Class 222 withdrawal from EMR and future use (non-speculative)

[bramling]

It is just such a sorry state of affairs - like the ex-LNER HST debacle, things shouldn’t have been allowed to get this bad. How many nightmares can EMR be expected to suffer!

Supposing things drag on for so long that SR takes the 222s before EMR gets the 810s, I’d be very interested to see how the DfT handle EMR having no IC fleet at all. Surely it couldn’t happen…

Wouldn’t they just sub-lease them from SR to EMR? The only complication being that SR is not a DFT operator.

 

[snookertam]

Not necessarily.

Originally, particularly in the aftermath of Carmont I would've been among the first to say it was a logical and likely step in the near future.

The understandable stance taken by the unions after the Broughty Ferry accident only seemed to make it more likely - after all, if you are replacing the HSTs with an existing fleet there's little other choice is there?

I'm just less convinced as time passes that they will see use with ScotRail.

The board has already expressed concerns about having to pay for both the HST lease and a new lease on the 222s.

It was mentioned on here a few years ago that ScotRail was interested but the figure the ROSCO quoted to them was too high, so nothing more was heard at the time.

A recent FOI confirming there was no fornal agreement only increased my developing scepticism.

The fact is, people have been saying they would be going to or at least most likely to go to ScotRail after EMR for some time now.

ScotRail are usually good at publicising fleet changes/improvements when they are happening.

After a number of years, the only development we've seen is an agreement for Lumo, not ScotRail and a continued concern over the cost of paying for both.

Ultimately I'll believe it more when there's a formal agreement announced and not when people just keep mentioning it as though it were already fact I'm afraid.

Please forgive my cynicism, but hopefully I've explained the reasons for my hesitation on taking it as an absolute given.

Your scepticism is mis placed. You will soon see that.

 

[midland1]

Lumo and SR should be told they just have to wait until EMR gets all it 810. Why should 4 of the UKs larges cities put up with all this. You would not see this on routs like London to Bristol or S. Wales yet I would bet the population of the E. Midlands is bigger than the other two.

 

[bramling]

Lumo and SR should be told they just have to wait until EMR gets all it 810. Why should 4 of the UKs larges cities put up with all this. You would not see this on routs like London to Bristol or S. Wales yet I would bet the population of the E. Midlands is bigger than the other two.

I agree in principle, however unfortunately the leasing system doesn’t work like that. If a lease has been agreed, the leasing company is bound to honour it, unless all parties can come to a mutually acceptable agreement.

In the case of SR that may be more likely, in the case of Lumo more difficult without some form of compensation being paid to Lumo in lieu of the commercial services they won’t be able to operate.

I don’t agree with the view that the East Midlands is being specifically targeted though. It’s unfortunate that the replacement trains are late. However just the other side of Pancras Road, there’s been issues on Great Northern for some months with the class 379 reactivation being painfully slow, yet 387s have continued to head south of the river. It’s only very recently that 379 availability seems to be able to keep up with requirements - for some months the 379-diagrammed services have been quite a lottery as to whether they run. GTR is as much London/south east as can possibly be.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

Why would they lease them back to EMR when the HSTs need to be removed from service as quickly as possible?

They don't need to be removed from service as quickly as possible.

 

[hexagon789]

Your scepticism is mis placed. You will soon see that.

So people have been saying for the best part of past 4 years in one way or another...

It isn't that I don't believe it would happen, it's that people have been talking about it for so long with no seeming progress that one's belief in it ever happening has a natural tendency to wane with time.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Lumo and SR should be told they just have to wait until EMR gets all it 810. Why should 4 of the UKs larges cities put up with all this. You would not see this on routs like London to Bristol or S. Wales yet I would bet the population of the E. Midlands is bigger than the other two.

Told to wait by whom?

The ROSCOs are a private business - why would they want to tell Lumo who have leased their trains for a significant period of time they can’t have them because an existing lessor wants to extend their lease by a few months? Commercial businesses don’t work like that!

 

[43096]

Lumo and SR should be told they just have to wait until EMR gets all it 810. Why should 4 of the UKs larges cities put up with all this. You would not see this on routs like London to Bristol or S. Wales yet I would bet the population of the E. Midlands is bigger than the other two.

You don't seem to understand commercial contracts.

 

[cj_1985]

Lumo and SR should be told they just have to wait until EMR gets all it 810. Why should 4 of the UKs larges cities put up with all this. You would not see this on routs like London to Bristol or S. Wales yet I would bet the population of the E. Midlands is bigger than the other two.

Why? Because DfT/EMR didn't deal with the situation and plan ahead... instead them went for the cheapest option and let things run on hope... but again, the DfT will let EMR, Lumo, SR, Hitachi etc take the bad press because of their bad management.

I'm sorry, but we've had this out in numerous threads before. Why should Lumo, a private enterprise, not under government control, have its operation controlled and dictated to because of DfT mismanagement, and poor product design.... other than the feelings that east Midlands passengers are being persecuted

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Why? Because DfT/EMR didn't deal with the situation and plan ahead... instead them went for the cheapest option and let things run on hope... but again, the DfT will let EMR, Lumo, SR, Hitachi etc take the bad press because of their bad management.

I'm sorry, but we've had this out in numerous threads before. Why should Lumo, a private enterprise, not under government control, have its operation controlled and dictated to because of DfT mismanagement, and poor product design.... other than the feelings that east Midlands passengers are being persecuted

Completely agree.

 

[380101]

So people have been saying for the best part of past 4 years in one way or another...

It isn't that I don't believe it would happen, it's that people have been talking about it for so long with no seeming progress that one's belief in it ever happening has a natural tendency to wane with time.

There has been plenty of progress behind the scenes on the 222s moving to ScotRail. I expect commercial confidentiality clauses have prevented any public announcements from ScotRail on the issue.

There's no way ScotRail would commit staff and funds to prepare training courses, visits to Derby to view the 222s if it wasn't happening.

The training school is full to bursting with trainee drivers at the moment, so the fact they have lifted driver trainers from trainee courses to work on a 222 training package speaks volumes.

 

[bramling]

Why? Because DfT/EMR didn't deal with the situation and plan ahead... instead them went for the cheapest option and let things run on hope... but again, the DfT will let EMR, Lumo, SR, Hitachi etc take the bad press because of their bad management.

I'm sorry, but we've had this out in numerous threads before. Why should Lumo, a private enterprise, not under government control, have its operation controlled and dictated to because of DfT mismanagement, and poor product design.... other than the feelings that east Midlands passengers are being persecuted

In a purely logical world, it’s probably reasonably to say that the needs of EMR passengers outweigh Lumo, especially as it’s a start-up operation so it’s hard to argue that people are going to miss what’s not there now.

But unfortunately if Lumo have made a commercial agreement in good faith then it’s also unreasonable for them to end up out of pocket as a result of someone else’s messup, and contractually that’s not an option anyway.

The only way to square both sides of the coin is EMR keep the 222s and Lumo get compensated, then it’s for the other parties to squabble as to who ultimately foots the bill. And any liability on Hitachi would depend on how the contract was written, and whether there’s anything in there relating to consequential losses from late delivery.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I can tell you with absolute certainty that Lumo is not going to be delayed in getting its stock because the DfT couldn’t get its act together. There is not a chance that the DfT are going to break the law in trying to interfere in private contracts.

Hitachi are not liable for consequential losses (no rolling stock contract I have ever seen is concluded on that basis) but I strongly suspect that there will be enough 810 units running on EMR before Scotrail need their units en-masse.

 

[Russel]

So people have been saying for the best part of past 4 years in one way or another...

It isn't that I don't believe it would happen, it's that people have been talking about it for so long with no seeming progress that one's belief in it ever happening has a natural tendency to wane with time.

In fairness, this was the same with 175s to GWR, Mk5s to Chiltern...

 

[Potteries 323]

The additional IC225s was part of the competition for funding under a leasing arrangement. Ultimately the InterCity proposal lost out to NSE’s bid for more Networkers - what became Class 365.

When exactly were these good old days? In the 1980s, still under BR, there was an evening peak Glasgow C-Edinburgh via Shotts train booked for 6 cars; It rarely if ever actually ran with 6 cars because, not only did we not have spare stock, we did not even have enough DMUs for the normal diagrams.

WE had more stock under BR than we ever had since privitisation.Remember Midland Mainline ordering 3 CAR 170s for express services out of St Pancras.Under BR it was Class 45s and a rake of coaches or High Speed Trains.GWR and LNER order 5 car IEP trains to replace HST and Class 91 + Mk4 stock and the hollow promise that they would always be used in pairs,never singly (What a lie that turned out to be) Virgin ordering 4 and 5 car Voyagers to replace HST and 6 and 7 coach loco hauled services.

 

[FrontSideBus]

Makes you wonder why they shifted away from locomotives and rakes of highly customisable coaching stock to fixed formation units?

 

[43096]

WE had more stock under BR than we ever had since privitisation.Remember Midland Mainline ordering 3 CAR 170s for express services out of St Pancras.Under BR it was Class 45s and a rake of coaches or High Speed Trains.

You have obviously forgotten that the 170s were additional to the inherited fleet and were to allow a 30-min interval service to both Nottingham and Derby - way better than what BR was running.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

WE had more stock under BR than we ever had since privitisation.Remember Midland Mainline ordering 3 CAR 170s for express services out of St Pancras.Under BR it was Class 45s and a rake of coaches or High Speed Trains.

Well don’t let facts get in the way of your story. BUT… the cl170s didn’t replace HSTs, they were used to increase the train service.

Under BR there was two HST departures an hour, under MML there was two HST departures (now serving the longer distances) and two cl170s departures an hour serving the small stations (the non-express services)

You will find the number of passenger rail vehicles has increased post privatisation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Oct 2025 ==

GWR and LNER order 5 car IEP trains to replace HST and Class 91 + Mk4 stock and the hollow promise that they would always be used in pairs,never singly (What a lie that turned out to be)

There was never a promise they wouldn’t be used singly; for London to Lincoln and London to Cheltenham they are about the right sized train.

You forget that London to Cheltenham under BR was a couple of peak workings each way and an off-peak round trip, the rest being 2 car DMU connections.

Under FGW that became a 2-hourly 5 car 180 operated service through to Paddington with HSTs still in the peaks.

Under the IET programme Paddington to Cheltenham has become hourly largely 5 car IETs with 9 car peak workings.

Paddington to Worcester under BR, was mostly 3 car 166s with again a couple of peak HST workings. That is now an hourly 5 car IET with 9 car peak workings.

 

[class397tpe]

I can tell you with absolute certainty that Lumo is not going to be delayed in getting its stock because the DfT couldn’t get its act together. There is not a chance that the DfT are going to break the law in trying to interfere in private contracts.

Hitachi are not liable for consequential losses (no rolling stock contract I have ever seen is concluded on that basis) but I strongly suspect that there will be enough 810 units running on EMR before Scotrail need their units en-masse.

Agreed - Lumo for sure, there won’t be a delay there, they will get their trains and EMR will have to run a slightly reduced timetable.

I expect the transfer to Scotrail will be delayed (potentially with the units subleased back to EMR), until EMR can release them. The exact same thing happened to EMR with the 170 transfer from WMR and Southern, with EMR forced to wait, so I expect it to happen to Scotrail. It would be spiteful from the DfT to give EMR the short end of the stick this time as well.

 

[cj_1985]

I expect the transfer to Scotrail will be delayed (potentially with the units subleased back to EMR), until EMR can release them. The exact same thing happened to EMR with the 170 transfer from WMR and Southern, with EMR forced to wait, so I expect it to happen to Scotrail. It would be spiteful from the DfT to give EMR the short end of the stick this time as well.

Not to do the whole England vs Scotland thing... but Scotrail is not under the control of the DfT, and if Scotrail decide they want to use the 222s from the start of agreed lease, there's nothing that the DfT or EMR can do to change things... nothing at all to with the DfT giving, or not giving, the short end of the stick

 

[Falcon1200]

WE had more stock under BR than we ever had since privitisation

Another example from my experience, in the late 1980s still under BR.

Corkerhill Depot was doing a great job maintaining its Class 156 fleet, so that our daily availability figure was regularly plus 1. We were told by Scotrail HQ to only show this as even, as otherwise BR HQ would transfer one of our sets away. That was the reality of BR then, fiddling about with single DMUs.

 

[Clarence Yard]

WE had more stock under BR than we ever had since privitisation.Remember Midland Mainline ordering 3 CAR 170s for express services out of St Pancras.Under BR it was Class 45s and a rake of coaches or High Speed Trains.GWR and LNER order 5 car IEP trains to replace HST and Class 91 + Mk4 stock and the hollow promise that they would always be used in pairs,never singly (What a lie that turned out to be) Virgin ordering 4 and 5 car Voyagers to replace HST and 6 and 7 coach loco hauled services.

No, we didn’t, at least in 1994 when the stock transferred to the ROSCOs. The 45’s had long gone as had most other conventional (i.e. non push pull) LHCS trains. The IEP programme 80x sets were ordered by the Government, not the TOCs and the pre-COVID promise that was made on GWR was that every peak arrival or departure at Paddington would be diagrammed to be a 9 car or 10 car, as from the Dec 2019 timetable. Obviously there would be splits or joins further down the line, if required.

The Cross Country fleet is interesting. Back in BR days I got involved in a scoping exercise for IC as they wanted to replace the XC fleet and one option was with underfloor engined DMU’s and one of my depots would have helped with their maintenance. They were looking at 5,6 and 7 car formations. So I am fairly sure, had the money for all public bodies not run out in 1990 and privatisation not happened, their cl.47 and LHCS fleet would not have had to last as long as they did.

BR from the end of the Beeching era onwards was fairly ruthless with conventional LHCS and, after allowing for replacements (such as HST’s), the numbers decreased year on year. The ability to run extra trains decreased as well and Sectorisation accelerated that process to, in most cases, the finish. Since then the increase in the number of normal weekend services has taken a lot of spare weekend capacity away, especially with the “go anywhere” diesel fleets.

The days of Finsbury Park providing 3 Cravens units to run a weekend Liverpool Street to Cromer express, Old Oak providing two or three sets of NSE coaches for weekend summer dated trains or extras, or Anglia providing one or two sets of coaches (with at seat dining) for Arsenal away games have now long gone. Everything is now centred around the normal everyday service, with formations as tight as the DfT (or the Scottish Government) requires them to be.

 

[Falcon1200]

.Under BR it was Class 45s and a rake of coaches or High Speed Trains.

It should be remembered that the Midland Main Line HSTs were not a new fleet provided especially for the line but sets removed from other routes!

 

[Potteries 323]

No, we didn’t, at least in 1994 when the stock transferred to the ROSCOs. The 45’s had long gone as had most other conventional (i.e. non push pull) LHCS trains. The IEP programme 80x sets were ordered by the Government, not the TOCs and the pre-COVID promise that was made on GWR was that every peak arrival or departure at Paddington would be diagrammed to be a 9 car or 10 car, as from the Dec 2019 timetable. Obviously there would be splits or joins further down the line, if required.

The Cross Country fleet is interesting. Back in BR days I got involved in a scoping exercise for IC as they wanted to replace the XC fleet and one option was with underfloor engined DMU’s and one of my depots would have helped with their maintenance. They were looking at 5,6 and 7 car formations. So I am fairly sure, had the money for all public bodies not run out in 1990 and privatisation not happened, their cl.47 and LHCS fleet would not have had to last as long as they did.

BR from the end of the Beeching era onwards was fairly ruthless with conventional LHCS and, after allowing for replacements (such as HST’s), the numbers decreased year on year. The ability to run extra trains decreased as well and Sectorisation accelerated that process to, in most cases, the finish. Since then the increase in the number of normal weekend services has taken a lot of spare weekend capacity away, especially with the “go anywhere” diesel fleets.

The days of Finsbury Park providing 3 Cravens units to run a weekend Liverpool Street to Cromer express, Old Oak providing two or three sets of NSE coaches for weekend summer dated trains or extras, or Anglia providing one or two sets of coaches (with at seat dining) for Arsenal away games have now long gone. Everything is now centred around the normal everyday service, with formations as tight as the DfT (or the Scottish Government) requires them to be.

If there was no spare stock under BR where did all the locos and coaches come from for the numerous "Merrymaker" excursions most weekends and the many "Footex" football excursions every Saturday. I remember all the loco hauled special trains to Wembley for the FA Cup Finals every year and look at all those special trains to the Spalding flower festival every year.We had special trains formed of Class 20s with 6 or 7 Mk2 coaches in the 1990s going to Blackpool and North Wales daily during the summer months.Not to mention frequent Relief expresses to provide extra capacity on busy trains It all disappeared under privitisation due to no spare stock.

 

[43096]

It should be remembered that the Midland Main Line HSTs were not a new fleet provided especially for the line but sets removed from other routes!

As a consequence of much reduced demand asa result of the early 80s recession, a tightening of excessive turnround times and a realisation that the HST fleet really didn't need the level of maintenance that BR had started with.

 

[GoneSouth]

Paddington to Worcester under BR, was mostly 3 car 166s with again a couple of peak HST workings. That is now an hourly 5 car IET with 9 car peak workings.

I think somewhere along the line it was a 2 car DMU then a 156 from Worcester to Oxford most of the day, with the peak loco hauled train eventually replaced with the HSTs.

 

[Potteries 323]

Crewe - Derby under BR was a 3 car Swindon Cross Country DMU.Under privatisation with East Midlands Trains was a single car 153.........

 

[99009]

Back on topic, 222001 hasn't been in use with EMR for a while. 222002-222004 are all out and about today.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Crewe - Derby under BR was a 3 car Swindon Cross Country DMU.Under privatisation with East Midlands Trains was a single car 153.........

You are conveniently forgetting it was BR who withdrew the 3 car Swindon Cross Country DMUs and introduced the single car 153s on that route…

 

[BlueLeanie]

If there was no spare stock under BR where did all the locos and coaches come from for the numerous "Merrymaker" excursions most weekends and the many "Footex" football excursions every Saturday. I remember all the loco hauled special trains to Wembley for the FA Cup Finals every year and look at all those special trains to the Spalding flower festival every year.We had special trains formed of Class 20s with 6 or 7 Mk2 coaches in the 1990s going to Blackpool and North Wales daily during the summer months.Not to mention frequent Relief expresses to provide extra capacity on busy trains It all disappeared under privitisation due to no spare stock.

If there was so much spare stock under BR, then why did so many lines have such a pathetic Sunday (or even Saturday) service?

Maybe just a two hourly service, starting mid-morning, if there were any trains at all on a Sunday.

Does anyone have a comparison Sunday timetable for Haddenham in 1990 versus today? Maybe I've forgotten these relentless 7 coach services on a Sunday.