East Midlands franchise won by Abellio

Aictos · 22 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
What I'd like to see is the work being done at Bedford to provide an up fast platform, then all services to stop there for connectional purposes but all stops south thereof withdrawn. A stop at Bedford would provide excellent connections from the plentiful Thameslink services.

Firstly there isn't the space at Bedford to have a platform serve the Up Fast as it's got Platform 3 on one side and the Down Fast on the other side so unless you propose a complete remodelling of Bedford then it ain't going to happen!

Why have all MML services stop at Bedford, that would be overkill and not needed at all especially as your proposal would mean Nottingham and the rest of East Midlands losing their direct Luton Airport service with a compulsory change at Bedford.

Far better to keep the service as it is with the potential to stop a extra IC 1tph at Luton as that has platforms on all 5 lines so is easier to path then Bedford plus once the lifts/step free access is finalised then it makes more sense to stop there then at Bedford as you have cross platforms connections onto the Gatwicks, Brighton via Gatwicks, Orpington, Rainham plus the peak extras to East Grinstead and Littlehampton etc

Bletchleyite said:
A reasonable alternative would be to get the wires to Leicester and run a 12-car set once an hour with 8 going to Corby and 4 to Leicester. But it'd still mean two changes for anyone on Thameslink to get to points north.

FWIW I'd support the trains at Bedford being pick up/set down only so the stop is only for use between Thameslink stations and points north, not fill with commuters.

Again 8 cars to Corby is overkill, 8 cars to Leicester is a better usage and it serves a much bigger area of population - 4 cars to Corby is fine.

A much better idea would be to put a Luton stop onto a Sheffield/Derby service but that won't happen!

RailUK Forums

edwin_m · 22 May 2019

InTheEastMids said:
OK, however, now you're proposing all these upgrades to sell low-yielding advance fares. To an extent EMT already do this from London with the Megabus routes that converge on East Midlands Parkway because there's already significant off-peak overcapacity on the fast Nottingham trains.
Is there strong pent-up demand for off-peak travel from e.g. Filtwick to Chesterfield? There may be - and of course I hope we all want to see modal shift from car to train, and new rail travel possibilities. I just think it has a pretty weak business case, either directly (fare revenue) or indirectly (e.g. reduced car use or economic growth). So it's well down the pecking order compared to sorting out XC or transpennine routes.

The business case for an extra stop is normally all about the trade-off between the extra passengers who would use that stop and the passengers who would stop travelling on the train because it is slower. A stop at Bedford would cost around 4min, and would reduce London-Leicester passenger numbers by about 6% and Derby/Nottingham by about 4.5% based on Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook research. Any Bedford-London travellers picked up would probably have travelled on one of the existing trains otherwise, so aren't really a benefit. I rather doubt the number of passengers between Bedford and beyond Kettering, attracted by avoiding a change of train there, would offset the longer-distance passengers lost.

TheBigD · 22 May 2019

From the June issue of Modern Railways...

Once Liverpool-Norwich route is split Abellio plan to extend the Norwich-Nottingham services through to Matlock and the Crewe-Derby service through to Newark Castle.
Also states that the current Leicester-Lincoln is extended to Grimsby every hour amongst other items.

Jorge Da Silva · 22 May 2019

TheBigD said:
From the June issue of Modern Railways...

Once Liverpool-Norwich route is split Abellio plan to extend the Norwich-Nottingham services through to Matlock and the Crewe-Derby service through to Newark Castle.
Also states that the current Leicester-Lincoln is extended to Grimsby every hour amongst other items.

Is it out yet???

Killingworth · 22 May 2019

Jorge Da Silva said:
Is it out yet???

Yes, I've got mine!

hooverboy · 22 May 2019

tbtc said:
I could see the argument for more InterCity services stopping at Kettering, where there will be regular connections to Bedford/ Luton/ Luton Airport on the ex-Corby services, but certainly not all services - the MML is uncompetitive enough as it is for long distance journeys (e.g. London to Sheffield is slower than London to York, despite York being almost fifty miles further north), without adding in more stops at local stations on every service.

you probably could see an argument for EMT services stopping at LAP but tickets sold via easyjet are not valid on these trains(along with groupsave)
it would not be too difficult for abellio to rescind this arrangement and allow open access, and gain themselves quite a bit of revenue in the process.

hooverboy · 22 May 2019

LowLevel said:
180s are cleared on the MML anyway, they've run into St Pancras on diversion for Hull Trains before.

If I were abellio I would still baulk at the reliability issues of the 180's...YOU NEED TO BE PAID BY THE LEASING COMPANY TO RUN THEM, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Jorge Da Silva · 22 May 2019

Killingworth said:
Yes, I've got mine!

Is it online yet? (I have the app version)

edwin_m · 22 May 2019

hooverboy said:
you probably could see an argument for EMT services stopping at LAP but tickets sold via easyjet are not valid on these trains(along with groupsave)
it would not be too difficult for abellio to rescind this arrangement and allow open access, and gain themselves quite a bit of revenue in the process.

The airport was arguing for 4TPH fast, which could be done by stopping two of the four services via Leicester plus the two to Corby. As usual with the MML timetable the fly in the ointment is the fact that the two Sheffield trains are non-stop to Leicester and the two Nottingham ones make intermediate stops. The timetable would be much more logical if there was a fast and a semi-fast to each destination.

Bletchleyite · 22 May 2019

hooverboy said:
you probably could see an argument for EMT services stopping at LAP but tickets sold via easyjet are not valid on these trains(along with groupsave)
it would not be too difficult for abellio to rescind this arrangement and allow open access, and gain themselves quite a bit of revenue in the process.

EMT's purpose is not taking passengers from Luton to London. This would be a primarily negative decision.

Providing connectivity for northbound passengers at Bedford might not bring as much revenue, but has a clear network benefit.

43074 · 22 May 2019

edwin_m said:
The airport was arguing for 4TPH fast, which could be done by stopping two of the four services via Leicester plus the two to Corby. As usual with the MML timetable the fly in the ointment is the fact that the two Sheffield trains are non-stop to Leicester and the two Nottingham ones make intermediate stops. The timetable would be much more logical if there was a fast and a semi-fast to each destination.

The problem with a fast and a semi-fast to each destination is that you potentially run into issues over the spacing of the two services, e.g. A 15/45 split on flows like Nottingham to Leicester or London to Sheffield; it only needs 2 or 3 extra stops on a 100+mph line to make that sort of difference. It's a question of objectives at the end of the day I suppose, i.e. what to focus on and who loses as a consequence.

cactustwirly · 22 May 2019

43074 said:
The problem with a fast and a semi-fast to each destination is that you potentially run into issues over the spacing of the two services, e.g. A 15/45 split on flows like Nottingham to Leicester or London to Sheffield; it only needs 2 or 3 extra stops on a 100+mph line to make that sort of difference. It's a question of objectives at the end of the day I suppose, i.e. what to focus on and who loses as a consequence.

It's not as if the current timetable is evenly split.
From Leicester to Nottingham the departures are at xx24, xx26(stopper), xx43 then nothing for over 40 minutes

MargaretNoodle · 22 May 2019

Interesting information there regarding the proposed Norwich-Matlock and Crewe-Newark, I would have thought it would have made more sence to keep the Matlock-Newark as is, and just join Crewe-Nottingham and Nottingham-Norwich, but maybe pathing would be a problem.

Aictos · 23 May 2019

edwin_m said:
The business case for an extra stop is normally all about the trade-off between the extra passengers who would use that stop and the passengers who would stop travelling on the train because it is slower. A stop at Bedford would cost around 4min, and would reduce London-Leicester passenger numbers by about 6% and Derby/Nottingham by about 4.5% based on Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook research. Any Bedford-London travellers picked up would probably have travelled on one of the existing trains otherwise, so aren't really a benefit. I rather doubt the number of passengers between Bedford and beyond Kettering, attracted by avoiding a change of train there, would offset the longer-distance passengers lost.

Whereas a stop at Luton would only be a fraction of that time spent at Bedford as both fast lines are served by platforms so no need to slow down to serve a platform then depart at a much slower speed!

Luton on the other hand is full line speed both ways and served the town of Luton well for years before they built Luton Parkway.

Bletchleyite said:
EMT's purpose is not taking passengers from Luton to London. This would be a primarily negative decision.

In much the same way that EMT's purpose is not taking passengers from Bedford to London as it is already has a frequent service via Thameslink.

Jorge Da Silva · 23 May 2019

MargaretNoodle said:
Interesting information there regarding the proposed Norwich-Matlock and Crewe-Newark, I would have thought it would have made more sence to keep the Matlock-Newark as is, and just join Crewe-Nottingham and Nottingham-Norwich, but maybe pathing would be a problem.

I was thinking that as well.

It is available online now.

Interesting information about the Leeds (InterCity) Service:

Modern Railways June 2019 p.8:

Abellio intends to retain the limited extensions of services north of Sheffield, currently a function of EMT’s HSTs being based at Neville Hill depot in Leeds, with the company saying it ‘would be open to exploring the potential of the East Midlands to Leeds route’, building on discussions held with stakeholders during the bidding period.

What does it mean? Are they open to extend more services to Leeds?

yorksrob · 23 May 2019

Jorge Da Silva said:
I was thinking that as well.

It is available online now.

Interesting information about the Leeds (InterCity) Service:

Modern Railways June 2019 p.8:

What does it mean? Are they open to extend more services to Leeds?

That's certainly interesting news to me.

For me to continue using the route would require any replacement of HST's not to suffer overcrowding, and for fares to remain competitive.

edwin_m · 23 May 2019

MargaretNoodle said:
Interesting information there regarding the proposed Norwich-Matlock and Crewe-Newark, I would have thought it would have made more sence to keep the Matlock-Newark as is, and just join Crewe-Nottingham and Nottingham-Norwich, but maybe pathing would be a problem.

I'd say this was driven by timetabling or stock utilisation considerations. Extending the Crewe service to Nottingham is an important passenger benefit but Nottingham is the major destination so which flows east and west of it are paired isn't going to make much difference to demand.

edwin_m · 23 May 2019

43074 said:
The problem with a fast and a semi-fast to each destination is that you potentially run into issues over the spacing of the two services, e.g. A 15/45 split on flows like Nottingham to Leicester or London to Sheffield; it only needs 2 or 3 extra stops on a 100+mph line to make that sort of difference. It's a question of objectives at the end of the day I suppose, i.e. what to focus on and who loses as a consequence.

I agree this is a concern. However the slowness of the MML compared with other routes makes it essential in my view that some of the services are as fast as possible between the main destinations, and this results in a mix of fast and semi-fast trains rather than a more even stopping pattern. This is exacerbated in the long term by HS2 improving the service to many places but not helping Leicester.

To avoid overtaking the semi needs to leave London right behind a fast to the "other" destination and (with removal of the Bedford and Wellingborough stops) will get to Derby or Nottingham about 15min ahead of the following fast. Having the Corby leave St Pancras midway between these two pairs (fitting the 4TPH Thameslink service "grid") should give it a workable connection at Kettering into the semi for Leicester.

The 45min gap in Leicester-Nottingham trains may be pluggable using the hourly stopper, which would ideally offer a connection at EM Parkway out of the Sheffield fast to avoid having to use the slow Ivanhoe section. At present the Sheffield service is less uneven because it takes both fast paths, but I agree a more balanced pattern would result in a long interval between Leicester and Derby too. Perhaps a Leicester service to the Hope Valley will eventually plug this one.

And all similarly in reverse for the other direction.

edwin_m · 23 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
EMT's purpose is not taking passengers from Luton to London. This would be a primarily negative decision.

Providing connectivity for northbound passengers at Bedford might not bring as much revenue, but has a clear network benefit.

The Corby service should have plenty of capacity for Luton Airport to London and significant numbers of passengers travel between Luton Airport Parkway and north of Kettering on the current service, so those seats would be free between LA Parkway and London. The peoplemover now under construction will make Luton Airport as accessible from the station as Birmingham Airport is today, so should boost the use of rail to get to the airport. Hence I think there is scope for a "Luton Express" formed by EMT services at 15min intervals, with a premium fare to manage demand versus capacity enforced by the separate barrier line at St Pancras. A change at Luton Airport Parkway is also much more attractive than a change at Bedford for journeys such as St Albans to Leicester, because of the shorter distance and better frequency on the Thameslink leg.

The Corby service will provide a faster and more comfortable option than Thameslink for Bedford-London passengers, and could also use a premium fare if necessary to manage demand (as happens at Peterborough). Bedford has far fewer passengers to/from beyond Kettering than Luton Airport Parkway does, so there wouldn't be enough empty seats between Bedford and London for the number of Bedford passengers and the result could be wasted capacity on trains north of there.

The proximity of the two Luton stations is problematic for provision of a good service. However the airport is clearly important for longer-distance passengers and many going to other destinations in the Luton area could use either station equally. Allowing a free double-back for Luton passengers from the Parkway would go a long way to making removal of EMR stops at Luton acceptable.

Bletchleyite · 23 May 2019

Aictos said:
In much the same way that EMT's purpose is not taking passengers from Bedford to London as it is already has a frequent service via Thameslink.

Indeed it's not. My proposed Bedford stops would be for the purpose of northbound connectivity, not for that purpose. This proposal for Luton Airport Parkway is specifically to carry people to/from London.

Aictos · 23 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Indeed it's not. My proposed Bedford stops would be for the purpose of northbound connectivity, not for that purpose. This proposal for Luton Airport Parkway is specifically to carry people to/from London.

But these passengers changing for northbound services can easily change between Thameslink and East Midlands Trains at either Luton or Luton Airport Parkway which is where the IC services ought to stop instead of Bedford.

Luton is a major Interchange in much the same way that Stevenage is, Bedford though is the terminus of the Thameslink is the MML version of Huntingdon with time penalty for any stops whereas as Stevenage or Luton as platforms directly serve the fast lines there isn’t any.

Luton Airport Parkway not only can be served by existing services but there is a well established 24/7 bus service linking Parkway to Luton so I don’t see the need for extra services to stop at the airport.

edwin_m · 23 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Indeed it's not. My proposed Bedford stops would be for the purpose of northbound connectivity, not for that purpose. This proposal for Luton Airport Parkway is specifically to carry people to/from London.

The proposal for Luton Airport Parkway is at least partly to carry people to/from further north. The East Midlands doesn't have great airport access, with EMA having a fairly poor choice of flights, Birmingham not easy to get to at peak times and Manchester a bit too far away. I've often found Luton is the best choice when needing a flight. As I've pointed out twice, it also allows better northward connectivity than Bedford from intermediate stations Harpenden to London.

You may intend the Bedford stops to be for northward connectivity but unless subject to draconian restrictions they are inevitably going to result in use between Bedford and London, as clearly happens now when EMT call there.

Bletchleyite · 23 May 2019

edwin_m said:
The proposal for Luton Airport Parkway is at least partly to carry people to/from further north. The East Midlands doesn't have great airport access, with EMA having a fairly poor choice of flights, Birmingham not easy to get to at peak times and Manchester a bit too far away. I've often found Luton is the best choice when needing a flight. As I've pointed out twice, it also allows better northward connectivity than Bedford from intermediate stations Harpenden to London.

I'd concede to Luton Airport Parkway being acceptable provided double-backs were permitted on all northbound fares from Thameslink stations north of there. However, I still strongly believe in the principle that the IC should stop at the outer regional station in pretty much all cases. To me connectivity is far, far more important than two minutes here or there on running times.

You may intend the Bedford stops to be for northward connectivity but unless subject to draconian restrictions they are inevitably going to result in use between Bedford and London, as clearly happens now when EMT call there.

I would propose that they are pick up/set down only at Bedford to allow northbound travel only. This would be easily enough enforced as there would be no trains from upstairs at St P that would allow travel to Bedford, so the barriers would simply need to be set to reject all tickets to/from Bedford.

Aictos · 23 May 2019

edwin_m said:
The proximity of the two Luton stations is problematic for provision of a good service. However the airport is clearly important for longer-distance passengers and many going to other destinations in the Luton area could use either station equally. Allowing a free double-back for Luton passengers from the Parkway would go a long way to making removal of EMR stops at Luton acceptable.

Indeed, the easiest method to deal with the two Lutons is simply to do what has been done at Bedford (which has Bedford, Bedford St Johns and Bedford Stations) and that's to have 3 destinations ie Luton, Luton Airport Parkway and Luton Stations so a ticket with Luton stations would be valid to/from either Luton station which I think would be easier then a double back between Luton and Parkway.

Note I think tickets marked Luton ought to be valid from Parkway anyway with a free double back so if I'm travelling from Luton to Nottingham I ought to be free to get a TL to Parkway and then pick up the EMT service there especially if it's quicker then getting a TL to Bedford then changing there.

As to the Corby Express, as they're EMUs eventually why not just stop at both Luton stations as IC services stop at both Haymarket and Edinburgh when they can drop the Haymarket calls for local services instead.

As to Bedford, if the Corby express was half hourly as proposed then the hourly Nottingham could call as booked to Kettering then non stop to the airport then London which would 1. sped up the Nottingham service and 2. help with the platform capacity issues at Bedford as anyone travelling north could catch the half hourly Corby service and change at Kettering for example.

edwin_m · 23 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'd concede to Luton Airport Parkway being acceptable provided double-backs were permitted on all northbound fares from Thameslink stations north of there. However, I still strongly believe in the principle that the IC should stop at the outer regional station in pretty much all cases. To me connectivity is far, far more important than two minutes here or there on running times.

Effectively the outer regional station in this case is Kettering. The Corby trains stop at the limit of the next tier of service at Bedford.

Bletchleyite said:
I would propose that they are pick up/set down only at Bedford to allow northbound travel only. This would be easily enough enforced as there would be no trains from upstairs at St P that would allow travel to Bedford, so the barriers would simply need to be set to reject all tickets to/from Bedford.

The Corby trains will use the upstairs at St Pancras and serve Bedford.

Bletchleyite · 23 May 2019

edwin_m said:
Effectively the outer regional station in this case is Kettering. The Corby trains stop at the limit of the next tier of service at Bedford.

Does require two changes from Thameslink to anywhere useful, though. (Corby is a source, not a sink - though one could argue it contains plenty of sink (estates)).

The Corby trains will use the upstairs at St Pancras and serve Bedford.

Fair point, though it wouldn't be hard to segregate those off at the appropriate time.

hooverboy · 23 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'd concede to Luton Airport Parkway being acceptable provided double-backs were permitted on all northbound fares from Thameslink stations north of there. However, I still strongly believe in the principle that the IC should stop at the outer regional station in pretty much all cases. To me connectivity is far, far more important than two minutes here or there on running times.

I would propose that they are pick up/set down only at Bedford to allow northbound travel only. This would be easily enough enforced as there would be no trains from upstairs at St P that would allow travel to Bedford, so the barriers would simply need to be set to reject all tickets to/from Bedford.

stupid idea building luton airport parkway in the first place.

would have been better demolishing luton station as is, and then having the new station(not luton airport parkway, sited on the old industrial estate about 600 yards away.....still gives access to the arndale via st mary's church,about 2 minutes walk, and means you would only have one stopping point rather than two.

...for intercity services that means basically double the frequency and no silly connections, for thameslink it means one less stop so improves journey times by about 3 minutes in either direction.

not to mention a platform 6 would be rather useful(and the present luton station is an eyesore)

Aictos · 23 May 2019

hooverboy said:
stupid idea building luton airport parkway in the first place.

would have been better demolishing luton station as is, and then having the new station(not luton airport parkway, sited on the old industrial estate about 600 yards away.....still gives access to the arndale via st mary's church,about 2 minutes walk, and means you would only have one stopping point rather than two.

...for intercity services that means basically double the frequency and no silly connections, for thameslink it means one less stop so improves journey times by about 3 minutes in either direction.

not to mention a platform 6 would be rather useful(and the present luton station is an eyesore)

I quite agree!

It was a missed opportunity to have built a brand new station which was fully step free access from street to train after opening they could have closed the existing Luton station - the only hiccup is the public right of way though the station so how would you resolve that?

The other thing to remember is Luton Airport Parkway is equal to Luton South, Luton is equal to Luton Central and Leagrave is equal to Luton North no matter what people might think.

I do agree that one Luton station would have been better then having two but I don't think 6 platforms is needed as Luton copes fine with the existing 5 platforms, the only drawbacks are Platform 3 has no access to the Up Slow only the Up Fast so any changes would be Platform 3 to access the Up Slow, Platform 4 to replace the shunt signal with a full signal to allow northbound departures from the Up Fast onto the Down Fast which would be useful to turnback EMT services equally Platform 5 ought to have work done to allow southbound departures from the Down Fast onto the Up Fast so in times of disruption or engineering works both Platform 4/5 serving the fast lines can turnback services the way they came.

It would be nice if they could reconstruct the existing Luton station but I doubt they would take a island platform out at a time?

edwin_m · 23 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Does require two changes from Thameslink to anywhere useful, though. (Corby is a source, not a sink - though one could argue it contains plenty of sink (estates)).

A reminder this is about my proposal of two (or possibly only one) of the semi-fast trains to Leicester and beyond calling at Luton Airport Parkway then Kettering, plus Corby trains calling at least at those stops plus Bedford and Wellingborough.

Anywhere south of the Parkway can get to Leicester with one change there. I suggest a free double-back for Luton passengers so they could also change at Parkway to go north. Bedford and Wellingborough passengers would get the Corby service and change at Kettering. So it's actually only Leagrave, Harlington and Flitwick that would need two changes.

TheManOnThe172 · 24 May 2019

TheBigD said:
From the June issue of Modern Railways...

Once Liverpool-Norwich route is split Abellio plan to extend the Norwich-Nottingham services through to Matlock ...

As a Matlock user, am I being curmudgeonly to see this as bad news, with the prospect that trains that pick up delays between Norwich and Derby will be turned back at Derby (or Ambergate) because there won't be enough recovery time at Matlock?

The current timetable sees a 12-minute turnaround at single-platform Matlock, with trains scheduled to pass between Duffield and Belper. Even if you designed your timetable around the wish to give maximum recovery time at Matlock, you couldn't gain more than a few minutes without seriously reducing resilience on the main line.

Are there comparable long-distance services terminating at a single-track station with so little scope for recovery?

East Midlands franchise won by Abellio

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