Repairs to concrete decks above platforms at Birmingham New Street have resulted in better rail connections between the West and East Midlands which will be introduced from Sunday 10 December.
An additional hourly service between Birmingham, Derby and Nottingham will run as a result of the work. Four trains per hour will operate between Derby and Nottingham for the first time, provided by both CrossCountry and East Midlands Railway (EMR).
Long-distance passengers on CrossCountry will also experience faster journeys between South West England and the North East and Scotland. There will be fewer station stops between Birmingham and Derby.
John Robson, CrossCountry's Regional Director for the East Midlands and East Anglia, said: “We're very pleased to deliver such a significant uplift in services for passengers travelling between the East and West Midlands as part of our regular timetable change this December.
“The new timetable will bring improved resilience and better train performance for passengers using this critical rail corridor, and we really look forward to welcoming customers on board.”
Dave Meredith, Customer Services Director for East Midlands Railway, added: “These additional services will complement our timetable to provide customers even more options when they make the journey between Nottingham and Derby.
“It's great for the local economy of the region and will hopefully lead to more people choosing to travel by train rather than sitting in traffic on Brian Clough Way.”
Cross country need to concentrate on what should be their flagship routes.
Devon and Cornwall to the northeast and Scotland
Bournemouth to Manchester.
Connecting in Birmingham
I recently travelled from Newcastle to Southampton on these services. Using country first class just isn’t worth it. Minimum service to Birmingham where the train was terminated short, and the trip to Southampton was over crowded due to the previous Manchester to Bournemouth was cancelled, so there was no service whatsoever from the galley.
Via London is cheaper and more comfortable, even if I use Thameslink from St. Pancras to three bridges and southern onwards..
Meanwhile a genuine east west line the north staffs line between Derby & Stoke- serving Uttoxeter as a correspondent mentions-remains a Cinderella service..While the partial reinstatement of the Mon- Fri service is welcome the Saturday service sees little if any reinstatements. The promised enhancements to the poor Sunday services on this line. First trains from @ 3pm. have not materialised.
The line has real potential e. g. A semi fast Nottingham to Crewe and perhaps beyond and would ease pressures on the Hope Valley line. Yet as a day EMR treats it as a Cinderella one contrasting the generous service on the Matlock line which is no more than a branch line.
I won’t hold my breath if Cross Country Trains are involved
Still using Tin Cans on Long Distance Routes and using totally unsuitable 4/5 coach Trains on the Long Distance services
New Contract yet no commitment for new Rolling Stock so no doubt we will be subsidising German Railways at our expense
All very sensible comments and suggestions but don’t forget Cross Country is owned by DB (German state railways,a nationalised concern)who are allegedly so efficient!! They are like their Arriva bus services, absolutely useless.They are also far more expensive than West Midlands/LNWR.
And still the vital Cross Country Birmingham to Stansted Airport route won’t stop at Cambridge North either?! PLEASE WAKE UP CROSS COUNTRY TRAINS and actually listen to the needs of all your customers! And in the meantime, fix your toilets on the trains so those who need the toilet quickly such as myself can actually travel in some comfort, rather than have to soil myself before we eventually get to the destination, let alone the ultimate “final destination”…
Diverting a SW NE service via Leicester would be good. Train Crew have road knowledge already.
The station to station Nottingham to Birmingham time is ridiculously slow. Losing the HS2 leg is disastrous as far as an improved journey time is concerned. Why oh why is the freight line from Trent junction to Willington not used? Why must all trains on this route go via Derby? Using the by pass line would save about 20 mins I guess with linespeed enhancement. Of course a new station would be needed for Long Eaton but, as previous commenter has pointed out.if so much can be lavished on East- West rail the cost of this enhancement should be peanuts. I guess we’re all too far north for those who oversee these matters to care.
I’ve thought for a long time that routing a few Nottingham Birmingham Cardiff trains this way would be a major attraction to business users. The line would need an upgrade as you say to increase the linespeed. It just needs someone to push it forward.
Those of us in Uttoxeter have an early and late train re introduced but still 2 hour gaps mid morning and mid afternoon. I now drive/ taxi to Rugeley and get an hourly or half hourly service to anywhere I need to go and generally pay less than half East Midlands fairs.
I suspect that re-routing some services away from Derby would lose more farebox revenue from the reduction in Birmingham-Derby and Derby-Nottingham flows than it would make from reducing the journey time Birmingham-Nottingham? Interesting thought though
Does Burton on Trent benefit from these improvements. It is a well used station for a sizeable catchment area
Colin Redman is quite right about Leicester receiving a poor service . I raised this with the mayor of Leicester a few years ago. A better link to Coventry also needed.
Wonderful improvements. I just checked the there are no improvement. Train journey times from Leicester and Nottingham to Birmingham, the Midlands major cities will now average over 40 mph. 40.8 in fact!!! I don’t think this is quite as fast as steam days but must be close!! It’s much faster by car of course and you won’t have to wait due to cancelled trains etc. but of course London requires more than 14 X investment per head. So that’s where the money should go and all the benefits in economy that goes with it. We have A few hundreds of millions investment planned for the population of 5m where as the east west route gets £8bn for a population of 300,000 . But it’s where us public schoolboys went to university of course. Also I regularly cram myself on the 2 coach dirty diesel 23:09 to Nottingham from New St. Always full of theatre, show people. However, the train leaves earlier at the weekend so ruins that as does the last train to Leicester!! Leaving the Midlands economy in further crap.
Why not introduce Lichfield to Derby and Nottingham trains linking up Birmingham cross city services, all the infrastructure is in place. When works on Tamworth line trains go this way.
Spot on. And a new station to serve Alrewas /the National Arboretum at the same time…
Leicester is part of the East Midlands and gets no service improvements whatsoever. Still an hourly service for intermediate stations, and still the last Birmingham-Leicester train departing New St at 22.22, so no theatres or gigs possible. Last Bham-Nottm train at 2309 which is still poor.
CrossCountry need to wake up and offer something better rather than sticking with what was offered pre-privatisation.
To announce it as an “additional” train without any qualification is not strictly accurate. More accurately, as I understand it, this is the resumption of the second hourly Birmingham to Nottingham service which was stopped due to reduced platform availability at New Street.
Four an hour (two pairs) rather than quarter hourly, there’s gaps of 25 minutes. And it’s completion of repairs have allowed the additional hourly, train, the repairs haven’t resulted in it.