Scrap EMR Connect and extend Thameslink to Corby

Qwerty133 · 20 Aug 2026

Over several years it has become increasingly apparent that the current EMR Connect operation isn’t working either from a reliability point of view but also with the impact it can have on the main EMR services.
Would it not be possible to scrap the EMR Connect services and extend two Thameslink services per hour to Corby (one per hour at evenings and weekends) Whilst it would see a slight increase in journey times the improved reliability and increased opportunity for journeys across London without the need to St Pancras would be likely to make up for this.

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HamworthyGoods · 20 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
Over several years it has become increasingly apparent that the current EMR Connect operation isn’t working either from a reliability point of view but also with the impact it can have on the main EMR services.
Would it not be possible to scrap the EMR Connect services and extend two Thameslink services per hour to Corby (one per hour at evenings and weekends) Whilst it would see a slight increase in journey times the improved reliability and increased opportunity for journeys across London without the need to St Pancras would be likely to make up for this.

I’m not sure commuters at Wellingborough who have already seen their peak journeys go from 40 minutes to 50 minutes with the connect would appreciate another 20 minutes with the slow down from being served by extended Thameslink services.

Also how would you manage the cl360 fleet running alongside the Thameslink cl700s?

Mike395 · 20 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
Over several years it has become increasingly apparent that the current EMR Connect operation isn’t working either from a reliability point of view but also with the impact it can have on the main EMR services.
Would it not be possible to scrap the EMR Connect services and extend two Thameslink services per hour to Corby (one per hour at evenings and weekends) Whilst it would see a slight increase in journey times the improved reliability and increased opportunity for journeys across London without the need to St Pancras would be likely to make up for this.

No thank you, Bedford to the North is inconvenient enough as it is, and the poor commuters of Bedford and Wellingborough have just had 20 minutes added onto the average journey time.

EMR just need to get the 360 fleet into a place where it is reliable, consistently.

Qwerty133 · 20 Aug 2026

Mike395 said:
No thank you, Bedford to the North is inconvenient enough as it is, and the poor commuters of Bedford and Wellingborough have just had 20 minutes added onto the average journey time.

EMR just need to get the 360 fleet into a place where it is reliable, consistently.

It is increasingly clear that adding a commuter service to a franchise and team who are experienced in intercity and local operations simply does not work. The team at EMR have no clue how to look after a fleet of EMUs and don’t even have a depot on their network that is suitable to do so.
By moving these services across to Thameslink it would allow them to be operated by a team who are solely focussed on this type of service and who are able to spend a significant amount of time on ensuring the reliability of these services which is currently not possible at EMR due to the need to focus on the issues elsewhere in the franchise.

HamworthyGoods · 20 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
It is increasingly clear that adding a commuter service to a franchise and team who are experienced in intercity and local operations simply does not work. The team at EMR have no clue how to look after a fleet of EMUs and don’t even have a depot on their network that is suitable to do so.
By moving these services across to Thameslink it would allow them to be operated by a team who are solely focussed on this type of service and who are able to spend a significant amount of time on ensuring the reliability of these services which is currently not possible at EMR due to the need to focus on the issues elsewhere in the franchise.

I’m not sure in a large operator such as Thameslink they will have any more success running a small fleet of 20 x cl360 units which are required to be dragged to their maintenance depot at Northampton!

LowLevel · 20 Aug 2026

If it had been factored in originally I'd have probably agreed. Nowadays though I think it would just import more risk into the core.

NCT · 20 Aug 2026

How many times have we had this topic on this forum now?

43074 · 20 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
By moving these services across to Thameslink it would allow them to be operated by a team who are solely focussed on this type of service and who are able to spend a significant amount of time on ensuring the reliability of these services which is currently not possible at EMR due to the need to focus on the issues elsewhere in the franchise.

GTR have enough issues of their own without adding the Corby services to the list - the reliability of the Peterborough to Horsham services is instructive of the poor performance that, say, a Corby to Three Bridges service would experience.

Magdalia · 20 Aug 2026

NCT said:
How many times have we had this topic on this forum now?

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.

rmHawk765 · 20 Aug 2026

The only way this could work is if trains stop at all stations to St Albans. The thing that makes the Midland Main Line and Brighton Main Line a good pairing is that stopping patterns are relatively simple and very similar. You don't want a fourth service pattern and separate stock. This is the reason why Cambridge-Brighton and Peterborough-Horsham doesn't work (the latter of which is similar to this idea); they have to fit around loads of varied stopping patterns and are very susceptible to delays on the East Coast Main Line which matter when the train has to go halfway across the southeast. Any delay south of the river will also result in them accumulating delays once on the ECML due to having to fit around trains with completely different stopping patterns.

HSTEd · 20 Aug 2026

I would argue it should have been included in the Thameslink Programme, but unfortunately electrification was out of vogue during the critical early years of privatisation when such an idea would have had to have been floated.

We are where we are now.

HamworthyGoods · 20 Aug 2026

43074 said:
GTR have enough issues of their own without adding the Corby services to the list - the reliability of the Peterborough to Horsham services is instructive of the poor performance that, say, a Corby to Three Bridges service would experience.

Indeed, and adding a small fleet of 20 class 360 trains to GTR really won’t help either.

Transilien · 20 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
It is increasingly clear that adding a commuter service to a franchise and team who are experienced in intercity and local operations simply does not work. The team at EMR have no clue how to look after a fleet of EMUs and don’t even have a depot on their network that is suitable to do so.
By moving these services across to Thameslink it would allow them to be operated by a team who are solely focussed on this type of service and who are able to spend a significant amount of time on ensuring the reliability of these services which is currently not possible at EMR due to the need to focus on the issues elsewhere in the franchise.

This idea of commuter services only being in the south-east of England has always bugged me. Does the London to Corby line really receive that many commuters end-to-end compared to, say, Matlock to Derby? Is there really that much difference between EMR Connect and its Inter-City services? I would say it's more of a regional express route.

Zomboid · 20 Aug 2026

Maybe there's an argument that it should be part of the GTR monolith in the same way that Great Northern is - the trains go to St Pancras, but are run by a London commuter operation rather than a regional/ Intercity operation. And if it used trains that were capable of running via the Thameslink core then they could at least get to a suitable depot (possibly not Northampton) that might help reliability. But running a Corby to Portsmouth service or something would have more losers than winners.

rmHawk765 · 20 Aug 2026

Zomboid said:
But running a Corby to Portsmouth service or something would have more losers than winners.

And wouldn't work because almost none of the lines are built around exclusively a semi-fast regional sort of service. As I said, the MML and BML pairing works well as it is. Extending the MML part won't work for the same proven reasons why TL to Cambridge and Peterborough is unreliable.

Instead, the DfT/Treasury/Someone related to the government should focus on giving one of the largest TOCs sorry IBUs this thing called money so they can improve their terrible crew diagrams which offer zero way to run the existing routes during and after disruption.

bramling · 20 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
It is increasingly clear that adding a commuter service to a franchise and team who are experienced in intercity and local operations simply does not work. The team at EMR have no clue how to look after a fleet of EMUs and don’t even have a depot on their network that is suitable to do so.
By moving these services across to Thameslink it would allow them to be operated by a team who are solely focussed on this type of service and who are able to spend a significant amount of time on ensuring the reliability of these services which is currently not possible at EMR due to the need to focus on the issues elsewhere in the franchise.

It isn’t like EMR’s intercity and rural services are running particularly well either. There’s big issues with all three areas of EMR’s operation. Meanwhile it isn’t like Thameslink is all sweetness and light either.

For me the priority is to get the Corby service working well. The concept is a very good one, and if it was working well then everyone would be happy with it. The big thing to sort seems to be the maintenance plan for the EMU fleet, as that’s clearly not working. Really there needs to be a proper depot at one end or other. Hornsey would have been okay if there weren’t logistical issues.

Bald Rick · 21 Aug 2026

Not again…

swt_passenger · 21 Aug 2026

NCT said:
How many times have we had this topic on this forum now?

Somewhere between 360 and 700 times I think…

Bald Rick · 21 Aug 2026

swt_passenger said:
Somewhere between 360 and 700 times I think…

cap doffed, (and trousers pressed) sir.

Bletchleyite · 21 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
It is increasingly clear that adding a commuter service to a franchise and team who are experienced in intercity and local operations simply does not work. The team at EMR have no clue how to look after a fleet of EMUs and don’t even have a depot on their network that is suitable to do so.
By moving these services across to Thameslink it would allow them to be operated by a team who are solely focussed on this type of service and who are able to spend a significant amount of time on ensuring the reliability of these services which is currently not possible at EMR due to the need to focus on the issues elsewhere in the franchise.

If only someone would just shove up some wires on the Marston Vale a whole raft of problems would be solved including this one, as running them to Northampton for maintenance would be really easy. Not to mention the other benefits of removing this diesel island.

yorksrob · 21 Aug 2026

Qwerty133 said:
Over several years it has become increasingly apparent that the current EMR Connect operation isn’t working either from a reliability point of view but also with the impact it can have on the main EMR services.
Would it not be possible to scrap the EMR Connect services and extend two Thameslink services per hour to Corby (one per hour at evenings and weekends) Whilst it would see a slight increase in journey times the improved reliability and increased opportunity for journeys across London without the need to St Pancras would be likely to make up for this.

How long does the Connect actually take ? I ask because I took a Thameslink from Bedford to London once and it seemed to take a very long time indeed.

zwk500 · 21 Aug 2026

yorksrob said:
How long does the Connect actually take ? I ask because I took a Thameslink from Bedford to London once and it seemed to take a very long time indeed.

Corby to St Pancras is currently showing as 1h13 mins (mode average) on National Rail.
Corby to Bedford is 30 mins, Bedford to St Pancras on thameslink is 1h03mins.

So Corby to St Pancras on Thameslink would be a journey time extension of just over 20 mins. Not to mention the extension in the cycles of units and drivers for Thameslink of the additional 45mins + turnround at Corby (one assumes c.15 mins, to 'step back' the diagrams into the next hour, which will have it's own costs.

yorksrob · 21 Aug 2026

zwk500 said:
Corby to St Pancras is currently showing as 1h13 mins (mode average) on National Rail.
Corby to Bedford is 30 mins, Bedford to St Pancras on thameslink is 1h03mins.

So Corby to St Pancras on Thameslink would be a journey time extension of just over 20 mins. Not to mention the extension in the cycles of units and drivers for Thameslink of the additional 45mins + turnround at Corby (one assumes c.15 mins, to 'step back' the diagrams into the next hour, which will have it's own costs.

Yes, that's significant in this context.

Bald Rick · 21 Aug 2026

zwk500 said:
Not to mention the extension in the cycles of units

Of which there are none spare…

HamworthyGoods · 21 Aug 2026

Bald Rick said:
Of which there are none spare…

I assume the OP expected the 360s to transfer over and become an awkward fleet in GTR’s fleet.

Bald Rick · 21 Aug 2026

HamworthyGoods said:
I assume the OP expected the 360s to transfer over and become an awkward fleet in GTR’s fleet.

I dont think so, they specifically said extend Thameslinks from Bedford. Quite where another 8 coaches of people are going to fit on heavily loaded 12 car 700s is anyones guess.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Aug 2026 ==

Qwerty133 said:
Whilst it would see a slight increase in journey times

“slight” being nearly 50% from London to Wellingborough.

cle · 21 Aug 2026

This one does come up a lot!

I would say, could Thameslink run the service, 700s but from St Pancras per today and same stopping pattern? And ‘interwork’ if ever needed to rotate units at Brent Cross. If 360 reliability is the issue.

Wellingborough could possibly have a few peak calls added on fasts too. And those slow lines improved maybe.

Harpo · 22 Aug 2026

Add Connect to Thameslink to join two fairly awful operations together? Sounds like a scheme for the brown coloured crayons.

William3000 · 22 Aug 2026

I find Thameslink incredibly useful from the Cambridge area but I appreciate it suffers from unreliability. There seems to be a common view that Corby and Peterborough are definitely too far out and Cambridge is borderline too far out. I’d be interested to know what people think would be more effective. If the Thameslink trains don’t run as far north then there should be somewhere that people can interchange without having to go all the way into London to do say. Also is there platform capacity for more trains serving London St Pancras High Level and London King’s Cross? Without enlarging an intermediate station, Peterborough was probably chosen as it has the capacity and interchange facilities. Perhaps in the future, Moorgate to Welwyn GC and Hertford North, and Stevenage may transfer to TFL. Could then the Cambridge slows become part of Thameslink travelling through to Horsham. The Peterborough trains and King’s Lynn trains could then transfer to LNER as a sort of equivalent to the EMR Connect served by Corby. It might simplify the operation.

JonathanH · 22 Aug 2026

William3000 said:
I find Thameslink incredibly useful from the Cambridge area but I appreciate it suffers from unreliability. There seems to be a common view that Corby and Peterborough are definitely too far out and Cambridge is borderline too far out. I’d be interested to know what people think would be more effective.

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.

Scrap EMR Connect and extend Thameslink to Corby

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