The Anonymous Widower

Thoughts On The East Midlands Railway Timetable After Class 810 Trains Enter Service

East Midlands Railway will soon be replacing their diesel Class 222 trains with new bi-mode Class 810 trains.

• 32 trains will be replaced by 33 trains.
• 167 cars will be replaced by 165 cars.
• The current trains come in four, five and seven cars.
• The new trains come in five-cars only.
• The platforms at St. Pancras station can accept a pair of the new trains.
• Both Class 222 and Class 810 trains are genuine 125 mph trains.
• St. Pancras and Corby takes one hour and fifteen minutes
• St. Pancras and Nottingham takes hour and forty-five minutes
• St. Pancras and Sheffield takes two hours

The current services are as follows.

• St. Pancras and Corby via Luton Airport Parkway, Luton, Bedford, Wellingborough and Kettering
• St. Pancras and Nottingham via Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough (1 tph), East Midlands Parkway (1 tph) and Beeston (1 tph).
• St. Pancras and Sheffield via Leicester, Loughborough (1 tph), East Midlands Parkway (1 tph), Long Eaton (1 tph), Derby and Chesterfield.

Note.

All services are two trains per hour (tph)

If all services were run by single trains, the following number of trains would be needed for each service.

• St. Pancras and Corby – 6 trains
• St. Pancras and Nottingham – 8 trains
• St. Pancras and Sheffield – 9 trains

Note.

1. This means a total of twenty-three trains.
2. I am assuming, that trains can turn round in fifteen minutes at each end of the journey.
3. If pairs of trains run, then the numbers can be doubled to forty-six trains.

These are my thoughts.

Do The Luton Airport Express Services Need Pairs Of Trains?

The Corby service is now branded as the Luton Airport Express.

This picture shows a packed Luton Airport Express at Luton Airport Parkway station.

After seeing this, I believe that a pair of trains must run to Corby to pick up passengers, who want a fast service to and from Luton Airport.

Will The Class 810 Trains Replace The Class 360 Trains To Corby?

If all services are run by single Class 810 trains, the following would apply.

• The current service pattern would need 23 trains.
• All stations would get the same number of trains to and from St. Pancras.
• All East Midlands Railway out of St. Pancras would use the same 125 mph electric trains and services could probably be speeded up.
• The Class 810 train has 2.94 MW on diesel and the Class 360 train has 1.55 MW on electric, so I suspect that the Class 810 train has the faster acceleration.
• Bedford, Kettering, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway, Market Harborough and Wellingborough would have 125 mph electric commuter services to and from London.
• Corby and Luton Airport Parkway services would have marginally more seats, if Corby services were pairs of trains.

There would be ten spare trains, if the Class 360 trains were replaced or four spare trains, if pairs of trains ran to Corby.

Would Class 810 Trains Running On Electric Execute Stops Faster?

This document on Rail Engineer gives these figures for total power on electric of Class 802 trains.

• Five-car – 2712 kW
• Nine-car – 4520 kW

Note.

1. These figures are based on a Hitachi figure of 226 kW for the power of a traction motor.
2. The five-car train has twelve motors and the nine-car has twenty.
3. As a five-car train has three powered cars and a nine-car train has five, it looks like each powered car has four traction motors.
4. The document also says that the power to weight ratio on electric is thirty percent more than on diesel.

This  document on the Hitachi web site provides this schematic of the traction system.

Note that four traction motors are confirmed.

Consider the power of the various trains, that run or will run on the Midland Main Line.

• Four-car Class 180 train has one 559 kW diesel engine per car.
• Four, five and seven-car Class 222 train has one 559 kW diesel engine per car.
• Four-car Class 360 train has 1.55 MW on electric – 387 kW per car.
• Five-car Class 810 train has 2.94 MW on diesel – 588 kW per car.
• Five-car Class 810 train has 2.94 MW on electric – 588 kW per car.

Note.

1. The Class 810 train will out-accelerate the Class 360 train as it has at least 40 percent more power on electric.
2. The Class 810 train has pantographs on both driving cars.
3. The Class 810 train has two powered cars; numbers 2 and 4.
4. I have assumed that if the Class 810 train can handle 2.94 MW on both diesel and electric.
5. With eight traction motors, they would need to be 367.5 kW.
6. The Class 810 train should out-accelerate the Class 180 train and Class 222 train as it has at five percent more power on both diesel and electric.

I think it is also relevant that the order for the Class 810 trains was placed in August 2019 and Hitachi announced their collaboration with Eversholt Rail Group to develop the battery-electric versions of the Class 802 trains only sixteen months later. As the Class 810 appears to be an revolution of the Class 802 train, I suspect that Hitachi were working hard on battery design, as this train’s design evolved.

These are the five cars of the Class 810 train.

• 1 – DPTS – Driver-Pantograph-Trailer-Standard with Generator Unit
• 2 – MS – Motored-Standard with Generator Unit
• 3 – TS – Trailer-Standard with Transformer
• 4 – MC – Motored-Composite with Generator Unit
• 5 – DPTF – Driver-Pantograph-Trailer-First with Generator Unit

Note.

1. Generator Unit is a diesel generator.
2. Motored means the car has four traction motors.
3. Composite means a car with both First and Standard accommodation.
4. Cars 1-2, and 4-5, form two power units with two generator units, four traction motors and a pantograph, at each end of the train. Cables would connect them to the transformer in car 3.

It looks a neat solution, which probably has high reliability.

I can envisage the  two generator units under cars 2 and 4 could be replaced by battery packs.

• The battery packs would mimic the function of the generator units.
• Noise in cars 2 and 4 would be reduced.
• Carbon emissions would be reduced.
• The battery packs would be charged, when running under the wires or possibly from chargers or short length of overhead wires at terminal stations.
• The battery packs would handle regenerative braking.
• Adding battery packs would allow the trains to jump gaps left in the electrification.

At some point in the future, the other two generator units could be removed or replaced with battery packs, depending on whether full electrification happens on the Midland Main Line.

These meanderings convince me that the Class 810 trains will be able to save time in the stops on the Midland Main Line.

Because of these savings, I can see East Midlands Railway, reorganising stops on the electrified section of the route, as although the stop will add a minute or two, this lost time will be picked up on savings at existing stops and by more 125 mph running.

Could The Nottingham And Sheffield Services Be Combined?

These are the current services to Nottingham and Sheffield.

• St. Pancras and Nottingham via Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough (1 tph), East Midlands Parkway (1 tph) and Beeston (1 tph).
• St. Pancras and Sheffield via Leicester, Loughborough (1 tph), East Midlands Parkway (1 tph), Long Eaton (1 tph), Derby and Chesterfield.

Note.

1. Both services call at Leicester , Loughborough and East Midlands Parkway.
2. Some trains call at Luton Airport Parkway, Luton, Bedford, Wellingborough, Kettering and Market Harborough on the section of the Midland Main Line, which is currently being electrified between Kettering and Wigston.
3. A lot of money has been spent on the Luton DART and it only has two fast trains from St. Pancras. Four tph would be ideal.

Suppose the Sheffield and Nottingham trains operated like this.

• A pair of Class 810 trains would leave St. Pancras.
• South of Leicester, they would call at one or two stations, as defined in the timetable.
• They would then call at Leicester , Loughborough and East Midlands Parkway.
• At East Midlands Parkway, the two trains would split.
• One train would go to Sheffield and the other would go to Nottingham, stopping as defined in the timetable.

Note.

1. Because of the trains superior performance, they would be doing quicker calls at stations, which should allow the existing timetable to be maintained or even improved.
2. Hitachi trains can split and join in around two minutes.
3. These trains would call at Luton Airport Parkway, to give that station four tph from St. Pancras, Luton and Bedford.

I calculated earlier that a 2 tph Sheffield service would need nine trains. So if it served both Nottingham and Sheffield it would need another nine trains. This would give a total of eighteen trains.

• If the St.Pancras and Corby service were to be run by pairs of Class 810 trains, this would require twelve trains.
• Adding the two services together would require thirty trains. Would three trains be enough for backup and in maintenance?

I suspect splitting and joining at East Midlands Parkway could be beneficial.

Could Four tph Be Run To Nottingham And Sheffield?

Consider.

• Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Southampton and York all get two tph from London.
• Some closer stations like Birmingham, Cambridge, Ipswich, Leicester, Oxford and Reading get more.
• Most of these routes are electrified and run modern trains.

I wouldn’t say never, but adding two tph to both Nottingham and Sheffield services would require.

• Two more hourly train paths on both between St. Pancras and Nottingham, and St. Pancras and Sheffield.
• Eighteen extra trains.

But as a sub-two hour service would be running on both routes, it would probably be possible to accurately predict, when more trains were needed.

Electrification Through Leicester

As more electrification is added, this should result in faster journeys, that reduce carbon emissions.

OpenRailwayMap is now showing the electrification as dotted lines on the Midland Main Line.

This map shows the electrification scheme through Leicester.

Note.

1. Only the two main lines in the centre of the station seem to be going to be electrified.
2. These lines are used by East Midlands Railway’s through trains and surprisingly some freight trains.
3. Terminating services from places like Birmingham, Grimsby and Lincoln seem to stop in the outer platforms.

This picture shows the platforms from the Northern footbridge.

This picture shows the platforms from the Northern footbridge.

At the Southern end of the station, the tracks go under the London Road bridge. This map shows the tracks there.

Note.

• The two main tracks of the Midland Main Line appear that they will be electrified.
• But the lines at each side are not electrified.

Some years ago I came back to London from Leicester with a group of drivers. At one point, the conversation turned to electrification and they said that they had met a Network Rail engineer, who had told them, that the bridge was rather low for electrification and the track couldn’t be lowered because Leicester’s main sewer was underneath the railway.

It looks like Network Rail have found a way to squeeze two electrified tracks through the middle of the bridge and then use diesel, battery or other self-powered trains on lines without electrification on either side.

May 30, 2023 Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Class 180 Train, Class 222 Train, Class 360 Train, Class 810 Train, Corby Station, East Midlands Railway, Electrification, Leicester Station, Luton Airport, Luton Airport Express, Luton Airport Parkway Station, Midland Main Line, Nottingham Station, Sheffield Station | 2 Comments