We're trying to persuade East Midlands Trains to fix this: Too small a train

Here is the letter that Verity brown wrote.

Too small a train

There are only two carriages on this line and there needs to be more. Last Saturday I would say 70% of the sears were reserved and there were people standing the whole way. It has been an issue for at least 6 years now and needs to be sorted.

East Midlands Trains are well aware of the overcrowding on this route, and have been pressing the Department for Transport to make available more of the class 158 units, which would allow many of the trains on this route to be made up to four-car.

The underlying problem is the failure of the present Coalition Government AND the previous Labour administration, neither of which had a coherent strategy to procure sufficient rolling stock to cater for the growth in rail travel. Indeed, not a single new train has been ordered for three years.

As Julian has stated, East Midlands did get a raw deal when the 2007 division of rail franchises occurred. I have got some good news though. East Midlands Trains are due to gain four extra trains this month, which should allow all trains on this route to become four carriages from 12th December. Keep us up to date this. We would be interested to see if it has the intended effect.

I hope the extra capacity makes travelling on this route easier.

Fantastic, I will let you know if this has happened when I take my next trip home. Thanks

Hello Verity,

I am sorry to see that East Midlands Trains have advised you to take your correspondence offline.

We don't think there is any good reason for operators to refuse to engage via FixMyTransport, so our advice is to reply (using the yellow "email" button at the top of this page, or the "reply" button at the foot of the page you click through to from our "you've had a reply" email) and tell them that FixMyTransport is your preferred method of contact.

If, however, you prefer to do as they ask and go offline, please do come back and update your page with any progress: we'd love to find out what response you receive.

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Companies such as Transport for London, London Midlands and several others have embraced FMT as one more platform on which they can showcase their excellent customer service. If EMT would like to get in touch and let us know how we could modify FMT to make it easier for them, they are welcome to contact our team via the feedback button at the top of the page.

Similar issue to http://www.fixmytransport.com/campaigns/put-more-carriages-on-busy-routes

Essentially Norwich - Liverpool Lime Street service is a two-car train, which is desperately undersized for the Nottingham - Sheffield - Manchester part of the service at peak commuting times.

I've lost count of the times I've given up trying to get on the 1645 or sometimes 1745 services from Nottingham and have gone via Derby instead. My ticket permits me to do this, even as it adds at least 20 minutes to a 55-minute journey; others won't have this option.

@Peter Dixon,

If EMT did get some extra rolling stock for Christmas it has yet to to be added to Norwich - Liverpool LS services.

Since this service forms part of my commute I thought I would start a log of the 1645 from Nottingham to see how a passenger with luggage (in my case, a folding bike) copes on a daily basis. So far, so quiet (apart from one late running into Sheffield) but expect hell on Fridays from Spring through to Autumn when weekends vie with commuters for seats.

You can read it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AidlKW1Bc2RCdFA3VXZNeThUMU1RVkIwMTgtb1NnVUE

Thanks for the link to your spreadsheet, Paul, that's really interesting. I'll try to remember to keep an eye on your progress.

Verity, did you get in touch with East Midlands in the end? If so, I'd love to know what their response was. If it was unsatisfactory ,there are other channels we can suggest, to get your issue heard.

The 1000 day mark (with loads of promises but no pen to paper) saw a 130 carriage contract for electric trains - to an existing design by Bombardier and placed with great skill (not) after the production line for a run of similar trains had closed and dismantling had started, rather than the old BR style of scheduling a steady flow of standard carriage designs.

Another policy decision is that there will, be no new diesel trains ordered, so the only way a route will now get more diesel units is when another route gets electrified (several years away - and the new electric trains have yet to be ordered as well)

One option used in Bristol and Scotland (Fife), is to hire in 40 year old locomotives and coaches and run these to provide the extra capacity but despite being fully amortised the costs of hiring and operating these trains is greater than that for the new ones, and DfT has to approve the use of more trains, at a costlier rate. The slam doors also means that the trains are often slower, and require staff to check the doors at stations. If the service can run with an old traditional train and a powerful case is made you might get some extra carriages this way. The fact remains though the in setting out the franchise contract with the presumption of minimal growth DfT got it really badly wrong.

Meantime are you sure that the additional trains are Class 158's, as the main movement was with Class 142's which no-one really wants, and Class 150's, which then nudged a few Class 156's and 158's around to new homes. The tendency is not to mix types as the 158's are designed for faster speeds, and thus, the extra train might not be suitable for use with the ones you have already.

Of course the Midland Railway actually had a more direct route to Manchester via Matlock & Buxton, which used to get very busy at weekends with student traffic. There is some debate on the fact that it was closed almost coincident with the opening of the electrified route between Stoke and Manchester, and thus the traffic from this route mainly transferred to the new electrified line creating an impressive leap in passenger numbers, which was naturally claimed as a gain from the electrification rather then the closure of the alternative route...

It might be interesting to review the journey times possible if a good road transfer between Matlock and Buxton connected the rail services.

Some of the trains on this line at peak times are now four carriages, and you can even get a seat! It was last night when I got it from Warrington to Chesterfield.

Who knows - perhaps they've been listening?! How are others' experiences now on this forum?

Questionnaire filled in by problem reporter.

@Simon

I get the late afternoon service (1645) in the other direction (Nottingham - Sheffield) and have still yet to see anything longer than a four-car service operate.

(If I don't see an improvement I'll raise a new, more specific, issue for this route but for the part between the two stations that remains problematic.)

It's gone up from 2 carriages to 4 carriages most of the time, but I can appreciate that at peak hours between some stations that's still way too small...

@Simon

Need I say it, but peak time is precisely when a longer train is needed!

The 1645, 1745, 1845 services are still two-car from Nottingham at present. 1845 is is usually even busier.

(btw, a typo in my comment #16: it should state "two-car train".)