13/08/2007

A new train company for the East Midlands and South Yorkshire area has unveiled its name, logo and the look of its train livery.

East Midlands Trains, run by Stagecoach Group’s rail division, starts its seven-year-and-four-month franchise on Sunday November 11 at 2am.

A brand-new franchise map has been drawn up to encompass all of the existing main line train services running to London St Pancras and the regional rail services in the East Midlands area.

Highlights of the company’s plans include millions of pounds of investment in station and train improvements including refurbishments, more CCTV cameras, more ticket machines and improved journey times.

There will also be closer partnership with Network Rail to improve train performance, and the creation of a new integrated control centre where colleagues from each organisation will sit alongside each other to run the train service.

David Horne, Mobilisation Director for East Midlands Trains, said: “We are really excited about creating this brand new train company for the East Midlands and the wider region.

“It will bring better harmony between the regional and mainline train services, and link into the revamped St Pancras station, which will also be home to Eurostar from November.

“We have lots of plans to improve the travelling experience for passengers, and will bring the expertise we have in running our other train company South West Trains to this new rail business.”

ENDS

For more information contact:
East Midlands Trains Press Office
Tel: 01332 262010
The company’s interim website is available at www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk.

For more information about Stagecoach Group contact:
Steve Stewart, Director of Corporate Communications
Tel: 01738 442111 or mobile 07764 774680
email: steven.stewart@stagecoachgroup.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

Branding

An East Midlands Trains’ logo, image of a newly liveried train and network map are available from Emma Knight, tel: 01332 262010.

East Midlands rail franchise

The East Midlands Franchise comprises:

• the former Midland Mainline franchise that operated high speed long distance services from London St. Pancras to Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham
• 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 franchise will run until 31 March 2015, the last year and 4 months of which will be conditional upon achieving pre-set performance targets.

Highlights of improvements and investment include:

• Faster journeys to Sheffield (2h 08 mins) and Leicester (1hr 07 mins) from London as part of a new timetable in December 2008 with potential further infrastructure-based improvements
• Additional early morning train from Derby to London St Pancras to cater for high levels of morning peak demand
• Performance plans to improve the public performance measure (PPM) to 90.4%
• 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 weekday
• 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), to provide better facilities for train maintenance operations
• A centralised Information and Security Centre to respond to Help Point requests and monitor CCTV cameras
• Additional CCTV cameras at 12 stations and mobile security staff coverage for stations and trains and more than 60 new or upgraded Help Points at 35 stations
• Investment in Smartcard technology to make ticket purchasing much easier
• 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
• £5m station investment programme
• New East Midlands Parkway station 5 minutes by car from junction 24 of the M1
• New passenger charter with clear targets and compensation structure based on the ‘Delay Repay’ model supported by Passenger Focus
• An additional 750 car parking spaces
• 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

Stagecoach Group

Stagecoach Group is a leading international transportation group, with extensive bus and rail operations in the UK and North America. The Group's businesses operate around 12,000 vehicles and rolling stock, and employ around 27,000 people.

Stagecoach operates the South Western rail franchise, which includes the South West Trains and Island Line networks. South West Trains, the UK’s biggest commuter rail network, runs nearly 1,700 trains a day out of London Waterloo. Island Line, on the Isle of Wight, has been designated a Community Rail Partnership. In addition, Stagecoach has a 49% shareholding in Virgin Rail Group, which operates the CrossCountry and West Coast inter-city rail franchises.

Stagecoach is also Britain’s biggest tram operator, running Sheffield Supertram and Manchester Metrolink.