Heavy Rail to East Midlands Airport.

[Jozhua]

Just checked on a map and rail goes surprisingly close to East Midlands Airport!

Made a quick route on Google Maps Measure distance feature and made one that comes out at 3.4 miles, doesn't involve demolition of a single building/structure and drops passengers off just below the short stay car park.

I'd estimate for the scheme, probably around £300-400 million considering a couple of bridges over minor roads and A-roads, but no buildings need clearing. With all the extra traffic it would bring, I'm sure EMA would be a good partner to the schene and the route I've planned would run over a decent amount of EMA land.

Would add an EMA rail connection directly to Beeston, Nottingham, Newark and Lincoln to the East and Ilkeston, Alfreton, Chesterfield and Sheffield to the North. To the West, Burton would be connected and to the south Loughborough/Leicester could have a direct connection to the airport!

Long Eaton could be connected with an extra platform and Derby could be connected with a turnback loop near the village of Stenson.

What are people's thoughts?

 

[adamedwards]

The alternative would either be a people mover to Parkway or a tram extension via Parkway. Both would probably be cheaper to build and would not add extra complexity to local rail services.

 

[elliotjelliot]

Just checked on a map and rail goes surprisingly close to East Midlands Airport!

Made a quick route on Google Maps Measure distance feature and made one that comes out at 3.4 miles, doesn't involve demolition of a single building/structure and drops passengers off just below the short stay car park.

I'd estimate for the scheme, probably around £300-400 million considering a couple of bridges over minor roads and A-roads, but no buildings need clearing. With all the extra traffic it would bring, I'm sure EMA would be a good partner to the schene and the route I've planned would run over a decent amount of EMA land.

Would add an EMA rail connection directly to Beeston, Nottingham, Newark and Lincoln to the East and Ilkeston, Alfreton, Chesterfield and Sheffield to the North. To the West, Burton would be connected and to the south Loughborough/Leicester could have a direct connection to the airport!

Long Eaton could be connected with an extra platform and Derby could be connected with a turnback loop near the village of Stenson.

What are people's thoughts?

I believe that public transport interchanges of all public transport modes are the way forward. Although, EMA has a fairly limited airline/destination offering that means a direct rail connection may not be enough of an incentive to potential travellers. It would be very hard to compete with services that run to Luton airport or even to London from Nottingham/Leicester as its one change onto trains to Gatwick or Heathrow at St Pancras. So I think your idea would work if EMA can increase its offering of flights and airlines to draw in more customers that could help make the direct rail connection pay for itself.

 

[edwin_m]

There's a freight branch being built into a new terminal just to the east of the airport. But to be honest a relatively small airport whose passengers head off to three cities in three different directions (plus numerous smaller places) isn't going to merit a rail link. It has reasonable bus services to most of the major places nearby.