Routes
East Midlands Trains initially divided its services between two sub-brands: Mainline InterCity services, and Connect urban and suburban services, which mainly came from the Central Trains franchise. However, from April 2008, the company dropped the "Mainline" and "Connect" branding in favour of "London" and "Local" services. It also has four broad routes for the areas in which it operates, except for the high-speed InterCity services, which all serve London.
EMT has promised better integration between "London" and "Local" services, together with increased punctuality and becoming more user-friendly.
The new timetables indicate a reduction in off-peak departures at many smaller stations on London and Local routes, which has caused concern in affected communities; Kettering for example has had its northbound services halved.
In several interviews, East Midlands Trains indicated that services would be speeded up, not denying that some stations would lose their current high frequency of trains off-peak. Various rail-user groups have expressed dissatisfaction with various proposals, particularly those affecting smaller stations. Indeed, East Midlands Trains has been mentioned in Parliament several times due to customer dissatisfaction.
On 25 November 2008, Peter Bone (MP for Wellingborough) asked if the Secretary of State for Transport supports the "In the Can" campaign, whereby sardines are sent to the Chief Executive to show dissatisfaction at perceived overcrowding. Helen Southworth (then MP for Warrington South) also raised the overcrowding issue on the same day.
Despite public statements claiming improved services, peak-time services from St Pancras to Wellingborough between 16:30 and 18:00 have been reduced from seven to three, and an additional stop has been added to the 17:00, as well as reducing the train from eight cars to five. Furthermore, there is a severely restricted northbound evening peak service from the Luton stations with no services to Wellingborough, Kettering or stations north of Leicester (except a single service to Beeston, East Midlands Parkway and Nottingham) between 16:51 and 18:10.
Route-clearance trials have been carried out with Class 222 on routes from Nottingham to Liverpool, Lincoln and Norwich. Although East Midlands Trains has no current plans to use these units on Liverpool or Norwich services, except on Grand National weekend where a 7 car Class 222 is used between Liverpool and Nottingham only.
Read more about this topic: East Midlands Trains
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