East Midlands franchise prospectus

[snowball]

Sorry if there's already a thread about this. I don't normally follow franchising discussions.

East Midlands prospectus published:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/east-midlands-franchise-competition-prospectus

The following sections set out in greater detail the services and outcomes that the Department wishes to procure for passengers, and outline some of the important franchise aspirations. They set out:
• the fundamental importance to all bidders of putting the passenger first and some of the key passenger improvements that we expect
• the Department’s objectives for the franchise and the delivery of the franchise describing some of the key qualities we will look for in our new private sector partner
• a commercial proposition that aspires to deliver Government policy and desired outcomes from the rail network, and represents value for money to the fare-paying passenger and the taxpayer
• the commercial structure for the franchise that will balance taxpayer and Government interests, against providing incentives for private sector investment and innovation

 

[Verulamius]

No mention of electrification north of Kettering/Corby.

However four tracking Bedford to Kettering and doubling Kettering to Corby is commented upon.

 

[gerryuk]

Its all about the East Midlands, improving services to help businesses, towns and cities prosper in the East Midlands.
They seem to have forgot that the biggest city that these trains serve is Sheffield. Sheffield is not in the East Midlands, its in Yorkshire and doesn’t get a mention. How bazaar.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There are frequent references to "high quality trains", which suggests DfT are not expecting the current ones to be retained.
That surely means bi-modes if there is no date for electrification.
Franchise duration is "7 to 15 years" which doesn't tell us a lot.
15 years takes us to 2033 which is when HS2 phase 2 is supposed to open.

 

[ivanhoe]

Its all about the East Midlands, improving services to help businesses, towns and cities prosper in the East Midlands.
They seem to have forgot that the biggest city that these trains serve is Sheffield. Sheffield is not in the East Midlands, its in Yorkshire and doesn’t get a mention. How bazaar.

They get two trains an hour to London and EMT link Sheffield to Manchester,Liverpool and East Anglia. They do okay out of the current franchise. You could argue that for railway purposes(MML) , it is in the East Midlands unless you'd rather the trains terminate at Chesterfield!

 

[Raul_Duke]

They seem to have forgot that the biggest city that these trains serve is Sheffield. Sheffield is not in the East Midlands, its in Yorkshire and doesn’t get a mention. How bazaar.

I think London may possibly be bigger.

Also Nottingham.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I think London may possibly be bigger.

Also Nottingham.

Without checking I'm pretty certain that Sheffield is bigger than Nottingham. That said Nottingham is regarded as being the capital of the East Midlands and rightly so.

 

[Andrew1395]

Is Nottingham bigger than Sheffield? I doubt it. Nottingham station seems too big for the city, what with 2 or 3 car dmus running to Birmingham as part of its Inter City offer! Is there any mention of how to make some practical use of East Midlands Parkway? The railway station with 3,000 students on its doorstep at Sutton Bonnington and not one local bus serves it.

Just googled the populations. Nottingham 280,000 - Sheffield 530,000

 

[RichmondCommu]

Just googled the populations. Nottingham 280,000 - Sheffield 530,000

In all fairness once you start adding places like Beeston it becomes some what bigger!

 

[muddythefish]

Without checking I'm pretty certain that Sheffield is bigger than Nottingham. That said Nottingham is regarded as being the capital of the East Midlands and rightly so.

Is that because Sheffield is in S Yorks?

 

[adrock1976]

A way to improve regional connectivity would be to reinstate the Cleethorpes/Lincoln Central services to Birmingham via Leicester. This was a useful service that got cut after the carve up of the former Regional Railways Central/Central Trains franchise in 2007.

Depending upon stock availability (I would like to add, and also viewing from when High Speed Rail reaches that part of the woods), there could be an Intercity service extended every 2 hours from Sheffield Midland to Leeds City, calling at maybe Meadowhall Interchange (for HS2), Barnsley, Wakefield Kirkgate, and Leeds City. On summer Saturdays and Sundays, perhaps 2 or 3 journeys each way could be further extended to Carlisle calling at Shipley, Skipton, Hellifield (to provide connections from Manchester via Bolton and Blackburn), Settle, Appleby, and Carlisle.

The opposite hour to be extended from Sheffield Midland every 2 hours to York, calling at maybe Meadowhall Interchange (for HS2), Rotherham Central (or a reopened Rotherham Masborough), Pontefract Baghill, and York. It could be further extended on summer Saturdays and Sundays (2 or 3 journeys each way) to Scarborough, calling Malton, Seamer, and Scarborough.

 

[MCR247]

Just googled the populations. Nottingham 280,000 - Sheffield 530,000

Nottingham is a bigger urban area by about 100,000 the city boundary is just very tightly drawn for some reason

 

[RichmondCommu]

Is that because Sheffield is in S Yorks?

I don't think anyone said it wasn't unless I've missed something.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is Nottingham bigger than Sheffield? I doubt it. Nottingham station seems too big for the city, what with 2 or 3 car dmus running to Birmingham as part of its Inter City offer!

Transferring a few short DMU operated routes from Central Trains to XC was never meant to imply they became Inter City operations...

 

[RichmondCommu]

A way to improve regional connectivity would be to reinstate the Cleethorpes/Lincoln Central services to Birmingham via Leicester. This was a useful service that got cut after the carve up of the former Regional Railways Central/Central Trains franchise in 2007.

Depending upon stock availability (I would like to add, and also viewing from when High Speed Rail reaches that part of the woods), there could be an Intercity service extended every 2 hours from Sheffield Midland to Leeds City, calling at maybe Meadowhall Interchange (for HS2), Barnsley, Wakefield Kirkgate, and Leeds City. On summer Saturdays and Sundays, perhaps 2 or 3 journeys each way could be further extended to Carlisle calling at Shipley, Skipton, Hellifield (to provide connections from Manchester via Bolton and Blackburn), Settle, Appleby, and Carlisle.

Just out of interest why do you refer to Leeds as Leeds City and Sheffield as Sheffield Midland? I'm pretty certain that Sheffield Victoria closed in around 1970 and since then there has only been one Sheffield station.

 

[adrock1976]

Just out of interest why do you refer to Leeds as Leeds City and Sheffield as Sheffield Midland? I'm pretty certain that Sheffield Victoria closed in around 1970 and since then there has only been one Sheffield station.

If you read the first part of the sentence in parentheses in the second paragraph, you will find that I made a reference to when HS2 reaches that part of the woods.

I believe that the HS station in Leeds will be called Leeds New Lane, and also were there revised plans to use the site of the former Sheffield Victoria as the HS station?

Could somebody briefly clarify if that is the case, as I do not feel like wading my way though 935 posts in the "HS2 in the press" thread?

 

[swt_passenger]

There are no plans to reopen Sheffield Victoria in the latest HS2 announcements. I don't think there ever were any firm proposals.

 

[Deerfold]

Is there any mention of how to make some practical use of East Midlands Parkway? The railway station with 3,000 students on its doorstep at Sutton Bonnington and not one local bus serves it.

Apart from this one that's been running for the last year or so:

http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/m...-a453-villages-kegworth-and-the-wolds-865.pdf

Only 4/5 buses a day, but better than none.

If you read the first part of the sentence in parentheses in the second paragraph, you will find that I made a reference to when HS2 reaches that part of the woods.

I believe that the HS station in Leeds will be called Leeds New Lane, and also were there revised plans to use the site of the former Sheffield Victoria as the HS station?

The proposal to site the HS2 station at New Lane in Leeds was dropped in November 2015. The revised plans put the HS2 platforms immediately adjacent to the current station.

 

[7griffinjack]

Is Nottingham bigger than Sheffield? I doubt it.

Just googled the populations. Nottingham 280,000 - Sheffield 530,000

There's not much point in using the metropolitan borough population's as a third of Sheffield's lies within the peak district so incorporates villages miles out. When you incorporate the urban area (more appropriate than invisible boundaries) - Sheffield has a population of 685,000.

This falls short however to Nottingham's urban area of 744,000.

 

[tbtc]

Its all about the East Midlands, improving services to help businesses, towns and cities prosper in the East Midlands.
They seem to have forgot that the biggest city that these trains serve is Sheffield. Sheffield is not in the East Midlands, its in Yorkshire and doesn’t get a mention. How bazaar.

I think London may possibly be bigger.

I think Raul_Duke make a fair point here!

Is Nottingham bigger than Sheffield? I doubt it. Nottingham station seems too big for the city, what with 2 or 3 car dmus running to Birmingham as part of its Inter City offer!

In fairness, a three coach Turbostar from Nottingham to Birmingham will have more Standard Class seats than a four coach Voyager from Sheffield to Birmingham - plus the Voyager has to accommodate passengers from Newcastle/ Leeds etc to Birmingham too.

Is there any mention of how to make some practical use of East Midlands Parkway? The railway station with 3,000 students on its doorstep at Sutton Bonnington and not one local bus serves it

My theory on East Midlands Parkway is that the current services there are suppressed by lack of capacity on EMT services (look how few Standard Class seats does a four/five coach 222 have...).

If the TOC got 5x26m long 802s then there'd be a lot more seats, so more scope to stop services there.

If you stop more services there then you can start to provide a "turn up and go" service to London/ Leicester/ Nottingham/ Derby - i.e. enough to attract people off the M1.

Otherwise, the station is stuck with the awkward 15/45 minute gaps - and given how busy the M1 gets, I wouldn't want to risk getting stuck in traffic then having to wait three quarters of an hour for the next London train (or longer for the hourly Derby service).

In short, the station was built too soon, before the trains had sufficient capacity to do it justice.

A way to improve regional connectivity would be to reinstate the Cleethorpes/Lincoln Central services to Birmingham via Leicester. This was a useful service that got cut after the carve up of the former Regional Railways Central/Central Trains franchise in 2007.

Depending upon stock availability (I would like to add, and also viewing from when High Speed Rail reaches that part of the woods), there could be an Intercity service extended every 2 hours from Sheffield Midland to Leeds City, calling at maybe Meadowhall Interchange (for HS2), Barnsley, Wakefield Kirkgate, and Leeds City. On summer Saturdays and Sundays, perhaps 2 or 3 journeys each way could be further extended to Carlisle calling at Shipley, Skipton, Hellifield (to provide connections from Manchester via Bolton and Blackburn), Settle, Appleby, and Carlisle.

The opposite hour to be extended from Sheffield Midland every 2 hours to York, calling at maybe Meadowhall Interchange (for HS2), Rotherham Central (or a reopened Rotherham Masborough), Pontefract Baghill, and York. It could be further extended on summer Saturdays and Sundays (2 or 3 journeys each way) to Scarborough, calling Malton, Seamer, and Scarborough.

The "St Pancras - East Midlands - Settle - Carlisle" / "regular services to Pontefract Baghill" stuff really ought to be on a different thread.

(the hourly "Northern Connect" from Bradford to Nottingham will mean no chance of any extra fast services between Sheffield and Leeds - albeit it is intended to run via Westgate instead of Kirkgate)

 

[edwin_m]

If the TOC got 5x26m long 802s then there'd be a lot more seats, so more scope to stop services there.

I think a coupled pair of 5-car 802s might be too long to fit in St Pancras - a 10-car 222 takes most of the platform.

 

[ashworth]

My theory on East Midlands Parkway is that the current services there are suppressed by lack of capacity on EMT services (look how few Standard Class seats does a four/five coach 222 have...).

If the TOC got 5x26m long 802s then there'd be a lot more seats, so more scope to stop services there.

If you stop more services there then you can start to provide a "turn up and go" service to London/ Leicester/ Nottingham/ Derby - i.e. enough to attract people off the M1.

Otherwise, the station is stuck with the awkward 15/45 minute gaps - and given how busy the M1 gets, I wouldn't want to risk getting stuck in traffic then having to wait three quarters of an hour for the next London train (or longer for the hourly Derby service).

I agree with all of the above regarding lack of capacity on the trains and useage suppressed by the inconvenient timetabling. However, I think there are other reasons why the station is totally underused, especially in attracting people to park there as a park and ride station for travelling into Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.

East Midlands Parkway has a huge underused 850 space car park and yet it is £7.50 to park there and even £5 off peak. People may pay that price to park if they are travelling into London, but people won't pay that price plus the train fare for a park and ride facility into a local city. If there was plenty of capacity on the trains and a more regular interval timetable the price should be lowered to a nominal amount of perhaps £1 or £2 or even free if the car park was still not being filled to capacity.

Also, East Midlands Parkway has the potential to be used for leisure journeys to places other than London but the fares from there are rediculously high in comparison to the fares from Nottingham or Derby. There are no Day Return fares to destinations in the north like Manchester, Leeds, Chester or even Sheffield, meaning that it is almost twice the price to travel from East Midlands Parkway than it is from Nottingham. For example a Saturday trip to Manchester would cost you £41 from East Midlands Parkway when it is only £23 from Nottingham.

 

[edwin_m]

Even parking was free and the third train per hour stopped, who would drive to East Midlands Parkway for park and ride into Nottingham when they could carry on along the now uncongested A453 to the Clifton park and ride where there is a tram every few minutes? Although Derby and Leicester don't have this alternative the service is still insufficiently attractive for the short-distance park and ride market.

The reason the Parkway was built was to tap London traffic from the fairly affluent surrounding area, who previously drove (and probably still do) to somewhere like Grantham as easier to get to than the MML stations and with a faster train service. However Toton will offer much quicker London journeys than any of these stations, and will be at least as accessible by car, so I think it will reduce Parkway to a purely local station.

 

[unlevel42]

There's not much point in using the metropolitan borough population's as a third of Sheffield's lies within the peak district so incorporates villages miles out. When you incorporate the urban area (more appropriate than invisible boundaries) - Sheffield has a population of 685,000.

This falls short however to Nottingham's urban area of 744,000.

Which villages miles out?
High and Low Bradfield with a population of a few hundred?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am unconvinced that the MML would benefit from coupled short trains - it's a much shorter route than the GW and doesn't have quiet outer reaches in the same way so splitting/joining/portion working isn't a benefit. If they were going IEP, which would be a good idea at least to be able to get the filthy stinking diesel out of St P, I'd suggest fixed-formation 8 or 9-car.

 

[43096]

I am unconvinced that the MML would benefit from coupled short trains - it's a much shorter route than the GW and doesn't have quiet outer reaches in the same way so splitting/joining/portion working isn't a benefit. If they were going IEP, which would be a good idea at least to be able to get the filthy stinking diesel out of St P, I'd suggest fixed-formation 8 or 9-car.

The overheads on the MML are only fit for 100mph and would be costly to upgrade. Obviously this would be done as part of wider route electrification, but that seems to be off the agenda for some time (though not officially announced yet). So the solution has to be diesel and needs to be 125mph. Can AT300 do 125 on diesel?

 

[Kettledrum]

Transferring a few short DMU operated routes from Central Trains to XC was never meant to imply they became Inter City operations...

I assume you mean short train length and not short journey length. One of the "short DMU route" connects the cities of Nottingham - Derby - Birmingham - Cardiff so merit some aspects of an inter city operation for that length of journey (e.g. refreshment trolley comfortable seats and seat reservations. at least)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I think Raul_Duke

My theory on East Midlands Parkway is that the current services there are suppressed by lack of capacity on EMT services (look how few Standard Class seats does a four/five coach 222 have...).

If the TOC got 5x26m long 802s then there'd be a lot more seats, so more scope to stop services there.

If you stop more services there then you can start to provide a "turn up and go" service to London/ Leicester/ Nottingham/ Derby - i.e. enough to attract people off the M1.

Otherwise, the station is stuck with the awkward 15/45 minute gaps - and given how busy the M1 gets, I wouldn't want to risk getting stuck in traffic then having to wait three quarters of an hour for the next London train (or longer for the hourly Derby service).

In short, the station was built too soon, before the trains had sufficient capacity to do it justice.

)

I've always been able to get a seat when travelling from East Midlands Parkway, unless a scheduled double voyager has been replaced with a single one due to a unit failure, so I'm not sure that capacity is a problem from that perspective.

Why don't I use it more often?

1. car parking is excessively expensive
2. train times - often two London trains per hour leaving within minutes of one another, and then nothing to London for the next 45-50 minutes.

It's not rocket science is it?

 

[DelayRepay]

Just out of interest why do you refer to Leeds as Leeds City and Sheffield as Sheffield Midland? I'm pretty certain that Sheffield Victoria closed in around 1970 and since then there has only been one Sheffield station.

Locally a lot of people do still refer to it as Midland Station. I guess old habits die hard - some Sheffield folk still call John Lewis 'Cole Brothers' even though it changed its name 2002.

 

[swt_passenger]

I assume you mean short train length and not short journey length. One of the "short DMU route" connects the cities of Nottingham - Derby - Birmingham - Cardiff so merit some aspects of an inter city operation for that length of journey (e.g. refreshment trolley comfortable seats and seat reservations. at least)

That's still just a longish regional service though, like Norwich - Liverpool, or Portsmouth - Cardiff. The fact that a service joins a number of cities together and has a catering trolley isn't what makes it Inter City.

 

[Philip Elliott]

That's still just a longish regional service though, like Norwich - Liverpool, or Portsmouth - Cardiff. The fact that a service joins a number of cities together and has a catering trolley isn't what makes it Inter City.

Somebody needs to buy a dictionary.....

What the hell is a 'regional' service anyway? It has no meaning beyond it once being operated by BR's regional railways division. Birmingham Cross City, the Heart of Wales and TransPennine services were all operated by RR yet are not remotely comparable to each other.