3 ex Grand Central 6-car HSTs will be extended to 8-car as part of the franchise extension ?
It would provide 8-car standardisation to the EMT HST fleet and short-term capacity improvement.
There are at least 6 Mk3 coaches in store off-lease and no longer required by GWR. Is a short-term lease possible ?
 

bunnahabhain

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Any chance the 3 ex Grand Central 6-car HSTs will be extended to 8-car as part of the franchise extension ?
It would provide 8-car standardisation to the EMT HST fleet and short-term capacity improvement.
There are at least 6 Mk3 coaches in store off-lease and no longer required by GWR. Is a short-term lease possible ?
Unlikely as the 6 car sets can almost match Class 222 performance and as they generally sit on the semi fast diagrams and will be on standard Skegness diagrams come May they need that acceleration.
 

Aictos

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There's probably a good reason but could as there exists a semi fast Nottingham which stops at Bedford and Luton Airport Parkway, why not have a semi fast Sheffield call at Kettering and Luton?
 

edwin_m

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There's probably a good reason but could as there exists a semi fast Nottingham which stops at Bedford and Luton Airport Parkway, why not have a semi fast Sheffield call at Kettering and Luton?
I think South Yorkshire paid for the second Sheffield service to run fast between London and Leicester. If this was a semi-fast too then the timetable would be a lot more regular with better intervals between trains at many stations.
 

A0wen

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Given the lack of paths south of Bedford, the two track sections, the need to give a simple timetable, the desire for Leicester to have a well-spaced four/hour to London... I'd say that this looks an okay timetable. I might be tempted to slow down the other Nottingham service (currently non-stop south of Market Harborough) with alternate stops at Bedford and one of the Luton stations, but this seems a fairly robust compromise in the circumstances.

If you were going to stop the second Nottingham anywhere, then Kettering would make most sense.

Firstly because it would reinstate a half-hourly connection between Kettering & Market Harboro which was lost when the Corby service was introduced. Secondly, because it's the most 'logical' interchange point i.e. only passengers from Corby would have to "double back" to head north - which is the situation today. And lastly, because I think the line speed through Kettering is the lowest of the 3, so the impact of stopping there is less than it would be at Bedford or Luton.
 

Senex

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If you were going to stop the second Nottingham anywhere, then Kettering would make most sense.

Firstly because it would reinstate a half-hourly connection between Kettering & Market Harboro which was lost when the Corby service was introduced. Secondly, because it's the most 'logical' interchange point i.e. only passengers from Corby would have to "double back" to head north - which is the situation today. And lastly, because I think the line speed through Kettering is the lowest of the 3, so the impact of stopping there is less than it would be at Bedford or Luton.
Luton and Kettering both come down to 90, so no difference. Bedford is 110 down (b***** platform!) and 125 up.
 

Failed Unit

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Just reading the various posts about the Southeastern Franchise and lack of progress. (Potentially another extension or returning to the operator of last resort). I must admit it is concerning about this franchise.

If this follows suit, when will we ever get movement on the following.

1. HST replacement. Private Eye (a quality railway journal) seems to think that the dithering is good as if no trains are ordered then if the line gets electrified then they could have EMUs rather than bi-modes. Irrespective dft specifying rolling stock is bad. Look at the exceptionally expensive IEP or the uncomfortable and unreliable class 700.

2. Timetables. Lincolnshire has had a poor timetable since privatisation with no change during the following years. Although some may argue hourly on some of the routes is too frequent. The specification in the franchise gave us real hope of a decent service. If EMT follows south eastern of not doing anything. Will we ever see improvement? (LNER seem to be pressing ahead so hope isn’t lost)

3. 15x replacement. Again. Leaving DFT on charge of this is dangerous but EMT is short of stock. Many services are 153 operated but need at least a 156 to prevent people getting left behind. If no franchise is awarded will this just stop?

Worrying times as EMT needs investment , but the continuation of the current franchise isn’t helping. Stagecoach are doing a reasonable job but time is running out on the rolling stock in particular.
 

Burgerstahl

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1. Don’t know
2. Don’t know
3. Expect the 15X fleet to continue in service until the end of fossil fuel usage as a fuel for trains. (At least 20 more years).
 
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