Goodbye East Midlands Trains. Hello Emr

[Andy C 86]

The last day of operation for East Midlands Trains, a Stagecoach rail company, is upon us - Saturday 17th August.

 

From Sunday 18th August the new franchise starts, this will be a company known as East Midlands Railway - or EMR. It is being operated by Abellio, the international business arm of the Dutch State railway company Nederlands Spoorwegen. Abellio also run Scotrail, Greater Anglia, West Midlands and Merseyrail trains and also operate buses in the UK. More about them here: https://www.abellio.com/uk

 

EMR will start out running the same trains, timetables, on board service and fares as East Midlands Trains and with the same staff that are to transfer across.

 

The East Midlands franchise has two routes serving Sheffield, the mainline service to London St Pancras and the Regional Express service between Liverpool and Norwich via Nottingham. The Department for Transport has proposed that the Liverpool-Nottingham section is to be removed from the route at some point and run Derby-Norwich instead; with a different operator - most likely either Transpennine Express or Northern - take over Liverpool-Nottingham via Sheffield.

 

A little bit of the plans for the future in this new franchise can be found at http://maps.dft.gov.uk/east-midlands-rail-franchise/

 

EMR's website goes live on Sunday at https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/

Edited August 16, 2019 by Andy C

[bluecanary 13]

Thanks for this info.

I have to admit,  am rather mystified by the whole rail franchise system. If a company loses a franchise and does not have significant non rail-related operations (e.g. Stagecoach) does the company simply go out of business? Does the whole of East Midlands Trains (aside from the staff magically transferred to EMR) go out of operation overnight?

 

Seems like a very odd way to run a key national transport infrastructure, but maybe that's just me.

[Top Cats Hat 10]

41 minutes ago, bluecanary said:

If a company loses a franchise and does not have significant non rail-related operations (e.g. Stagecoach) does the company simply go out of business? Does the whole of East Midlands Trains (aside from the staff magically transferred to EMR) go out of operation overnight?

If it has no other business operations, it does.

 

In 1992 Thames Television lost the ITV franchise for London and went from being one of the world’s biggest regional broadcasters to not being a broadcaster at all. Fortunately they still had their production facilities so carried on as a producer of programmes but not as a broadcaster. 

[Andy C 86]

East Midlands Trains as a company will cease to exist after the franchise changes as it was purely set up to bid for and operate the franchise, however the parent company Stagecoach Group will still be around. In Sheffield Stagecoach will still operate buses (registered as The Yorkshire Traction Co Ltd) and trams (registered as South Yorkshire Supertram Ltd).

 

The East Midlands Trains staff transfer to the new Abellio owned company under TUPE arrangements.

 

The actual national rail infrastructure (track and signals) is operated by Network Rail which is publicly owned and the rolling stock is leased. The passenger trains are run as franchises under contract to the Department for Transport.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Andy C

[Guest busdriver1]

4 hours ago, Andy C said:

East Midlands Trains as a company will cease to exist after the franchise changes as it was purely set up to bid for and operate the franchise, however the parent company Stagecoach Group will still be around. In Sheffield Stagecoach will still operate buses (registered as The Yorkshire Traction Co Ltd) and trams (registered as South Yorkshire Supertram Ltd).

 

The East Midlands Trains staff transfer to the new Abellio owned company under TUPE arrangements.

 

The actual national rail infrastructure (track and signals) is operated by Network Rail which is publicly owned and the rolling stock is leased. The passenger trains are run as franchises under contract to the Department for Transport.

The same will happen to ALL stagecoach franchises as the rail authorities have decided not to award any franchises to Stagecoach due to pension issues within their rail operations.

[Hook 10]

2 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

The same will happen to ALL stagecoach franchises as the rail authorities have decided not to award any franchises to Stagecoach due to pension issues within their rail operations.

By pension issues you mean they refused to allow themselves to be exposed to liabilities of the public pension fund?

[Guest busdriver1]

3 minutes ago, Hook said:

By pension issues you mean they refused to allow themselves to be exposed to liabilities of the public pension fund?

All I know is that the rail regulator has decreed that they are not complying in the way that every other franchisee is.

[Hook 10]

6 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

All I know is that the rail regulator has decreed that they are not complying in the way that every other franchisee is.

It's worth understanding the issue in more  detail than that, because for once I think Stagecoach actually took the right approach to protect employees, shareholders, pensions, passengers and so on... https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/pensions-row-threatens-virgin-and-stagecoach-rail-operations/

[Andy C 86]

East Midlands franchise had Stagecoach, Arriva and Abellio shortlisted - Stagecoach and Arriva both disqualified on pension issue. South Eastern franchise competition cancelled due to all three shortlisted bidders being disqualified on pension issue.

 

Department for Transport is getting it wrong in my opinion, trying to offload responsibility.

[blackydog 40]

I looked for a train to London St Pancras for early September, they were all going "via" Doncaster. 

[RollingJ 2,030]

Strange, @blackydog - I've just checked on the National Rail site, and they all follow the standard route via Derby and Leicester. FYI I used Wednesday 11/09 and after 1145 in my enquiry.

Edited August 17, 2019 by RollingJ

[Annie Bynnol 612]

There are line closures right up 'til Christmas for electrification work south of Loughborough on the MML to St Pancras.

Mainly late/early/weekends. Check here

Through trains will take a lot longer and sometimes buses replace the trains.

The 'booking engines' tries to book you the fastest routes. 

Or use Trainline to plan (but don't buy as they are always the most expensive) and buy at the station.

 

At these times EMR will not offer Advance fares.

At these times use the LNER website, join (not essential but you get offers)and book tickets Doncaster KingsX

There are now 2 tph from Sheffield to Retford so services from Retford to KingsX are an alternative.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Annie Bynnol