East Midlands franchise won by Abellio

Kettledrum said:

....so some of the services will operate with 1/3 less capacity which will particularly hit any passengers using the main line north of Kettering.

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Will they? Presently there are plenty of 4-car services. Will there be more 5-car services than there currently are 4s?

whhistle said:

What two websites? Please link to them?

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The dft page outlining the improvements of the new franchise indicates that EMR Electrics will have a separate website.

That’s what the poster is referring to and asking what’s the point of it!

whhistle said:

What two websites? Please link to them?

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The EMR website and the website for EMR electrics (which doesn’t exist yet as the electric service wont start till next year)

Kettledrum said:

....so some of the services will operate with 1/3 less capacity which will particularly hit any passengers using the main line north of Kettering.

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Bletchleyite said:

Will they? Presently there are plenty of 4-car services. Will there be more 5-car services than there currently are 4s?

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You are right in so far as if you get a 5 car train instead of an existing 4 car train, you will be better off (but only 4 of the current units operate as 4 cars, so often these are used as spares or paired with a 5 car unit. You have to be very unlucky to get these operating on their own on a peak service)

My comment was "some of the services" - referring to those particularly operated by HSTs will have 1/3 less capacity if/when replaced with a 5 car unit.

If Abellio could explain how they propose to diagram their new trains, we will see who the winners and losers are.

hooverboy said:

I think abellio are gambling on the 360's taking the bulk of the traffic-of which an 8 or 12 car set would have a considerable number more available seats than a 5 car 22x

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This will make a difference to the Nottingham semi-fast (currently a 5-car 222 or short HST in the off-peak) and obviously also to the Corby working. The slower Sheffield is also a 5-car off-peak, and is likely to become a 5-car 80x with more seats. The off-peak Sheffield fast (7-car 222) and Nottingham fast (HST) will lose some capacity if replaced by a 5-car, and these don't stop south of Market Harborough so are not affected by the electrics. Probably some of the peak extra stops on Nottingham and Sheffield trains will be removed once the electrics start.

edwin_m said:

This will make a difference to the Nottingham semi-fast (currently a 5-car 222 or short HST in the off-peak) and obviously also to the Corby working. The slower Sheffield is also a 5-car off-peak, and is likely to become a 5-car 80x with more seats. The off-peak Sheffield fast (7-car 222) and Nottingham fast (HST) will lose some capacity if replaced by a 5-car, and these don't stop south of Market Harborough so are not affected by the electrics. Probably some of the peak extra stops on Nottingham and Sheffield trains will be removed once the electrics start.

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Different people on here have estimated that around 20 trains are needed to run the 2tph each to Nottingham and Sheffield. So with 33 trains it could be about 10 5 car, 10 2*5 car and 3 spare/maintenance?

hooverboy said:

I think abellio are gambling on the 360's taking the bulk of the traffic-of which an 8 or 12 car set would have a considerable number more available seats than a 5 car 22x

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But the bulk of the traffic is on the Sheffield services, where 5 cars currently isn't enough!

InTheEastMids said:

Different people on here have estimated that around 20 trains are needed to run the 2tph each to Nottingham and Sheffield. So with 33 trains it could be about 10 5 car, 10 2*5 car and 3 spare/maintenance?

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So, which 50% of the trains/services are only going to be 5 cars, because they're the services I'd like to avoid?

Kettledrum said:

So, which 50% of the trains/services are only going to be 5 cars, because they're the services I'd like to avoid?

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Based on loadings it should be all of the Nottingham services and a few of the Sheffield semi fasts that are single units. People seem to forget the off peak that the HSTs are used where they are for timing reasons rather than capacity and are therefore not used on the busiest services.

Kettledrum said:

So, which 50% of the trains/services are only going to be 5 cars, because they're the services I'd like to avoid?

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Clearly the early morning arrivals into London and early evening departures from London will be 10-car. Probably at least some of the services that bounce out of London between these times will be 10-car too, as it's easier to do that than to try and get the extra units to and from sidings. These will be the prime candidates for cheap Advances!

Qwerty133 said:

Based on loadings it should be all of the Nottingham services and a few of the Sheffield semi fasts that are single units. People seem to forget the off peak that the HSTs are used where they are for timing reasons rather than capacity and are therefore not used on the busiest services.

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Yeah but the Nottingham HST services can be quite busy, they're not carrying fresh air around, that's for sure

cactustwirly said:

Yeah but the Nottingham HST services can be quite busy, they're not carrying fresh air around, that's for sure

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Also it’s on the Nottingham HST services where most of the cheaper Advance fares are available off peak. I always travel to and from London on the Nottingham HST’s making use of good value 1st Class advances around lunchtime and I have found the 1st Class quite full. It would be a big disappointment if due to overcrowding on 5 carriage trains these cheaper Advance fares disappear or become harder to obtain.

I say cheaper Advance fares, but over the last few years with EMT these have risen quite a bit in price and the cheapest are now only available for a few trains around lunch time. These fares may be cheaper but do not compare with the wide availability of extremely cheap advances available on other routes like Birmingham to London.

ChrisC said:

Also it’s on the Nottingham HST services where most of the cheaper Advance fares are available off peak. I always travel to and from London on the Nottingham HST’s making use of good value 1st Class advances around lunchtime and I have found the 1st Class quite full. It would be a big disappointment if due to overcrowding on 5 carriage trains these cheaper Advance fares disappear or become harder to obtain.

I say cheaper Advance fares, but over the last few years with EMT these have risen quite a bit in price and the cheapest are now only available for a few trains around lunch time. These fares may be cheaper but do not compare with the wide availability of extremely cheap advances available on other routes like Birmingham to London.

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The HST services are rarely any cheaper than the Meridian services which also have advances.

cactustwirly said:

The HST services are rarely any cheaper than the Meridian services which also have advances.

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That certainly is not my experience as I have nearly always found the Nottingham slower Meridian services to be significantly more expensive than the fast HST services. Just looking now at a few random midweek dates in October that is definitely the case where fares on some of the Meridian services, even late morning are double the HST fares from Nottingham to London.

ChrisC said:

That certainly is not my experience as I have nearly always found the Nottingham slower Meridian services to be significantly more expensive than the fast HST services. Just looking now at a few random midweek dates in October that is definitely the case where fares on some of the Meridian services, even late morning are double the HST fares from Nottingham to London.

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I was talking about the fast Meridians from Sheffield, the advances in those are very often the same as the ex Nottingham HSTs.
My experience is usually from Leicester to London btw

Qwerty133 said:

Based on loadings it should be all of the Nottingham services and a few of the Sheffield semi fasts that are single units. People seem to forget the off peak that the HSTs are used where they are for timing reasons rather than capacity and are therefore not used on the busiest services.

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But they will also doubtless soak up a lot of latent demand from across the routes due to their AP allocations. Reason enough not to replace them all with five carriage DMU's before the new trains come on line.

RealTrains07 said:

I dont see why EMR needs to have a separate website for its electric service? A dedicated platform at kings cross I understand but I don’t believe it’s necessary considering its only 1 service?

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I don't know if it's a franchise requirement but it makes sense (to me!) to have some kind of separate branding - it's a whole different level of service (electric, commuter rather than longer distance and mainly diesel), it's going to be operationally independent of the other London services... it could even be switched to part of a future Thameslink/ Great Northen franchise one day... so maybe it makes more sense to brand it differently - even if it's just to avoid Corby passengers expecting the level of service appropriate to Nottingham/Sheffield passengers.


Maybe similar to Northern Spirit having some trains branded TransPennine (when part of the same franchise)?


Maybe the same will happen if the Kings Cross – Kings Lynn services ever become part of LNER (i.e. a separate sub-brand with a dedicated website etc)? Maybe no bad thing to have tailored information, since everyday Corby passengers might just want to see information about their local route – maybe that’s something that other TOCs could follow – e.g. the Northern website is a mess of different routes/offers if I just want to find information relating to the city I live in.

Kettledrum said:

.....Abellio have done nothing to ease such fears. No indicative diagrams have been published indicating which services are likely to be 2x5 car units and which will be operated by a single 5 car unit only. Given the absence of this, people are fearing the worst.

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I don't think it's something that is even on the radar of most people - I'd like to know the information now, but I'm a nosey enthusiast - I don't think there's anything to "fear" - there are clearly going to be more trains than the bare minimum required to run single units on all Nottingham/ Sheffield duties.


Far too early to start worrying to that extent.

InTheEastMids said:

Different people on here have estimated that around 20 trains are needed to run the 2tph each to Nottingham and Sheffield. So with 33 trains it could be about 10 5 car, 10 2*5 car and 3 spare/maintenance?

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When I did some scribbling on the back of an old bus ticket, it looked like around half the diagrams could be doubled up (with a few units "spare" for maintenance etc), and running a Sheffield - London - Nottingham - London - Sheffield diagram (i.e. interworking the two routes, since you’re only running one type of train) you’d take *roughly* eight hours…


…rough maths but it’s around two hours Sheffield to London, an hour and a half London to Nottingham, so by the time you’ve added on a reasonable layover (bearing in mind that you’re only using one type of stock, so don’t have to be as operationally constrained as the current mix of four/five/seven/eight/ nine/ ten coach Meridians and six/eight coach HSTs) you’ll find that your long train arriving into London in the morning peak is on a diagram that is also leaving London in the evening peak…


…so it’d be quite easy to target the additional ten units to provide capacity on the diagrams where it’d be most needed (unlike, say, XC, where you could provide a strengthened service from Sheffield to Leeds in the morning rush hour but find the same commuters crammed onto a four coach Voyager in the evening peak due to the long train being somewhere hundreds of miles away)…


…so I’m reasonably optimistic that capacity won’t go down on the busiest trains – assuming that a five coach AT300 provides more standard class seats than a five coach 222 anyhow! It’s not going to be the transformative franchise that Midland Mainline was, but they were starting from a low base – I don’t think that we’ll see that level of increase again (and, tbqh, I don’t think that we need to).

RealTrains07 said:

The EMR website and the website for EMR electrics (which doesn’t exist yet as the electric service wont start till next year)

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So you're complaining about there being two websites, even though only one exists and you can't show where this other mysterious different website information has come from?

berneyarms said:

The dft page outlining the improvements of the new franchise indicates that EMR Electrics will have a separate website.

That’s what the poster is referring to and asking what’s the point of it!

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I don't see anything about a separate website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...s-for-passengers-on-new-east-midlands-railway nor here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speec...-and-west-coast-partnership-franchise-updates

Hence my request for a link...

whhistle said:

So you're complaining about there being two websites, even though only one exists and you can't show where this other mysterious different website information has come from?

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Its already been said its part of the franchise agreement and Abellio have also stated it as part of their announcements before too.

I think its pointless having 2 websites considering the electric service is very small and would have better use if the second website would be used for regional services maybe. But thats my view on it

RealTrains07 said:

Its already been said its part of the franchise agreement and Abellio have also stated it as part of their announcements before too.

I think its pointless having 2 websites considering the electric service is very small and would have better use if the second website would be used for regional services maybe. But thats my view on it

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With a modern CMS it will take all of 10 minutes to do it, I reckon

whhistle said:

I don't see anything about a separate website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...s-for-passengers-on-new-east-midlands-railway nor here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speec...-and-west-coast-partnership-franchise-updates

Hence my request for a link...

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Abellio have announced it before now thats how i know about it. If abellio had never have mentioned a separate website for the EMR electric service then we wouldn’t be talking about it

RealTrains07 said:

Abellio have announced it before now thats how i know about it. If abellio had never have mentioned a separate website for the EMR electric service then we wouldn’t be talking about it

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Been reading this thread and the DfT contract since the first day it was announced and have seen nowhere mentioned about a dedicated second website for EMR Electrics, so why it’s being mentioned now with no sources other than hearsay to back this up is bizarre. This can simply be called a rumour and a strange one at that!

whhistle said:

I don't see anything about a separate website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...s-for-passengers-on-new-east-midlands-railway nor here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speec...-and-west-coast-partnership-franchise-updates

Hence my request for a link...

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This!

One reasonably reliable source for info about a dedicated website, (and a dedicated platform at St Pancras), is the Railway Gazette website here:

A new electric service between London St Pancras, Luton Airport Parkway, Bedford, Kettering, Wellingborough and Corby will be branded EMR Electrics. This is to be operated using refurbished Siemens Class 360 EMUs, and will have its own website, ‘easier’ ticketing and a dedicated platform at St Pancras.
https://www.railwaygazette.com/news...-midlands-railway-announces-three-brands.html

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Won’t EMR Electrics be a bit of a confusing name once the bi-modes are all leaving London on electric?

For God’s sake two of us are not making it up. I take a fair amount of umbrage at being accused of making things up or posting rumours when I read it in black and white.

To save me starting back at the beginning of the tread and wading my way through 49 pages of posts, are there any plans to have a couple of later trains running to Skegness?

I have noticed that presently the last departure is the 18:45 from Nottingham, arriving Skegness at 20:57. Even if it is only during July and August, I feel that a couple of extra trains would be good as it is a seaside resort.

After all, the likes of Brighton, Bognor Regis, Eastbourne, Hastings, Blackpool, Cleethorpes, Scarborough, Whitley Bay, and many others all have later trains.

adrock1976 said:

To save me starting back at the beginning of the tread and wading my way through 49 pages of posts, are there any plans to have a couple of later trains running to Skegness?

I have noticed that presently the last departure is the 18:45 from Nottingham, arriving Skegness at 20:57. Even if it is only during July and August, I feel that a couple of extra trains would be good as it is a seaside resort.

After all, the likes of Brighton, Bognor Regis, Eastbourne, Hastings, Blackpool, Cleethorpes, Scarborough, Whitley Bay, and many others all have later trains.

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I think that is also part of the plan.

it would certainly make sense doing it for the summer timetable(may-sep) at least.
I don't think an extra working at 20.00 from nottingham/skeg would break the bank,and would still be very well used.

A longer train ie 4 car versus 3,or at the very least a 3 car 170, would also make sense on that route as part of the summer diagram.
the present short forms (ie 1* 156/158 in place of 15x+153) on them are a nightmare in summer.Even a planned working is on the full side.

in an ideal world they would increase line speed to cut journey times too,but probably won't happen during this tenure!
2hrs 15 mins to do 55 miles is pretty pedestrian.

adrock1976 said:

To save me starting back at the beginning of the tread and wading my way through 49 pages of posts, are there any plans to have a couple of later trains running to Skegness?

I have noticed that presently the last departure is the 18:45 from Nottingham, arriving Skegness at 20:57. Even if it is only during July and August, I feel that a couple of extra trains would be good as it is a seaside resort.

After all, the likes of Brighton, Bognor Regis, Eastbourne, Hastings, Blackpool, Cleethorpes, Scarborough, Whitley Bay, and many others all have later trains.

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There are plans for earlier and later trains but we do not have details yet. Also more Sunday services throughout the year, again no details yet.

Speedbird96 said:

Been reading this thread and the DfT contract since the first day it was announced and have seen nowhere mentioned about a dedicated second website for EMR Electrics, so why it’s being mentioned now with no sources other than hearsay to back this up is bizarre. This can simply be called a rumour and a strange one at that!



This!

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swt_passenger said:

One reasonably reliable source for info about a dedicated website, (and a dedicated platform at St Pancras), is the Railway Gazette website here:

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Is an interesting one considering soon all EMR services leaving london will technically be electric