East Midlands Railway has undertaken to restore more of the services which have been suspended since July because of rolling stock problems.
Difficulties with its new Aurora fleet (pictured) were compounded by delays in maintaining its Class 222 diesel units, but the operator improved its Intercity services from 87 per cent to 92 per cent of the full planned timetable on 1 September.
EMR now says it has continued to work closely with the Department for Transport and Hitachi, and that it can further increase the number of trains from 92 per cent to 96 per cent from 19 October.
The operator has been under fire since it trimmed its timetables. Corby MP Lee Barron has said his constituents are being 'stranded and left out of pocket' by cancelled services, and he says EMR should be renationalised as soon as possible, while the RMT had called a strike in September over the rolling stock problems, although this was suspended after further talks.
EMR’s interim managing director Neil Grabham said: ‘We know how important reliable Intercity services are to the communities, businesses and customers we serve. The restoration of these additional services, including more weekday and weekend options for Sheffield and Nottingham, will provide greater choice and flexibility for those travelling to and from London.
‘While this is a positive step forward, we recognise that there is still more work to do. We remain focused on working closely with Hitachi Rail, the Department for Transport and our other industry partners to address the remaining fleet challenges and restore the full timetable as soon as we can.
‘I would like to thank our customers and our frontline teams for their continued patience, understanding and hard work as we continue through this recovery.’
EMR is expected to be renationalised in 2027 as part of the general transition to Great British Railways, but the date has yet to be announced.
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