They have 17 x 153s currently and there's some doubling up already so I would have thought 14 x 2 car Sprinters would be at least close to being adequate replacement.
Does that include the 153 for the Barton on Humber branch? (genuine question)
Whilst 28 coaches (i.e. 14x156) is obviously more than 17 (17x153), there are some where two coaches would be overkill (Barton!).
Looking at the franchise from when East Midlands Trains won it in 2007 to now there hasn't really been much improvement compared to other franchises that have run for so long.
The main benefit has been the half hourly Sheffield services as previously they were hourly. Also the hourly Matlock to Newark Castle service, reopening of Corby station and introduction of some later services.
At the same time however there hasn't been any new trains ordered for the franchise and all the rolling stock remains the same with a couple of trains cascaded from other operators. All the trains apart from the Meridians are at least 25 years old with some now more than 40 years old.
Also services such as the Burton and Barnsley services have been cut, the Lincoln to Birmingham was cut to Lincoln to Leicester and the 170s were replaced by 156s, the Crewe to Derby 170s have become 153s and the Norwich to Liverpool 170s have become 158s.
Most of it is down to the DfT but it does seem like the 2007-2019 East Midlands Franchise has been a rather boring uneventful franchise where little has been done to improve services.
Pretty much everything you complain about is due to the DfT, yes.
EMT have:
- Secured additional 222s (from HT)
- Secured additional 156s (from Northern), which permitted many of the Liverpool - Nottingham services to be doubled to four coaches, rather than the two coach 158s that were all that they had initially
- Increased the Matlock service to hourly and extended it to Nottingham (from the awkward timetable which Central Trains ran from Matlock to Derby)
- Doubled the frequency from Nottingham to Newark
- Increased the number of London services (with a fifth path per hour due to the Corby services)
- Doubled the Sheffield - London service and gradually sped the "second" service up too
- HSTs to Lincoln Market (and general beefing up of services for such occasions)
- The first through services from Lincoln to London
- 222s to Liverpool for Grand National days
- HSTs to Skegness
Okay, it's not as "exciting" as Central Trains (with the "random unit generator", the eclectic mixture of through services, the complicated timetables) but it's been a fairly stable simple progressive franchise - I'd rather have "a rather boring uneventful franchise" like EMT than that mess of Central Trains.
It's also worth comparing the "Provincial" EMT services with equivalent Northern/ Wales&Borders/FGW services during the same period - the fact that EMT haven't found the money to replace Sprinters and have an ageing fleet is not unique.
(LM were able to replace most Sprinters but that's because of the way that the Central Trains stock was split up - for whatever reasons they got dozens of 170s from the "divorce" whilst EMT got the 156s and 158s - but the stagnating "Provincial" fleet of Northern/ Wales&Borders/ FGW has been fairly similar to EMT during the timeframe we are talking about)
Absolutely right.
We're told having a "privatised" railway means innovation and private sector investment, yet unless the DfT build infrastructure and service improvements into the franchising and contracting process, they won't happen.
The new franchise consultation is equally un-imaginative:
Nothing about specifying re-opening of Leicester to Burton for passengers;
Nothing about upgrading Derby to Crewe
There has been improvement but, given that the economics of running more services on most of the non-London services mean that you'll need some additional subsidy before you start to increase frequencies in areas like Lincolnshire. That goes for pretty much all "Provincial" services (TPE being a rare exception).
As for the "unimaginative" consultation... if there's no money/ resource to electrify the MML (despite it being a proper commitment for some time) then I think we can forget about finding money/ resource to open new lines like Leicester to Burton - we need to focus on improving what we have with what we have rather than daydreaming about additional lines (since, realistically, we can't handle a long running commitment to electrification, new lines are probably off the agenda).