Are there any plans for EMR to get replacements for the 158s and 170s? If not, will they have to wait for cascaded 170s from Northern (from 2030 onwards!) to replace the 158s or are there other units which might be going spare?
The way I see it is the 170s don't need to be replaced as they're not old-fashioned, boxy, ex-British Rail trains (sorry
@sprinterguy).
If the 16 Northern 170s were displaced as part of their new train introductions in the early 2030s, East Midlands Railway's regional diesel fleet could go from [43 170s and 26 158s] to [59 170s and 10 158s]. That would of course only mean a
reduction in 158s though (while keeping the same number of regional diesel trains), not a total elimination of 158s, which in my opinion wouldn't be good enough.
However, if East Midlands Railway still didn't order any new trains to replace their 158s, but the electrification of the West Midlands' Snow Hill Lines happened, the new electric trains that would be required as part of that would allow 27 of the 172s (the gangwayed-cab /2s and /3s) to transfer to East Midlands Railway (EMR) to replace the 26 EMR 158s, so EMR's regional diesel fleet would then be 172s and 170s, rather than 170s and 158s (granted, tables would need to be fitted to the 172s, even before they were refurbished to EMR specification).
