East Midlands Railway Dec 2025 recast

[Bald Rick]

Personally, I would make even the Barton line hourly as it might generate more usage compared to the 2 hourly service it has now.

You might as well just take £4m each year and burn it at a nearby power station. At least it would generate something useful!

 

[JRT]

Midlands Rail Hub enhancements designed to provide better connectivity and more services for the East Midlands region appear to have been put on hold following recent announcements from the Chancellor. Despite a government commitment to the project, it’s now emerged that only schemes in the West Midlands are being taken forward.

Midlands Rail Hub plans for East Midlands 'put on hold'

Only schemes in the West Midlands are being taken forward.

email.railmagazine.com

 

[I like Class 153]

Why are they doing a direct Matlock to Cleethorpes service from December?, Why not keep it as Nottingham to Matlock?, Maybe do a Leicester to Skegness?

 

[43074]

Why are they doing a direct Matlock to Cleethorpes service from December?, Why not keep it as Nottingham to Matlock?, Maybe do a Leicester to Skegness?

It's determined by the way train paths align either side of Nottingham, working outwards from the Newark Flat Crossing.

With the East Coast recast the Nottingham to Lincoln paths align better with those towards Matlock/Crewe (albeit swapped over compared to now) so they become a more logical fit than those towards Leicester.

Nottingham to Skegness works better as a standalone service because the turnaround time at Notts gives more time to unload/load passengers than a through service would, as well as being good for performance on one of the longer Regional routes.

 

[edwin_m]

Nottingham to Skegness works better as a standalone service because the turnaround time at Notts gives more time to unload/load passengers than a through service would, as well as being good for performance on one of the longer Regional routes.

And because Skegness trains are often strengthened at holiday periods, and they don't want the extra units wandering off elsewhere or to have to do more splitting and joining at Nottingham.

 

[Trainman40083]

And because Skegness trains are often strengthened at holiday periods, and they don't want the extra units wandering off elsewhere or to have to do more splitting and joining at Nottingham.

I used to hate catching a train home from Crewe that had worked in from Skegness. It was a pigsty, although to be fair, a pigsty would probably be tidier.. Then they made them a standalone service so they could be cleaned for an hour.

 

[Kite159]

Why are they doing a direct Matlock to Cleethorpes service from December?, Why not keep it as Nottingham to Matlock?, Maybe do a Leicester to Skegness?

Or even split it to be Matlock - Nottingham and a separate Nottingham - Cleethorpes/Lincoln service. As I would imagine those trains will empty out at Nottingham with only a small percentage of 'Cross Nottingham' traffic.

Would save importing delays onto the single track Matlock branch from a train from Lincoln losing 5 minutes due to the ECML falling over etc.

 

[Harpo]

So, DfT finally deals with its fetish for Matlock to become a terminus for somewhere other than Nottingham. (Norwich was an early bit of abandoned madness.)

Meanwhile Leicester will have a stand alone hourly shuttle to Nottingham, and a stand alone hourly shuttle to Birmingham. Joined-up railway my Automatic Route Setting Equipment.

 

[duffield]

So, DfT finally deals with its fetish for Matlock to become a terminus for somewhere other than Nottingham. (Norwich was an early bit of abandoned madness.)

Meanwhile Leicester will have a stand alone hourly shuttle to Nottingham, and a stand alone hourly shuttle to Birmingham. Joined-up railway my Automatic Route Setting Equipment.

Well, I'm concerned that the currently pretty reliable Nottingham to Matlock service is going to become very erratic due to the Clee extension, but on the other hand the current situation is a pretty inefficient use of units - with the long layover at Nottingham (and at Derby in one direction), they spend in total about 1/3 of the time idle.

In the absence of any extra units, using the existing ones more intensively is the only way to squeeze out passenger services, in particular the much needed 2tph to Lincoln.

A stand-alone shuttle to Leicester should of course now gain reliability since it's not coming from Grimsby/Lincoln anymore, and maybe at some point if the wires reach Nottingham it could be run by some hand-me-down EMUs.

But yes, particularly if I was using the existing service to commute regularly from Matlock to Derby (for example) I'd be pretty concerned that I might end up having to find an alternative to rail if the new service frequently falls apart. I think there was a suggestion that if an incoming unit from Clee is badly delayed it might be possible to rustle up a spare unit and crew to start the service from Nottingham - sometimes. But I wouldn't want to rely on it.

 

[Harpo]

I think there was a suggestion that if an incoming unit from Clee is badly delayed it might be possible to rustle up a spare unit and crew to start the service from Nottingham - sometimes. But I wouldn't want to rely on it.

Quite. ‘Spare’ anything these days, and especially staff, is in the realms of rocking horse droppings.

 

[bunnahabhain]

Or even split it to be Matlock - Nottingham and a separate Nottingham - Cleethorpes/Lincoln service. As I would imagine those trains will empty out at Nottingham with only a small percentage of 'Cross Nottingham' traffic.

Would save importing delays onto the single track Matlock branch from a train from Lincoln losing 5 minutes due to the ECML falling over etc.

You'd be surprised how many people from Lincoln travel through to Derby and onwards. In particular you'd now be better changing at Derby for Birmingham than Nottingham.

 

[Trainman40083]

Or even split it to be Matlock - Nottingham and a separate Nottingham - Cleethorpes/Lincoln service. As I would imagine those trains will empty out at Nottingham with only a small percentage of 'Cross Nottingham' traffic.

Would save importing delays onto the single track Matlock branch from a train from Lincoln losing 5 minutes due to the ECML falling over etc.

Trouble is. You have a delay on the Matlock line, that delays the next train, those delays can knock on much of the day... Results in some turning at Ambergate.

 

[Class 170101]

You'd be surprised how many people from Lincoln travel through to Derby and onwards. In particular you'd now be better changing at Derby for Birmingham than Nottingham.

Its unlikely to be able Matlock to Cleethorpes journeys but journeys to / from intermediate points like Matlock to Lincoln, Cleethorpes to Derby and points in between.

 

[bunnahabhain]

Trouble is. You have a delay on the Matlock line, that delays the next train, those delays can knock on much of the day... Results in some turning at Ambergate.

There'll be more than enough padding in the diagram to accommodate that plus you've got multiple bites of the cherry with a right time restart at Nottingham, Derby and potentially even Lincoln depending upon unit and crew availability.

 

[Bald Rick]

So, DfT finally deals with its fetish for Matlock to become a terminus for somewhere other than Nottingham. (Norwich was an early bit of abandoned madness.)

Meanwhile Leicester will have a stand alone hourly shuttle to Nottingham, and a stand alone hourly shuttle to Birmingham. Joined-up railway my Automatic Route Setting Equipment.

For the record, this is an EMR initiative. DfT have of course agreed to it.

 

[Mugby]

I've often wondered why some of the 'Ivanhoe' stoppers can't run through to Derby, instead of Nottingham.
By doing this, Long Eaton could be taken out of the slower Sheffield - London services and eliminate all the short platform rigmarole involved.

Isn't most of the flow from Barrow-on-Soar, Sileby and Syston towards Leicester rather than Nottingham?

 

[M60lad]

Is there any plans in the future to reinstate Saturday 08:51 Liverpool Lime St-Norwich service? At the moment 05:10 Nottingham-Liverpool gets to Liverpool at 08:29 and for some reason on Saturdays only instead of going out at 08:51 seems to wait until 09:51 before leaving Liverpool yet on weekdays 08:51 runs, is there a reason why it can't run on Saturdays?

 

[edwin_m]

I've often wondered why some of the 'Ivanhoe' stoppers can't run through to Derby, instead of Nottingham.
By doing this, Long Eaton could be taken out of the slower Sheffield - London services and eliminate all the short platform rigmarole involved.

Isn't most of the flow from Barrow-on-Soar, Sileby and Syston towards Leicester rather than Nottingham?

Maybe so from those stations but I'd say Loughborough has more travel to Nottingham than to Derby. The fact that Beeston retains its London calls despite similar platform issues and alternative connections being available suggests the same would continue to happen for Long Eaton.

 

[MCR247]

Is there any plans in the future to reinstate Saturday 08:51 Liverpool Lime St-Norwich service? At the moment 05:10 Nottingham-Liverpool gets to Liverpool at 08:29 and for some reason on Saturdays only instead of going out at 08:51 seems to wait until 09:51 before leaving Liverpool yet on weekdays 08:51 runs, is there a reason why it can't run on Saturdays?

I believe EMR crew usually take a break in Liverpool and run the service back in the following hour

 

[Trainman40083]

I've often wondered why some of the 'Ivanhoe' stoppers can't run through to Derby, instead of Nottingham.
By doing this, Long Eaton could be taken out of the slower Sheffield - London services and eliminate all the short platform rigmarole involved.

Isn't most of the flow from Barrow-on-Soar, Sileby and Syston towards Leicester rather than Nottingham?

Of course when you get disruption, south of Leicester on EMR, Leicester to Derby doesn't get a service at all . At least Leicester still has the stopper.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Is there any plans in the future to reinstate Saturday 08:51 Liverpool Lime St-Norwich service? At the moment 05:10 Nottingham-Liverpool gets to Liverpool at 08:29 and for some reason on Saturdays only instead of going out at 08:51 seems to wait until 09:51 before leaving Liverpool yet on weekdays 08:51 runs, is there a reason why it can't run on Saturdays?

Answering a question with a question I know, but was this a Covid casualty or has it been missing for years before the pandemic?

 

[bunnahabhain]

Answering a question with a question I know, but was this a Covid casualty or has it been missing for years before the pandemic?

Covid casualty. It hasn't been "reinstated" yet. Although I *think* it might be back in December but I'll need to go double check.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jul 2025 ==

Yeah it's back in December. Almost a 50/50 split across the day between 170 and 158!

Also Sundays now an 0830 NOT-MAN and 1141 MAN-NRW providing an earlier journey.

 

[Starmill]

I've often wondered why some of the 'Ivanhoe' stoppers can't run through to Derby, instead of Nottingham.
By doing this, Long Eaton could be taken out of the slower Sheffield - London services and eliminate all the short platform rigmarole involved.

Isn't most of the flow from Barrow-on-Soar, Sileby and Syston towards Leicester rather than Nottingham?

I don't think it'd be very popular to remove some of the London trains from Long Eaton.

 

[DDB]

Covid casualty. It hasn't been "reinstated" yet. Although I *think* it might be back in December but I'll need to go double check.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jul 2025 ==

Yeah it's back in December. Almost a 50/50 split across the day between 170 and 158!

Also Sundays now an 0830 NOT-MAN and 1141 MAN-NRW providing an earlier journey.

I'm taking from this the new timetables have been set and you have access to them!

Would you / Could you tell us the times of the new later last trains from Nottingham which was one of the other improvements suggested in the orginal posts?

 

[Boothby97]

Are there going to be any noticeable retimings of routes like Liverpool to Cleethorpes due to knock-on effects of EMR and ECML changes?

I understand not, last I heard the EMR Matlock departures from Cleethorpes would be roughly every two hours on the xx06 (even hours, so 0806, 1006, etc) connecting into LNER departures from Lincoln at 0930, 1130, etc.

In the opposite direction the ex Matlock would be approximately at the xx40 through Grimsby Town (on alternate hour to the two hourly Barton service).

 

[Starmill]

I'm taking from this the new timetables have been set and you have access to them!

Would you / Could you tell us the times of the new later last trains from Nottingham which was one of the other improvements suggested in the orginal posts?

Network Rail have offered them a few weeks ago, yes. That doesn't mean 'final', just an idea, until you can actually buy a ticket against one of course.

 

[Denis103]

I've often wondered why some of the 'Ivanhoe' stoppers can't run through to Derby, instead of Nottingham.
By doing this, Long Eaton could be taken out of the slower Sheffield - London services and eliminate all the short platform rigmarole involved.

Isn't most of the flow from Barrow-on-Soar, Sileby and Syston towards Leicester rather than Nottingham?

There is quite a number of daily commuters from long eaton to leicester and london. If you want to take out stops then why not east midlands pw, loughborough etc and have all the main line run Sheffield, Derby or Nottingham and Leicester only to St P and just stick 2 fingers up to passengers from smaller places. Timekeeping is bad enough with the intermingling of Thameslink and Corby's and the meridians to the north without adding yet more trains from trent jc to derby. Inevitably they get slowed at Kettering waiting for a corby to be turned across to the slows. The easy way to resolve issue at long eaton is to extend the platform 10m towards derby as you can fit a 5 car in the platform if the train stops are sorted.

 

[A S Leib]

I understand not, last I heard the EMR Matlock departures from Cleethorpes would be roughly every two hours on the xx06 (even hours, so 0806, 1006, etc) connecting into LNER departures from Lincoln at 0930, 1130, etc.

In the opposite direction the ex Matlock would be approximately at the xx40 through Grimsby Town (on alternate hour to the two hourly Barton service).

I specified the Liverpool to Cleethorpes services because of the fact that they'll be interacting with services at Sheffield and Doncaster which are changing; routes which aren't run by EMR or mostly on the ECML but where the changes might have an impact.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Covid casualty. It hasn't been "reinstated" yet. Although I *think* it might be back in December but I'll need to go double check.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jul 2025 ==

Yeah it's back in December. Almost a 50/50 split across the day between 170 and 158!

Also Sundays now an 0830 NOT-MAN and 1141 MAN-NRW providing an earlier journey.

Woohoo, only nearly six years. Good effort EMR ***smirks***

This route should've gone back to hourly in 2022 when the UK got back to normal.

 

[Judith hambly]

reinstateing the 1540 notts norwich and 1857 return would be a good start