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New East Midlands Airport Station

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GRALISTAIR

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I am all for new stations and rail links - but they serve airports and the planes that use them - they are huge CO2 generators. I am not sure if this is the way to go to be honest.
 
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edwin_m

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Problem with the railways as well in the East Midlands is the three East Midlands Cities (Nottingham, Leicester and Derby) tend to have one major station in the center of the city with a few small suburban halts dotted around the suburbs which are normally served hourly at best by semi-rural regional services.

This creates a problem in that most suburbs within the cities are not served by any rail services meaning one has to make a journey to the center of the city to then get a train to the airport. Even in the suburbs that are served by railways if someone wanted to go from South Wigston to East Midlands Airport for example they would have to catch the two hourly service from South Wigston to then connect with an hourly service from Leicester to an East Midlands Airport service.
The answer to that is usually not heavy rail, but an integrated transport network where a bus or tram can be used to reach the city centre station.
 

cle

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Southampton and Southend are, likely Gatwick, fortuitous enough to be alongside the mainline already.

City is a very different case, nobody is driving/parking there at-scale.
 

edwin_m

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Southampton and Southend are, likely Gatwick, fortuitous enough to be alongside the mainline already.

City is a very different case, nobody is driving/parking there at-scale.
City being a very urban airport has a lot of housing and industry nearby, all of which contributed to justifying the extension of the DLR to serve it.

Newcastle is something of an outlier as a relatively small airport not alongside an existing railway (or rather one with a passenger service). But the Metro extension was quite cheap being on a former railway and only requiring one major structure (the road bridge just before the terminus), and in operating terms it just extends an existing service and the unit costs for light rail are quite a bit less.

An East Midlands Airport branch would have to cross the River Soar, A6, HS2 and the M1, and would need extra trains to run from at least Nottingham or Toton to serve it (and the southern curve suggests a service from Leicester too). So considerably more challenging to justify. It would also be around a mile at the closest point from what I believe is currently the newest bit of railway in the country, the branch to the freight terminal north-east of the airport.
 

NotATrainspott

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If NR want to efficiently untangle the lines at Trent Junction then building a new line that gets reasonably close to the EMA site isn't implausible at all. As the Route Study says, the lines around Trent Junction are up for fairly major changes to accommodate HS2 at Toton. A little bit of new build plain line then new junctions onto the MML in an unconstrained site seems a lot more efficient than messing too much with the nest of non-grade-separated tracks a bit further north. Building new line sections can be an efficient way of delivering rail junction improvements, as demonstrated at Hitchin and Norton Bridge.

The EMA airport railway station may exist in the same sense as the one planned for Inverness Airport. Yes, it'll probably be named after it, and it'll be the train station you'd use to get there, but it'll probably end up serving a lot of non-airport traffic too. The NET can provide the actual link to the passenger and freight terminal. You don't need that much traffic to justify extending a tram line a bit further out into open countryside to an area where you expect jobs and investment to happen.
 

alex17595

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They have recently built a branch to East Midlands Gateway (less than mile from the airport terminal) Could they not utilise this for something instead of building a whole new branch?
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
NR seems to have an idea to reconfigure the Castle Donington line to simplify Trent Junction. See the East Midlands Route Study, Option 8.



I expect that's where this idea is coming from. Given that the map suggests the passenger terminal will be on the NET and not the heavy rail line, it seems quite plausible. Build a new station in the vicinity of EMA and then rely on the tram to provide the final connection. So long as there's integrated ticketing it's not fundamentally that different to a people mover shuttle to the terminal like at Luton or Gatwick.

Regarding the High Level goods lines at Trent, were these ever used by the "Master Cutler" which did not call at Derby?
 

Eskimo

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Fairly sure that any East Midlands Airport Terminus would be positioned to generate a traffic flow similar to Manchester Airport, eventually.

If it can encourage EMR services from all corners of the region, and provide adequate capacity for growth, it will surely be a success.

They are owned by the same company, after all.
 

Mugby

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Regarding the High Level goods lines at Trent, were these ever used by the "Master Cutler" which did not call at Derby?

No, except in the case of an emergency, it would have stayed on the main lines through Trent Junction.

If it did ever use the High Level lines, it would have been stuck on the slow line all the way to Loughborough because that's the first available crossover back onto the Up Main.
 

8stewartt

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Personally, I can’t see HS2 getting beyond Birmingham, but some of the money being put into improving and expanding the existing infrastructure instead.

Secondly, in this day and age of terrorist threats, can you actually see a new line being connected from pear tree to the airport, right next to Rolls Royce, full of aviation fuel tanks near the centre of a city? pipe dreams.
 

Bald Rick

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Fairly sure that any East Midlands Airport Terminus would be positioned to generate a traffic flow similar to Manchester Airport, eventually.

If it can encourage EMR services from all corners of the region, and provide adequate capacity for growth, it will surely be a success.

They are owned by the same company, after all.

Manchester Airport is in an entirely different league to East Mids. There is no chance of the latter generating anywhere near the amount of traffic that Manchester does, regardless of how well connected it is by rail
 

Eskimo

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Manchester Airport is in an entirely different league to East Mids. There is no chance of the latter generating anywhere near the amount of traffic that Manchester does, regardless of how well connected it is by rail

Sadly, I agree.

The current station/parkway pegs my enthusiasm somewhat.

But I do see, on the rail side of things, routes from further afield terminating or starting at an EMA station, in the same way Manchester’s does..

The Matlock - Nottingham could easily extend to EMA.
Skegness to Nottingham could.
Lincoln to Leicester could reverse in/out.
Corby to Derby via EMA.

I do see potential for increased presence on existing routes, and some new!
 

edwin_m

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Sadly, I agree.

The current station/parkway pegs my enthusiasm somewhat.

But I do see, on the rail side of things, routes from further afield terminating or starting at an EMA station, in the same way Manchester’s does..

The Matlock - Nottingham could easily extend to EMA.
Skegness to Nottingham could.
Lincoln to Leicester could reverse in/out.
Corby to Derby via EMA.

I do see potential for increased presence on existing routes, and some new!
Many of these are likely to be extended/diverted to Toton assuming HS2 phase 2b goes ahead. You can't realistically do both.
 

Spaceship323

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Problem with the railways as well in the East Midlands is the three East Midlands Cities (Nottingham, Leicester and Derby) tend to have one major station in the center of the city with a few small suburban halts dotted around the suburbs which are normally served hourly at best by semi-rural regional services.

This creates a problem in that most suburbs within the cities are not served by any rail services meaning one has to make a journey to the center of the city to then get a train to the airport. Even in the suburbs that are served by railways if someone wanted to go from South Wigston to East Midlands Airport for example they would have to catch the two hourly service from South Wigston to then connect with an hourly service from Leicester to an East Midlands Airport service.
Which is a 40 minute journey end to end, An excellent service in my opinion
 

NotATrainspott

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Here's a diagram from a local newspaper that I've not seen in other reports which clarifies the plans:

0-2-2-scaled.jpeg

I mentioned this earlier in the thread but no one seems to have picked up on it. This plan is pretty obviously derived from NR's idea:

em-option-8.png

The Sinfin branch would be extended through Chellaston and could reach the existing line, requiring fairly major reconfiguration works at the A50 junction to re-establish the old alignment through there.

The NR Option 8 idea has the new build line come straight at East Midlands Parkway station rather than to the south of it as in the other diagram.

The only other meaningful difference seems to be whether the route runs to the south of EMA on a new alignment or to the north on the existing line. Given that the proposal has the NET provide the final leg to the actual airport terminal and there are no other intermediate stops identified before Chellaston there really doesn't seem to be any economic justification to build a new alignment. The same links could be provided with the NR proposal. Even if the NR junction does diverge either side of EMP station, extra platforms on the flyover route could be built.

I'm sure a composite proposal could be drafted up which would deliver both the junction capacity requirements of NR and the desire for passenger services. While EMA might not be a station people will come from far by rail to fly from, having better transport links to a fairly strategic site for jobs and housing could be quite useful.
 

alex17595

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The Sinfin branch would be extended through Chellaston and could reach the existing line, requiring fairly major reconfiguration works at the A50 junction to re-establish the old alignment through there.

It would make more sense for them to realign it through Chellaston, perhaps using the old route of the Derby canal - theres even an underpass under the A50 already there.
 
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It would make more sense for them to realign it through Chellaston, perhaps using the old route of the Derby canal - theres even an underpass under the A50 already there.

There are plans to restore the canal to Derby that I think would use that underpass

 

pint

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I'd be surprised if you could get a railway through that underpass, its currently got a farm access route - big enough for a tractor/trailer and a part of a cycle track running though it.
if a line was going to go through there it would be much easier for it to join the existing line between Swarkestone lock on the canal and Lowes lane, avoiding the A50/A514 Swarkestone road junction altogether.
The whole thing is just pie in the sky, not only would it involve loosing a much used traffic free cycle track on the old Derby/Melbourne/Ashby railway route.
East midlands Airport (EMA) is primarily a freight airport/hub the freight business saw EMA still busy even when the passenger demand dropped due to Covid.
 
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Apologies if this post lacks structure, but it is necessary to jump about a bit to explain what I want to say!

edwin_m has mentioned the newest bit of railway in the country, namely the branch from Castle Donington to the East Midlands Gateway logistics park; for those not familiar with the area, this link should take you to Segro's Masterplan for the development:


Note that the headshunt for the freight terminal is literally a few meters from the East Midlands Airport boundary fence.

Unfortunately, google street view recorded a trip along the A453 between the location shown on the Masterplan as 'Public Transport Interchange' and Junction 24 some three years ago, and although work on the logistics park had started, it's not really possible to get a good idea as to where the 'Rail Port' and it's headshunt is; moreover, even when the google map for the area is set for 3D, the difference in height between the freight terminal and its headshunt and the adjoining road is still not really clear. In simple terms, it's massive.

The proposal comprised in Network Rail's East Midland's Route Study to build a connection which would permit trains using the line from Stenson Junction to avoid Sheet Stores and Trent to reach Toton/Erewash Valley line (and southwards) has been highlighted by NotATrainspott, and edwin_m highlighted how a line eastwards from the airport to the MML would need to cross the River Soar, the M1, the A6, and HS2 (if it's built).

Domh245 reproduced the diagram published in local newspapers of the Toton connection proposals, and this has the airport's rail station on its eastern side, with tram connections to the terminal.

So have SEGRO and Network Rail got their heads together, and has the branch to East Midlands Gateway been constructed in such a way that it could be taken over by Network Rail at a later date and used as nearly 50% of a Sheet Stores/Trent by pass, as proposed in the route study? As mentioned earlier, the headshunt is in a very deep "hole", and by observation it is so deep that an extension of it could pass beneath the M1 as well as the A453; there's then a route over open ground on the south side of the Kegworth bypass between the east side of the M1 and the A6/River Soar - close to each other at that point - and after crossing the river, the line could fork with a southbound link connecting with the MML at Sutton Bonington and a north facing one with it near Kingston-on-Soar (south of East Midlands Parkway). It would require a considerable amount of earth moving; but so has the branch from Castle Donington to East Midlands Gateway.

The obvious route for a tram connection between Toton and EMA would bring it through or close to Junction 24; consequently, it would also pass through (or close to) the site marked as 'Public Transport Interchange' on the masterplan diagram for East Midlands Gateway, and therefore close to the end of the headshunt . So could that be the site for an East Midlands Airport station, connected to the existing passenger terminal by tram?

The above would fit in with the diagram shown for the Toton connections proposal, and the new line proposed in Network Rail's East Midlands route study; it wouldn't be a fast connection, but it is for use by local trains and not inter-city services.

The Toton connections diagram shows that the route into Derby from the airport serves Chellaston and the Rolls Royce factory.

As has been stated earlier, there was a line which connected the Stenson Junction - Sheet Stores Junction line with Derby which went through Chellaston, and the northern part of this still exists into the Rolls Royce factory area from Melbourne Junction (on the Derby - Birmingham line); this closed as a through route back in 1969, but until works were undertaken on Wilmore Road as part of the creation of Infinity Park in Derby a few years ago, rail tracks still crossed it!

The area on both sides of the abandoned alignment through Chellaston were built on in the early years of this century, but for the most part the route through the development was not used and kept as a green corridor; true, Junction 3 of the A50 - known locally as 'The Bonnie Prince Island' because of its proximity to a pub/restaurant of that name - blocks the route close to where it joined the Stenson Junction - Sheet Stores Junction line, but could the green corridor be used as a route for a cut-and-cover tunnel through the built-up area?

Using a route west of Chellaston, close to the Derby Canal path and then through Infinity Park and along the original route between Shelton Lock (approximately) and Melbourne Junction has been suggested up thread, but such a route wouldn't really serve Chellaston (too far to the west); however, a cut-and-cover route following the old alignment could possibly accommodate a station similar in concept to Brussels Gare de Luxembourg, with its entrance/exit above ground on the open space on Parkway, close to Homefields School, this being reasonably central to the residential area west of the main road through Chellaston. I guess this would be more expensive to construct than a line to the west, but could the land under which the cut-and-cover tunnel was built just be "borrowed" rather than purchased? And - once constructed - would it not be less intrusive than a railway using a new alignment?

Comments regarding passenger demand for a railway station at East Midlands Airport have considered this in terms of the number of people using it to board flights; this is generally about 5m per annum, which roughly equates to 14,000 per day. But EMA is primarily a freight airport.

Obviously, freight flights don't generate passengers for airlines, but there is a massive support infrastructure for them at the airport; UPS, DHL, and Royal Mail all have large facilities there, and from google searches I've been unable to determine how many people are employed on site, and at the Pegasus Business Park located within the airport's boundary (a figure of 650 has been found for direct employees of the airport's owners). However, when planning permission was granted for the East Midlands Gateway development, it was claimed that this would result in 11,000 jobs being created, so it's reasonable to assume that the number of people working at or in close proximity to the airport will result in daily journeys to and from it which exceed passenger numbers.

Moreover, a railway station at the airport possibly has the capability of becoming a park-and-ride hub for local commuting. There are three rivers in the area near the airport - the Trent, Derwent, and Soar - and there aren't many bridges over them. Road congestion in Nottingham is terrible, and the widening of the A453 between Junction 24 and Nottingham will have made it easier for people in North West Leicestershire and South Derbyshire to get to Clifton NET Park-and-ride, but commuters going into Derby from places like Melbourne have to cope with the A514 over the medieval Swarkestone Causeway; so a short train journey from the airport might be attractive for people wishing to avoid that bottleneck.

Of course, the bottom line is that we don't know what those who drew up the proposals had in mind when they concocted their plans (do we?), so it's quite possible that they did think of using the new line to East Midlands Gateway as part of them; alternatively, they might have thought of building a new one in parallel! However, if this had featured in their plans, why wasn't a station proposed for Castle Donington? The railway line is located north of, and some distance away from, the town centre, but in recent years a lot of employment has been created in industrial estates and business parks which are located astride it.

Regarding cost, the only figures I've been able to find thus far for the East Midlands Gateway project are on the Staffordshire Live website, and it gives a total cost for the development as £700m; however, it also states that SEGRO are funding infrastructure works to the value of £100, and that this sum includes the rail terminal and road works (in association with Highways England and others) which included alterations at Junctions 24 and 24A of the M1 and the Kegworth bypass (which included a substantial single span bridge over the M1 where it's 8 lanes plus two hard-shoulders in width). So if SEGRO could construct the railway line between Castle Donington and the edge of East Midlands Airport AND some road works which included a substantial bridge, is Network Rail's estimated high figure of £375m excessive for the Sheet Stores/Trent bypass?

Sorry to have rambled on! But I'm certainly looking forward to see if anything comes of this idea, and to look at more detailed proposals as to how it will be taken forward.

Having said that, I'm of an age were I'll probably be pushing up daisies before this idea even becomes shovel ready!
 

ForTheLoveOf

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it also states that SEGRO are funding infrastructure works to the value of £100, and that this sum includes the rail terminal and road works (in association with Highways England and others) which included alterations at Junctions 24 and 24A of the M1 and the Kegworth bypass (which included a substantial single span bridge over the M1 where it's 8 lanes plus two hard-shoulders in width)
Wow, wonder what the BCR is if all that can be done for just £100! :lol:
 

NotATrainspott

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Is the rail freight terminal actually going to be used? I think mega logistics complexes like these have been built with rail connections before which then haven't been used. They'll be handy for getting planning approval.

I don't think the rail connection will have been designed to be used like that. It would presumably require some significant tunnelling to go anywhere beyond that, but there doesn't seem to be any useful routing which isn't possible by cheaper means. The nature of the development and airport traffic probably lends towards a transport hub, possibly including a railway station, then a set of feeder bus routes. I mean, it would be basically impossible for any railway station to serve the whole EMG site because it's so enormous and walking distances would be huge. As soon as you need to change onto a feeder bus you may as well put the station somewhere a little more convenient for the railway.
 

alex17595

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Is the rail freight terminal actually going to be used? I think mega logistics complexes like these have been built with rail connections before which then haven't been used. They'll be handy for getting planning approval.

It is used, I saw on train on it the other day
 

sharpley

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I mean, it would be basically impossible for any railway station to serve the whole EMG site because it's so enormous and walking distances would be huge. As soon as you need to change onto a feeder bus you may as well put the station somewhere a little more convenient for the railway.
EMG already has a free shuttle bus connecting the bus stops at the site entrance to the various warehouses. It also has a free 'Boris Bike' setup. where workers can pick up a bike at the entrance and ride to work.
 

edwin_m

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Looks like the Express (Clifton), Nottingham and Derby/Leicester Skylinks all serve the stop at the entrance.
 

43096

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Is the rail freight terminal actually going to be used? I think mega logistics complexes like these have been built with rail connections before which then haven't been used. They'll be handy for getting planning approval.

I don't think the rail connection will have been designed to be used like that. It would presumably require some significant tunnelling to go anywhere beyond that, but there doesn't seem to be any useful routing which isn't possible by cheaper means. The nature of the development and airport traffic probably lends towards a transport hub, possibly including a railway station, then a set of feeder bus routes. I mean, it would be basically impossible for any railway station to serve the whole EMG site because it's so enormous and walking distances would be huge. As soon as you need to change onto a feeder bus you may as well put the station somewhere a little more convenient for the railway.
In which cases buses from East Midlands Parkway are an option. Significantly cheaper and already served by existing trains without the need for a separate service to a branch off the main line.
 

edwin_m

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In which cases buses from East Midlands Parkway are an option. Significantly cheaper and already served by existing trains without the need for a separate service to a branch off the main line.
The buses I mentioned in a previous post already pass in front of the stations at Long Eaton, Nottingham and Derby and a short walk from Beeston and Loughborough. There have been several attempts to run a bus from the Parkway and it just isn't viable. It's unlikely the freight terminal will attract enough worker/visitors from far enough away to change that.
 
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The buses I mentioned in a previous post already pass in front of the stations at Long Eaton, Nottingham and Derby and a short walk from Beeston and Loughborough. There have been several attempts to run a bus from the Parkway and it just isn't viable. It's unlikely the freight terminal will attract enough worker/visitors from far enough away to change that.

Interesting thing is that Nottingham Skylink Express runs across the top of the approach road to Parkway station, so a stop could be added at the expense of a few minutes to the schedule; moreover, as well as providing a direct link between Parkway and East Midlands Gateway and the airport, it would also provide a direct link to Clifton Park & Ride (for NET) and it also stops in West Bridgford at the County Hall, which is close to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground and the Notts Forest City Ground, so a Parkway stop by the Skylink Express has the potential to attract more usage at Parkway for people living south of the Trent in the greater Nottingham area who rely on public transport to get to/from a rail station.

A direct bus service - operated by Midland Classic - has recently been introduced between East Midlands Gateway/airport and Burton's Queen's Hospital via Melbourne, Ashby, Swadlincote, and Burton railway station; new buses have recently been delivered (but not yet introduced) for the Derby/Loughborough/Leicester Skylink service, and there are rumours that it is going to be changed from every twenty minutes to an every fifteen minutes frequency.

The proposals are primarily about connecting East Midlands Airport to HS2 at Toton; trentbarton already operates - on an hourly basis - a route 15 which connects the area around Toton directly with the airport. As only one in three of the buses which run each hour between Ilkeston and Old Sawley are extended through to the airport, this suggests that currently there isn't much demand between it and the Toton area.
 

edwin_m

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Interesting thing is that Nottingham Skylink Express runs across the top of the approach road to Parkway station, so a stop could be added at the expense of a few minutes to the schedule; moreover, as well as providing a direct link between Parkway and East Midlands Gateway and the airport, it would also provide a direct link to Clifton Park & Ride (for NET) and it also stops in West Bridgford at the County Hall, which is close to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground and the Notts Forest City Ground, so a Parkway stop by the Skylink Express has the potential to attract more usage at Parkway for people living south of the Trent in the greater Nottingham area who rely on public transport to get to/from a rail station.
That's all true, but all those places also have good bus or tram links to Nottingham station. The fact it would be so easy to stop a bus at Parkway but it doesn't happen indicates how little public transport demand there is for Parkway and indeed how few rail people want to access East Midlands Airport or Gateway by rail. People travelling to the Gateway will be predominantly from areas served by existing bus links or will drive, and the selections of flights from the airport isn't good enough to attract large numbers of surface passengers from further afield like Manchester does. The kind of people attracted by a cheaper fare from EMA than from their own nearest airport are most likely to get there by car or private hire vehicle.

What might change this is the future closure of the power station and replacement by a brownfield development, and the adjacent railway station will most likely attract some companies to locate there. The development as a whole will probably generate enough demand to justify a bus service, but having a bus calling near the station is no more than an incidental benefit. Most people will be using the bus or the train to access the development, not changing from one to the other.
 
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