Rolling Stock
Other than the lines to Liverpool and Manchester, no East Midlands Trains routes are electrified north of Bedford and all trains are diesel-powered.
East Midlands Trains inherited Midland Mainline’s InterCity 125 (HST) and Class 222 Meridian diesel-electric high-speed trains, along with some of the Sprinter diesel units (classes 153/156/158) formerly operated by Central Trains.
All Class 158 units have been refurbished in a style similar to sister company South West Trains' fleet, although with a higher seating capacity.
The High Speed Train sets are being refurbished over a sixty-week period. The first set was shown off to the public at the Neville Hill Open Day in September. The refurbishment features only a retrim of carpets, recovering of existing seats and new dado side panels, wall ends and seat-top hand grips being repainted. LED reading lights in first-class carriages are being removed and the wheelchair-accessible toilets are not being updated to meet the Disability Discrimination Act.
East Midlands Trains announced in March 2008 that it was to reform its Class 222 sets to prevent overcrowding. This will see the remaining 4-car Class 222 units receive an extra vehicle to become 5-car sets. This was accomplished by reducing one of the 8-car sets to a 5-car, with the remaining 8-car sets reduced to 7-cars. Extra capacity on long-distance routes is provided by running pairs of 5-car sets coupled together.
All four of the Class 222/1 units from First Hull Trains have now been transferred, allowing enough rolling stock for the new service to Corby.
First Hull Trains made a decision to use only Class 180 'Adelante' units, with its Class 222 'Pioneer' units transferring to East Midlands Trains.
East Midlands Trains began the service from Corby on 23 February 2009. Initially, this was made up of one train per day in each direction, using the existing Meridian fleet. The full Corby service started on 27 April 2009.
The sprinter fleet which EMT inherited at the start of the franchise was in a very poor state. Problems ranged from basic and simple to major complicated faults. The fleet was put together from various sources - around four different previous companies, with some coming directly from passenger work but some that had been lying idle surplus to requirements off lease in sidings. East Midlands Trains has claimed that it will take the lifetime of the franchise to get the trains to a standard that it is happy with. In addition to the various sources of the trains, passenger figures given to the Department for Transport prior to the franchise were incorrect, leading to a shortfall in the number of seats provided (a 26% decrease in capacity on route 2) compared with what was required.
Four additional Class 156 DMUs, leased from Angel Trains have been cascaded from Northern to enable more route 2 services to run as four-coach trains by using these cascaded Class 156s on Skegness services in lieu of Class 158s. From December 2012 when the sprinter refurbishment programme is complete, all route 2 services between Liverpool and Nottingham will be able to operate as four-coach trains. In addition, from December 2011 the 13:52 from Liverpool will operate through to Norwich.
Read more about this topic: East Midlands Trains
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