Scrap EMR Connect and extend Thameslink to Corby

[Magdalia]

As distance and journey time increase, the benefits of direct connectivity reduce and the costs resulting from lack of resilience increase. From the Thameslink experience since 2018 I'd say that there is a tipping point at about 50/60 miles or 60/75 minutes from the core, anything further is more trouble than its worth. This sets Brighton, Bedford and Cambridge as the outer limits.

It is also important to remember that the long distance Thameslink connectivity is widely dispersed at the East of England end, but concentrated on Gatwick and Brighton at the South East end, as demonstrated by this analysis of the ODM data, using the regional tag showing the South East-East of England flows bigger than 10k one way journeys:

38775 Gatwick-Cambridge
35426 Gatwick-St Albans
26884 Brighton-Cambridge
26191 Gatwick-Luton Airport Parkway
24694 Gatwick-Bedford
22222 Brighton-St Albans
17119 Brighton-Bedford
15249 Gatwick-Stevenage
13679 Brighton-Luton Airport Parkway
13886 Gatwick-Peterborough
12896 Brighton-Luton
12728 Gatwick-Luton
11375 Gatwick-Harpenden

Although Cambridge is an edge case with regard to distance from the core, the connectivity benefits are larger than the alternatives.

Could then the Cambridge slows become part of Thameslink travelling through to Horsham.

Absolutely not. The most bonkers part of the Thameslink 2018 timetable was the proposed Cambridge stoppers running through to and from Maidstone. Fortunately this never happened. No Thameslink trains should ever stop in the 2 track section at Welwyn North! Furthermore, it is impractical because the Cambridge stoppers have to be 8 car trains while the Redhill loop needs 12 car trains. It is also worth noting that Cambridge stoppers would be outside my 75 minutes to/from the core journey time boundary.

When the service collapses on the Peterborough route the intermediate stations are left with no service. If a Cambridge service is late there is no passing opportunity on the branch. If Corby was on Thameslink, trains might end up terminating at Kettering for recovery and Corby would have no service.

Which is why Thameslink would be a disaster for Corby. What happens frequently on the Peterborough and Cambridge services is ample demonstration of this.

 

[William3000]

It isn't necessarily that Peterborough, Corby and Cambridge are too far out but that the services extend too far south beyond London. If there had been capacity for those services to terminate at London Bridge from the north and services from the south to terminate at Finsbury Park, with no significant cross London running, the worst of the reliability issues and complex service recovery issues could be avoided.

When the service collapses on the Peterborough route the intermediate stations are left with no service. If a Cambridge service is late there is no passing opportunity on the branch. If Corby was on Thameslink, trains might end up terminating at Kettering for recovery and Corby would have no service.

I wonder whether the Elizabeth Line could be used as an indicator of what’s possible. Shenfield, Stratford in the east and Slough and Reading in the west serve as useful interchanges - whether similar places could do the same north and south of London to avoid long distance running I don’t know?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Aug 2026 ==

As distance and journey time increase, the benefits of direct connectivity reduce and the costs resulting from lack of resilience increase. From the Thameslink experience since 2018 I'd say that there is a tipping point at about 50/60 miles or 60/75 minutes from the core, anything further is more trouble than its worth. This sets Brighton, Bedford and Cambridge as the outer limits.

It is also important to remember that the long distance Thameslink connectivity is widely dispersed at the East of England end, but concentrated on Gatwick and Brighton at the South East end, as demonstrated by this analysis of the ODM data, using the regional tag showing the South East-East of England flows bigger than 10k one way journeys:

38775 Gatwick-Cambridge
35426 Gatwick-St Albans
26884 Brighton-Cambridge
26191 Gatwick-Luton Airport Parkway
24694 Gatwick-Bedford
22222 Brighton-St Albans
17119 Brighton-Bedford
15249 Gatwick-Stevenage
13679 Brighton-Luton Airport Parkway
13886 Gatwick-Peterborough
12896 Brighton-Luton
12728 Gatwick-Luton
11375 Gatwick-Harpenden

Although Cambridge is an edge case with regard to distance from the core, the connectivity benefits are larger than the alternatives.


Absolutely not. The most bonkers part of the Thameslink 2018 timetable was the proposed Cambridge stoppers running through to and from Maidstone. Fortunately this never happened. No Thameslink trains should ever stop in the 2 track section at Welwyn North! Furthermore, it is impractical because the Cambridge stoppers have to be 8 car trains while the Redhill loop needs 12 car trains. It is also worth noting that Cambridge stoppers would be outside my 75 minutes to/from the core journey time boundary.


Which is why Thameslink would be a disaster for Corby. What happens frequently on the Peterborough and Cambridge services is ample demonstration of this.

Yes - to be honest I agree. It’s just the Cambridge slow stopping service doesn’t sit neatly within any service grouping if as expected the Moorgate services move to TfL. It leaves the Cambridge slow as the only non intercity or medium distance regional express service to serve London King’s Cross - not that that is necessarily a problem I guess. But if Peterborough semi fasts are to serve London King’s Cross rather than the core I wonder whether there is sufficient capacity there.

 

[JonathanH]

I wonder whether the Elizabeth Line could be used as an indicator of what’s possible. Shenfield, Stratford in the east and Slough and Reading in the west serve as useful interchanges - whether similar places could do the same north and south of London to avoid long distance running I don’t know?

It isn't quite the same. The Elizabeth Line linked up inner surburban routes. Part of the purpose of Thameslink was to avoid the need to build long platforms at the London Terminals for longer distance outer suburban journeys (which would have been impractical in any case).

Thameslink already provides the inner suburban service on the Midland route and the inner suburban service on the Great Northern route goes to Moorgate. On the southern side, the inner suburban services on the Forest Hill corridor can't take the longer trains.

In the context of this thread, Corby services work out of a dedicated platform at St Pancras and fit with the available capacity without needing to be extended through the Thameslink core. There is a view expressed by some posters to this forum that the only barrier to running more and longer trains from London to the East Midlands is having four platforms at St Pancras dedicated to those services.

 

[bramling]

I wonder whether the Elizabeth Line could be used as an indicator of what’s possible. Shenfield, Stratford in the east and Slough and Reading in the west serve as useful interchanges - whether similar places could do the same north and south of London to avoid long distance running I don’t know?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Aug 2026 ==


Yes - to be honest I agree. It’s just the Cambridge slow stopping service doesn’t sit neatly within any service grouping if as expected the Moorgate services move to TfL. It leaves the Cambridge slow as the only non intercity or medium distance regional express service to serve London King’s Cross - not that that is necessarily a problem I guess. But if Peterborough semi fasts are to serve London King’s Cross rather than the core I wonder whether there is sufficient capacity there.

One problem with reverting Peterborough to KX is that the capacity has now been re-allocated to long distance services. I believe this is the reason why the Sunday service was reduced to 8 cars in December, so it can use the high-numbered platforms at KX.

It doesn’t help that the long-distance service is highly inflexible because of the number of different train types, which makes it harder to reduce turnround times.

Unfortunately home-counties users have been completely shafted as a result of all this.

KX-Cambridge will likely just continue as it is, making efficient use of the suburban platforms. Odd though it is that Knebworth doesn’t have a Thameslink service whilst Arlesey does, users at Knebworth can be eternally grateful for that.

 

[Helvellyn]

Far too many. It is easiest to copy and paste what I wrote in another discussion only a few months ago.

We have been down that rabbit hole so many times before. Thameslink needs to be made simpler and more resilient, that won't happen by adding more longer routes. Adding Corby to Thameslink would be a disaster for Thameslink and a disaster for Corby.

Hopefully in the next few years GBR will start looking at service groups and start considering these sort of things in a more holistic way, without having to worry about franchise changes and being able to consider how best to deploy rolling stock.


EMR InterCity and EMR Connect would probably have benefited from being run as one service group, with a common EMU fleet. But DfT/HMT killing off full MML electrification, plus probably forcing the 360s to whomever won the franchise in 2019 to avoid the bad headlines of another newish EMU fleet rotting in storage, stopped that (For those who say DfT can't mandate what stock they can set bid requirements that basically limit available options).

The refurbished 360s are going to develop a step-change in comfort at last, but the limit of 8-cars in the peaks remains a challenge. Lack of a depot on the route is the other big hindrance in availability. Even with 115 gone 12/20 units (60% availability) is a low bar that Siemens struggle to hit. Personally, I'd remove the Luton stop so it's a mix of a regional and airport Express.

 

[JonathanH]

The refurbished 360s are going to develop a step-change in comfort at last, but the limit of 8-cars in the peaks remains a challenge.

Notwithstanding the reliability issues, is this 8-car limit just an industrial relations matter? If the DfT could agree to more on board staff, could 12-car trains formed of class 360s be run on Corby services?

 

[liamf656]

Going the other way with this, is there a speculative thread on how to improve and simplify Thameslink? If not then maybe that's worth talking about rather than complicating it by adding Corby

 

[JonathanH]

Going the other way with this, is there a speculative thread on how to improve and simplify Thameslink? If not then maybe that's worth talking about rather than complicating it by adding Corby

Plenty - I think this is the most recent one - https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-what-could-be-done-to-improve-things.304591/ - but the issues generally relate to the lack of terminal platform capacity at St Pancras, Kings Cross and London Bridge into which to divert the 12-car services that would no longer go through the core.

 

[NCT]

And nobody willing to countenance any compromises.

 

[HSTEd]

The through/cross-city model is extremely attractive, as seen on Crossrail and to a lesser extent the Castlefield corridor in Manchester, to passengers.

Even if the terminal capacity to reduce the number of trains through the core existed, and it doesn't really, people would be very unhappy to return to the pre Thameslink way of doing things.

Thameslink/Crossrail style connections through major cities do appear to be the future, and it might be better to accept that and move on. Unfortunately no money is currently available for Crossrail 2, let alone a future Thameslink relief line, but any reduction in paths through the core without a relief line seems extremely unlikely in my view.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Hopefully in the next few years GBR will start looking at service groups and start considering these sort of things in a more holistic way, without having to worry about franchise changes and being able to consider how best to deploy rolling stock.


EMR InterCity and EMR Connect would probably have benefited from being run as one service group, with a common EMU fleet. But DfT/HMT killing off full MML electrification, plus probably forcing the 360s to whomever won the franchise in 2019 to avoid the bad headlines of another newish EMU fleet rotting in storage, stopped that (For those who say DfT can't mandate what stock they can set bid requirements that basically limit available options).

The refurbished 360s are going to develop a step-change in comfort at last, but the limit of 8-cars in the peaks remains a challenge. Lack of a depot on the route is the other big hindrance in availability. Even with 115 gone 12/20 units (60% availability) is a low bar that Siemens struggle to hit. Personally, I'd remove the Luton stop so it's a mix of a regional and airport Express.

Generally all that you say is valid imo, but:

The 'step change' being back to what was the norm of comfort (2+2 seating) before the 360s arrived. Still only one lavatory available to all since the 360s came.
Lack of a depot on the route being the reason for poor reliability is belied by 360108 spending a month at the remote maintenance depot (involving diesel haulage to & from) only for to fail on its first day back in service. And again the day following.
But I don't understand why cl 350s, in my experience, rarely have problems on the Western Lines, but the cl 360s - a very similar design - fail so often. They're not only similar units, but both maintained at King's Heath.

 

[Bald Rick]

Hopefully in the next few years GBR will start looking at service groups and start considering these sort of things in a more holistic way, without having to worry about franchise changes and being able to consider how best to deploy rolling stock.

It’s already been looked at, by cross industry groups. Including this example specifically. Many changes that came out of this review have happened.

Notwithstanding the reliability issues, is this 8-car limit just an industrial relations matter? If the DfT could agree to more on board staff, could 12-car trains formed of class 360s be run on Corby services?

I’d expect to see 12 cars on peak services relatively soon.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I’d expect to see 12 cars on peak services relatively soon.

Because the staffing issue has been resolved?

As they've been days recently when most workings have been 4 car - and some cancelled because of failures - that implies a massive increase in 360 availability at the same time.

The new MD is certainly making big improvements!

 

[NCT]

Staffing issues.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Staffing issues.

Sorry, edited

 

[Chriso]

So sad how EMR have fallen under Abelio / TG UK.

Failure on every front . Possibly on a par with Connex as the UK’s worst ever operator. I genuinely feel for the poor soles who rely on them if any are left.

I have actively avoided the MML for years due to the overcrowding , ridiculously high fares and state of the 222 fleet. I was sceptical of the Aurora introduction due to the limited numbers bought but never thought it would be this bad. Don’t even get me started on the crap - sorry connect with its moldy decrepit fleet with only 2 units done which never see the light of day. EMR really are the pits.

They need to drop all of this AirPort Express nonsense until they can provide the intended service at Luton Airport Pkwy as they are rolling in 4 car trains full and standing on arrival at the airport Parkway. Push the airport passengers to Thameslink and its somewhat more reliable and quieter 12 cars to the city.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

So sad how EMR have fallen under Abelio / TG UK.

Failure on every front . Possibly on a par with Connex as the UK’s worst ever operator. I genuinely feel for the poor soles who rely on them if any are left.

I have actively avoided the MML for years due to the overcrowding , ridiculously high fares and state of the 222 fleet. I was sceptical of the Aurora introduction due to the limited numbers bought but never thought it would be this bad. Don’t even get me started on the crap - sorry connect with its moldy decrepit fleet with only 2 units done which never see the light of day. EMR really are the pits

Completely agree.

 

[LowLevel]

Because the staffing issue has been resolved?

As they've been days recently when most workings have been 4 car - and some cancelled because of failures - that implies a massive increase in 360 availability at the same time.

The new MD is certainly making big improvements!

The staffing issue has had a resolution for ages. It's just not been used.

 

[Merle Haggard]

The staffing issue has had a resolution for ages. It's just not been used.

Thanks - so it just down to increasing cl 360 availability considerably.
That's quite a mountain to climb.

 

[m0ffy]

To answer the original question - I think it should be operated by TSGN using (additional) class 700s, but continuing to terminate at St Pancras EMR platforms, but this would be expensive (so highly unlikely to happen). I also think the core ought to be widened to increase capacity and aid service recovery, but we’re into real fantasy stuff there.

 

[Harpo]

So sad how EMR have fallen under Abelio / TG UK.

EMR are performing to a spec that the DfT beancounters bought and where ‘x minus 1’ would always beat x’ in the a race to the bottom.

 

[Helvellyn]

Thanks - so it just down to increasing cl 360 availability considerably.
That's quite a mountain to climb.

18 out of 21 (to run all services as 12-car, as originally promised) was always ambitious with no main depot on the route. The loss of 115 (I'd be shocked if it was repaired) means they'd need 18/20.

Once the refurbishments are complete I suspect if it's true the staffing issues are sorted then I'd expect three diagrams to go 12-car, meaning 15/20 units would be needed, and at a push four diagrams meaning 16/20 units.

 

[A S Leib]

Does any comparable system have destinations so far from the city centre? Osterburken and Homburg(Saar) are around sixty rail miles from Mannheim, and that's a far less frequent S-Bahn (with no separated core) to begin with, and I think the furthest German example with a separate core is Zwickau (sixty miles from Leipzig). Corby (and Peterborough) are just shy of eighty miles from Farringdon.

Outliers don't have to be precluded, and London's orbit being larger than any individual German city's would make sense. It would also be worth asking why, if Thameslink services to Peterborough don't have parallels elsewhere, such systems don't tend to reach so far from the city.

 

[Helvellyn]

The 'step change' being back to what was the norm of comfort (2+2 seating) before the 360s arrived. Still only one lavatory available to all since the 360s came.

And no return of First Class, which was promised, meaning Wellingborough and Corby are the only EMR served stations on the MML not to offer First Class (you can get it from Bedford, Luton and Luton Airport Parkway on Thameslink). I know some will say it's not needed, but you'd see it used in the days of the hourly 222 operated Corby-London services.

 

[Transilien]

Outliers don't have to be precluded, and London's orbit being larger than any individual German city's would make sense. It would also be worth asking why, if Thameslink services to Peterborough don't have parallels elsewhere, such systems don't tend to reach so far from the city.

An educated guess is that in most of Europe, RER/S-Bahn systems serve a certain region (I.e. ile de France and the Berlin City region) and are therefore under some control and also subsidised by that region. Therefore these systems don’t leave their home regions very often as they would run into issues with funding (for example, Berlin residents complaining about funding commuters in Brandenburg). It’s similar to the problems that the London Underground faces when it leaves Greater London. London simply doesn’t have a neatly defined outer region like many other countries do with their capital city. There is also less people commuting from these areas that are over 40 miles from the city as the advantages of cheaper housing are made invalid by longer commute times. Therefore a lower density TER or RB/RE service is enough to serve these long distance commuters. (An example of this would be TER Normandie’s services from Paris to Rouen and Evereux).

 

[NorthKent1989]

If we add EMR’s Corby service to Thameslink, there’d be a discussion in whether or not GWR’s Didcot service should become an Elizabeth line service.

Both are similar in that they’re semi fast services that run alongside a cross London line but aren’t part of said cross London line because of reliability issues, nothing to match the service with on the other side either

Such services are best kept separate, another similar service would be Chiltern’s Aylesbury service paralleling the Metropolitan, difference being the Met actually served Aylesbury once

 

[Merle Haggard]

18 out of 21 (to run all services as 12-car, as originally promised) was always ambitious with no main depot on the route. The loss of 115 (I'd be shocked if it was repaired) means they'd need 18/20.

Once the refurbishments are complete I suspect if it's true the staffing issues are sorted then I'd expect three diagrams to go 12-car, meaning 15/20 units would be needed, and at a push four diagrams meaning 16/20 units.

The 360s were the only EMU available second-hand at the time, I think, resulting in the number being 21 sets.

It seems to me that the service, as a result, is designed around resources and not market-led.

 

[StewLane]

If only the 810s were reliable then 2 5car 810 interworking would move maintenance to Derby. Would require ordering 810s and Etches Park probably does not have space either. Would reduce the number of different fleets too.

not going to happen and I see no easy solution to Corby

 

[A S Leib]

If we add EMR’s Corby service to Thameslink, there’d be a discussion in whether or not GWR’s Didcot service should become an Elizabeth like service.

If anything, I'd say that has a slightly stronger case, unless another destination could be found for the Paddington (future Old Oak Common?) terminators.

 

[bramling]

The 360s were the only EMU available second-hand at the time, I think, resulting in the number being 21 sets.

It seems to me that the service, as a result, is designed around resources and not market-led.

The problem doesn’t seem to be the 360s themselves, but the failure to provide a proper depot facility for the electrified service.

Essentially there needed to be a depot at one end of the route, either in the London area, or at Kettering/Corby. With Bedford Cauldwell not being in the right place, the only existing depot that could have been utilised, subject to capacity being available, was Hornsey. Not sure if that was ever considered.