East Midlands Railway (EMR) is asking its passengers not to travel on Saturday (15 August) unless their journey is essential, as RMT trade union members will be taking strike action over safety faults in the operator’s new fleet of trains.
EMR, which is operated by Transport UK, will be operating a significantly reduced timetable with services not starting until 07:00 and finishing before 19:00 on its Intercity and Connect routes. It is also warning that trains may be subject to alterations and cancellations at short notice.
The operator will temporarily declassify First Class on its Intercity services, which will allow passengers to use the full seating capacity of each train. First Class passengers who already have a ticket or who have a Season Ticket holders can contact EMR’s Customer Service Centre to find out how to claim a refund.
The union’s dispute with the operator centres around the introduction of the new fleet of Class 810 trains in April. The new fleet, built by Hitachi, has been beset by problems. Last month, EMR had to reduce its level of service because of the trains’ repeated faults, and has only restored part of that reduction since.
RMT claims that in the first week of August alone, the operator sent sixteen trains into service that then required a full auxiliary reset, which left trains with no active safety systems. This included losing communication between train drivers, dispatchers and trackside.
We’re sorry to customers whose journeys will be affected by this industrial action.
We know the disruption this will cause and are advising customers to only travel if their journey is essential on Saturday, 15 August, as we will be operating a significantly reduced timetable starting at 07:00 and finishing before 19:00.
We remain fully committed to offering a high-quality experience to those customers travelling with us.
EMR continues to engage in constructive discussions with the RMT with a focus on resolving this dispute as quickly as possible.
Philippa Cresswell, Customer Experience Director at East Midlands Railway,
Responses
So another Director in the rail industry speaks. This time the Customer Services Director at EMR (Transport UK with a badge on the front)
Who claims “We remain fully committed to offering a high-quality experience to those customers travelling with us”
To this I say . Where has this Director been sleeping these past months .. ?
EMR abolished seat reservations in Dec 2025 .. how is that offering a high quality service ??
And as I experienced before giving up on the pathetic service offered by EMR … Your repeated failures to maintain connections at either or both Leicester and Kettering for those customers wishing to travel Sheffield to Bedford means I gave up travelling with EMR a long time ago.. Instead opting to travel with LNER from Stevenage.
LNER offer reserved seating, LNER offer trains that generally run on time. LNER offer friendly customer hosts in 1st class. LNER offer for food and refreshments to 1st class customers is light years ahead of grubby EMR sandwiches.
Perhaps the Customer Services Director at EMR should take a day out travelling on LNER to better understand the short falls of EMR