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		East Midland Trains runs fast and semi-fast passenger services from high speed long distance services from London St. Pancras to Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham and the regional services between Nottingham and Derby/Lincoln/Cleethorpes/Skegness, between Derby and Crewe/Matlock/ and Norwich and Liverpool. The East Midlands Trains Franchise comprises the former Midland Mainline franchise that operated high speed long distance services from London St. Pancras to Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham and the regional services formerly operated by Central Trains between Nottingham and Derby/Lincoln/Cleethorpes/Skegness, between Derby and Crewe/Matlock/ and Norwich and Liverpool. Using the RailEasy™ train ticket price checker and Rail Saver reservation service to complete an online East Midlands Trains train ticket reservation is quick and easy. Rail Saver will find you the cheapest available East Midlands Trains train ticket price and book your East Midlands train tickets in a few quick easy steps using the Rail Easy™ price check and Rail Saver booking engine.

About East Midlands Trains

East Midlands Trains is the train operating company, based in Derby, that operates railway services in the East Midlands and surrounding areas. The franchise is formed through the amalgamation of the previous Midland Mainline (MML) franchise, which operated inter-city services from London to Yorkshire and the Humber, with the eastern side of Central Trains. The franchise began operating in November 2007.

The parent company of East Midlands Trains is Stagecoach Group which also owns 49% of Virgin Trains. The East Midlands franchise has been compared to Stagecoach's other franchise South West Trains which is stated as being the most complicated TOC to operate because of the vast amount of services.

East Midlands Trains will be responsible for the existing Midland Mainline services, together with the eastern side of existing Central Trains / Central Citylink routes. There are no plans to further extend mainline services to destinations north of Sheffield.

East Midlands Train Routes

The East Midlands Trains Franchise comprises the former Midland Mainline franchise that operated high speed long distance services from London St. Pancras to Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham and the regional services formerly operated by Central Trains between Nottingham and Derby/Lincoln/Cleethorpes/Skegness, between Derby and Crewe/Matlock/ and Norwich and Liverpool.

The East Midlands Trains franchise operates using two individual brand identities. They are:-

East Midlands Mainline

The routes operating in and out of St Pancras International (ex-Midland Mainline) and a cross country route (ex- Central Citylink)

• London St Pancras – Sheffield (fast)
• London St Pancras – Nottingham (both fast and stopping)
• London St Pancras – Derby (stopping)
• Liverpool – Norwich

East Midlands Connect

Covers all other routes including those previously serviced by Central Trains.

• Matlock – Nottingham
• Crewe – Derby
• Nottingham – Skegness
• Leicester – Lincoln (incorporating ‘Ivanhoe’ services)
• Worksop – Nottingham (Robin Hood Line)
• Grimsby – Newark-on-Trent (with some services extended to Cleethorpes)
• Doncaster – Lincoln – Peterborough

East Midlands Trains have also introduced several new train routes to the network. The new routes now served by East Midlands Trains are:-

• Lincoln will be served directly into St Pancras International.Lincoln – London St Pancras (via Nottingham, one departure out at 07:10 and returning at 18:30. It is unknown whether this will run in the path of existing services between Lincoln and Nottingham, or whether it will be in addition)
  
  
• Summer Saturday service from London to Skegness.
  
  
• London – Kettering (stopping service, which will be extended to a new station at Corby depending on the funding).

Integration between Mainline and Connect services is expected to be much enhanced with many of the Connect services given better timings and becoming more user friendly.

East Midlands Trains Into The Future

East Midlands Trains, as part of their franchise, plan to impliment the following changes to the exisiting service:-

New Improved Train Timetable

Improved journey times and better punctuality across the entire network. Some highlights of the franchise plans are:

• Faster journeys to Sheffield (2 hours 8 minutes) and Leicester (1 hour 7 minutes) from London as part of a new timetable being introduced in December 2008.
• Journey times potentially shortened even further by Network Rail infrastructure-based improvements.
• Additional early morning train from Derby to cater for morning peak demand.
• A new daily direct service between London and Lincoln.
• An hourly Nottingham-Matlock service.
• An additional off-peak service each hour from London, allowing a new train service exclusively to serve stations south of Leicester.
• Performance plans that will help improve the PPM to 90.4% from 83.6% by focusing on poorer performing regional services and trains.

Fleet Improvement and Capacity:

• Significant increase in capacity, with more than 850 extra mainline peak seats into and out of London and an increase of nearly 10,000 off-peak seats per week day.
• Increasing main line frequency to five trains per hour between the peaks.
• Bring forward first morning train arrival into London to provide an integrated connection to Eurostar for business passengers travelling to the continent.
• Additional High Speed Train set from June 2012 to increase capacity.
• An increase in capacity on Norwich-Liverpool week day services.
• A 9% increase in week day capacity on other regional routes.
• A £26.5m fleet interior and performance improvement programme, including décor, seats, on-train CCTV and technical modifications.
• Significant investment at Derby train maintenance depot (Etches Park), which will become the centre of train maintenance operations.

Train Station Enhancements

Around £5 million will be spent on enhancing and refurbishing stations across the franchise network. East Midlands Trains will also be working closely with partners such as local authorities to attract additional funding and to work on joint improvement projects. These will include:

• Refurbishment of waiting rooms, shelters, booking halls and toilets, improved internal lighting, replacement seating, new cycle racks and repairs to forecourts.
• Fitting out East Midlands Parkway station building and completing access.
• Repainting and new signage across all stations including improvements to waiting rooms, platform areas, station buildings, booking halls, ticket offices, shelters and lighting columns.

Safety And Security

There will be many improvements to safety and security for East Midlands Train passengers and employees including:

• Additional CCTV cameras at 12 stations and mobile security staff coverage for stations and trains
  Senior Conductors, Train Managers and Revenue Protection staff equipped with PDAs to improve information provision and security for customers.
• Secure Station Accreditation covering 87% of passenger journeys on the franchise.
• Accreditation of three further secure station car parks.
• Create an 'Information & Security Centre' to provide a central monitoring facility (which shall be staffed between 0600 and 2330 Monday to Saturday and 0800 and 2230 Sunday), for CCTV cameras and Help Points which are installed at Stations within 1 year of the Start Date.
• Install 68 additional CCTV cameras at stations which will be linked to an Information & Security Centre;
  install 64 new or upgraded Help Points at stations which will be linked to an Information & Security Centre.
• Provide more visible staff presence including security guards on trains and at key stations to improve personal security.

Tickets and Integrated Travel

East Midlands Trains will be making improvements to ticketing and offering good value fares, as well as providing good integrated transport links at many locations. These will include some or all of the following:

• Investment in Smartcard technology to make ticket purchasing much easier.
• Promotion of internet purchasing and telesales.
• Introduction of megatrain.com fares like those at South West Trains.
• Flexible ticket options, with different prices depending on the time of travel, including a trial to attract passengers to the shoulder peak using Smartcard.
• Installation of around 70 new self-service ticket vending machines to reduce ticket office queues and provide ticket retailing at locations such as Syston and Sutton Parkway for the first time.
• Introduction of automatic gates at four additional stations to improve security and reduce ticketless travel, resulting in nearly 90% of passenger journeys being gated at least at one end.
• The display, advertising and promotion of integrated tickets.
• Liaison with local bus and coach operators.
• The promotion of park and ride facilities.
• Staff training to ensure they are knowledgeable about onward journey options
• Access integration, working closely with disability groups and organisations.

Caring For The Environment

East Midlands Trains will focus on running its services in as environmentally responsible way as possible. The improvements will include:

• Appointing an Environmental Manager to concentrate on environmental issues and strategy.
• Produce an environmental plan setting out its approach to managing its business.
• Use reasonable endeavours to maintain ISO 14001 environmental quality accreditation at train depots.
• Recycle a target level of waste from its operations at stations and depots.
• Establish an annual Environmental Awareness Week raising awareness of environmental issues to staff.

New Stations at Corby & East Midlands Parkway

A competitive option has been offered to the Department for Transport for the provision of rail services to a potential new rail station at Corby.

Until these plans get the go ahead, there will continue to be a half-hourly rail link feeder bus service (bus-rail) between Kettering Station and the centre of Corby providing connections at Kettering with train services to and from London.

The new East Midlands Parkway station will open in late-2008. The new station will feature over 800 car parking spaces and offer direct services to London St Pancras, as well as local services serving Leicester and Nottingham. The new station will be approximately 5 minutes driving time from Junction 24 of the M1.

New Franchise Questions & Answers

As a service to Rail Saver users the following list of questions and answers compiled by the new East Midlands Train franchise are provided beolow:

Q. would like to know whether East Midlands Trains will continue Midland Mainline's service provision of free coffee and tea for all customers?

A. We will not continue the free tea and coffee currently provided by Midland Mainline in standard class, although it will still be offered to First Class passengers. We will be introducing an at seat service which includes quality coffee and tea at reasonable prices. It is not economically viable to provide this service for free and we believe that Midland Mainline had intended to discontinue this service if they had have been awarded the franchise again.

Q. Why is East Midlands Trains getting rid of the Buffet cars when you take over the East Midlands franchise?

A. The decision to change the catering offer was as a result of research which was undertaken before we were awarded the East Midlands franchise. This was carried out in the form of customer surveys and passenger focus groups. It was revealed that most passengers would prefer an at seat service as opposed to having to line up and wait at the buffet car. Our objective is to ensure we offer passengers a good selection of high quality products so they can enjoy their journey. To enable East Midlands Trains to reach this objective, we will undertake further consultation with our customers before introducing the at seat service. An at seat service is more inclusive for passengers who have restricted mobility (not just disabled but also those with children etc).

In first class we will offer hot and cold options throughout the day. We will offer a hot breakfast served at seat. The food range will be different to now to meet changing passenger tastes. We are still developing the menu options and are confident that the majority of passengers will welcome the improvements.

Q. What changes will occur to the timetable when you take over the franchise and when will customers see a new timetable?

A. We will launch a new, revised timetable in December 2008. From 11 November 2007, we will continue to operate the current Midland Mainline and Central Trains timetables (for which details are available through National Rail Enquiries in the normal way).

Q. I'm an annual season ticket holder and currently reserve my seats through Midland Mainline. Can you tell me if seat reservations for season ticket holders will still be available after 11 November?

A. After careful review, we have decided to withdraw the facility which allows season ticket holders only to make reservations. We realise that for season ticket holding passengers who routinely take up their reservation this may be disappointing. The reason for the withdrawal of this privilege is that we believe there is significant mis-use of this privilege by some season ticket holders, for example:

Customers block booking seats on specific services each day and on occasion during the week not taking up that reservation and travelling on another service and customers knowingly booking multiple reservations across two or more services as they cannot be sure of their precise time of travel. We are investigating whether it would be practical in the longer term to introduce season ticket reservations on a different basis that would encourage passengers to take up booked seats. We will continue to monitor the response from our customers on this matter, once we take over the franchise in order to ensure we believe this remains the correct decision.

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