I wonder if any of the peak services will pick up the other stop?
You are quite right I forgot they swapped the Crewe and the Matlock.
The Bus fare from Chaddesden/Spondon to Derby return is £6.00 and the Train fare from Spondon to Derby return is £4.40, that is cheaper than the Bus
It doesn't, it's the Crewe service that goes to Newark. The Matlock service just shuttles Nottingham to Matlock. The concern is that extending it all the way to Clee will make it wildly unreliable compared to today.
They have, but it's still a big concern. The Matlock route is currently very reliable, so it may cause some issues. But then again, the Leicester services aren't too bad at the moment.
However how more frequent is the bus compared to the train, and if the bus has the advantage of dropping off the punters in Derby city centre rather than at the station?
The bus is every 10 mins and fast down the A52 right to the bus station in the city centre. There is also another two an hour serving more of Spondon but doesn't go direct into Derby.
It's more how the paths across the ECML flat crossing dictate the paths either side. It's worth noting that the Crewe and Matlock services switch departure times at Nottingham as well, with Crewe now leaving approx xx54 and Matlock approx xx17. The Matlock is the fast service East of Nottingham.
The bus has rubber tyres so is akin to kryptonite for some people.
Is the departure time switch what has happened or what will happen? If the later have the new times been published somewhere?
I don't take the trian I used to but when I did I think the teenagers I saw getting on at Spondon were going to Derby college which is adjacent to Derby station. So for them the station would be more convenient. It does depend of course on where they live at the Spondon end.
Found this old timetable from 2015. I assume it will be similar to this
There's a very small tunnel there but I'm not sure it was ever actually used.
Yes, there was an idea of reinstating a direct connection a few years ago, but I think it would have been pretty much a new tunnel under the WCML, and Nuneaton station is pretty convenient for the town as well as allowing main line connections. Personally I think a reversal at the old Abbey station could be made to work, but I'm shouted down every time I suggest it on here...
Interestingly, all the later maps (e.g. 1902-1904) do show this line, going under the main line - but not connected to the Coventry line, and in fact blocked by a siding, or (later) ending at a turntable. It seems odd that this line would be disconnected not long after being built, since you would imagine it would have formed a very useful freight bypass for Nuneaton station. I wonder if there's a chance the 1886/7/8 maps - perhaps based on the same data - are wrong, and that maybe the connection was planned as shown but never built as planned? I've certainly heard of some older OS maps showing railway infrastructure as if it had been built which was then never built in reality.
Times haven't been published yet.
Relatively similar, the "Ambergate Flyer" also returns except this time it's an approx 0657 Ambergate to Cleethorpes!
It's very rare that I use the Buses, the only times that I'm on the Buses is for to get to volunteering work at Midland Railway Butterley and places where I can't access by Train but other than that I just use the Train from Spondon even if I'm just going into Derby City Centre
Interesting. Do you happen to know what the Sunday timetable looks like?
I would imagine so as they are pathed with the Intercity services which aren't having any major timetable changes.
Could be wrong but I think that one or both legs may change slightly as it is around 50 mins Nottingham to Leicester, so could be done with 2 units instead of 3 if the current times are kept.
I suppose there's no way of predicting what this potential change may look like in the timetable?
Matlock to Lincoln, and Derby to Crewe. I can't remember how many go through to Cleethorpes but assume it's the 3 a day that run at present.
Yepp, very very busy, especially weekends. However times I have had to catch weekday, it's still pretty busy. Either needs an extra carriage or more frequent times in both directions. Hopefully we will see proposed timetable soon.
Usually, the timetable changes start appearing on public sites such as Real Time Trains (RTT) about 3 months before they're due to begin. When this happens, we usually get a view of the vast majority of changes, but some of the changes may not have yet filtered through or been completely finalised. That means I expect to see the majority of December 2025 changes on RTT (and therefore discussed on this forum) from around Monday 15th September 2025.
3 months is the timescale for short term planning amendments e.g. for engineering works, the full working timetable should start appearing downstream from early August. Although given the scale of the change in December I'd expect some will be later than that, depending how many conflicts and the like are outstanding.
My understanding is that all trains will run to Cleethorpes - what is unclear is if the service will move to hourly or remain at 1 train every 2 hours. It really needs to be hourly now.
That is one thing I haven’t understood. They had strengthened many services to 3 coaches, everyone was happy. Then in summer 2024 the went down to 4 which was understandable with the Skegness loadings. Then have remained 2 ever since. I think 2 will be fine when Lincoln is half-hourly. If Grimsby- Lincoln remains every other hour it really needs to be 3.
Even at times the Crewe service could do with a 3 car but it is a case of robing peter to pay Paul. I suspect the 3 car diagrams that are now on the Liverpool's were the Lincoln ones.
