Originally Posted by
LTNman
I was starting to get excited but I can find no evidence they will run on the St Pancras to Corby line, which is the route that stops at Luton Airport Parkway.
https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.u...et-to-be-named
The airport pushed for 4 trains an hour, as part of the EMR franchise agreement, but ended up with 2, which is still better than one. The whole experience now though is very disappointing compared to the old rolling stock and is a major downgrade. The airport will be able to claim a 30 minute journey time between terminal and London via the Dart so it will look good on paper but I feel EMR want to discourage airport passengers from London in using the service by providing no luggage space.
Living north of Bedford and being totally reliant of the "new" EMR Connect service to get to London, I can confirm is nothing to get excited about! Despite being promised newly refurbished trains when the service was introduced in May 2021, we are still awaiting this and they are only now gradually repainthing them all into EMR colours, but refurbishmewnt plans are still up in the air. The trains are around 16 years old and worked a hard life, plying the Greater Anglia commuter routes and never had any refurbishment in that time.
We are promised after the refurbishment they will have 2+2 abreast seating, with USB/Laptop plus and additonal luggage storage. But if and when this happens is anyones guess?!
The trains are meant to operate as two trains connected together with eight carriages, however there seems to be regular technical problems and its not an usual for a single four carriage train to be operating the route.
People should remember they are never meant to be an Airport Express service, and just an additonal option and capacitiy to get to the airport.
What makes me laugh is they specifically chose these older 360 class trains to operate the Corby to London route, as they could be upgraded to run at 110mph and operate on the fast Intercity tracks. However they can only run at 110mph north of Bedford, which has the newly upgraded electrified lines, as the older overhead cabling between London and Bedford can only handle electric trains operating to 100mph!
The new EMR Aurura trains are unlikely to operate on local services to Corby, and more for the routes to Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby. They have only ordered enough Aurora trains to replace the current EMR Meridians like for like, which currently