Harborough rail users
Improving the quality of Market Harborough's rail service
Stagecoach Rail requested a meeting with Harborough MP Neil O’Brien, and HRU Chair Steve Jones was invited to join them. Stagecoach operate the current East Midlands Trains franchise. However, as the bid teams are required to work entirely separately from the operational staff, we met in the coffee bar at Harborough District Council's Symington Building, on 1st June.
All of the bidders are meeting interested parties throughout the franchise area to gather information that will help them in preparing their bids. Though in no position to tell us their own plans or proposals, they are interested in local information and opinions about the rail service, both as it now is and the improvements we would like to see. We discussed our aspirations for the train service, new rolling stock, the station enhancements and the Midland Main Line upgrade. This meeting means we have now met all three of the remaining potential bidders. The Invitation to Tender (ITT) is expected in early June from the Department for Transport and we now eagerly await what it says for our train service. We hope it contains good news! Following a meeting between franchise bidder Abellio and Harborough MP Neil O'Brien on 9th March, at which HRU was represented, Abellio offered a second meeting with the HRU Committee and this took place at the station on 25th April.
We discussed the station and HRU's aspirations for it including a lift between the booking office and the platforms; toilets and canopies on both platforms; facilities for cyclists; and the potential for greater use of the main building for community-related purposes. Abellio listened to these ideas positively and undertook to include as many of them in its proposals as it could. On a related but different note, on the day before, 24th April, bidder First + Trenitalia pulled out of the East Midlands competition to concentrate on their bid for the West Coast Partnership franchise. That left three bidders, with Abellio and Arriva plus present operator, Stagecoach. We now await the Invitation to Tender, due to be issued by the DfT in May, to see what the specification for our train service will be. Train operator Abellio, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch state railway operator NS, has been added to the DfT’s shortlist of bidders for the East Midlands franchise. Their Bid Director Simon Pready, who lives locally in Rothwell, requested a meeting with Harborough MP Neil O’Brien, and HRU Chair Steve Jones was invited to join them. We met at the station on 9th March. The weather was cold and wet, which gave a good opportunity to demonstrate how bleak the platforms are - and may still be after the intended reconstruction!
Abellio are meeting interested parties throughout the franchise area and are gathering information that will help them in preparing their bid. They were in no position to set out their own plans or proposals. We discussed our aspirations for the train service, new rolling stock, the station enhancements and the Midland Main Line upgrade. With this meeting, we have now met three of the four shortlisted potential bidders. Harborough Rail Users has submitted its response to the Department for Transport's consultation on the next East Midlands rail franchise. At the last franchise change, Market Harborough was threatened with a severe reduction in its train service. We campaigned hard to retain two trains an hour - and we succeeded.
This time, the exact nature of the train service is not so clear. The main proposal is a split between electric 'London commuter' services to Corby and 'inter-city' bi-mode (electric plus probably diesel) trains for the rest of the route, with interchange between the two at Kettering. Clearly, this is partly a consequence of the decision not to electrify north from Kettering. Quite where this would leave Market Harborough is not made clear. However, there is much pressure to speed up the journeys between London and Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield. A risk is that this can only realistically be done by cutting out intermediate station stops. During the current East Midlands Trains franchise, Market Harborough has had a good train service of one fast and one stopping service to London each hour, with some additional trains at peak times. In essence, we want to retain a service of this kind. We would want to retain the hourly fast trains, which have attracted substantial growth in usage, plus the hourly semi-fast stopping trains that provide good connectivity to other stations along the line. Though London is the single most important destination, there is also a clear need for a direct service between Leicester, Market Harborough, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford and Luton Airport Parkway. In addition, there should be better connections at Kettering for the Corby service, especially northbound towards both Market Harborough and Leicester, for which the service is particularly poor at present. We have also called for some enhancements to the planned remodelling of Market Harborough station, especially in terms of disabled access and better waiting shelter and toilets on both new platforms. We now await the outcome of the consultation. This is due in April 2018 when the invitation to tender is due to be issued to shortlisted bidders. Thursday 20th July saw two major announcements by the Department for Transport with significant implications for Market Harborough's train service. The public consultation for the next franchise was launched and, with it, the planned electrification of the main line north of Kettering was formally abandoned.
What is now proposed for delivery by the next train operator is a split of services between 'London Commuter' and 'Intercity'. There would be an electric commuter service between St Pancras and main stations to Kettering and on to Corby and an intercity service using 'bi-mode' trains for the main line via Market Harborough to Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield. 'Bi-mode' means trains that can run on either electric or diesel power, so these would be electric from St Pancras to Kettering and diesel thereafter. The DfT is selling this as a major improvement based on new technology as well as saving the major cost and disruption that electrification would have caused. The effect for us in Market Harborough is that our trains will continue to be diesel-operated through our station for the foreseeable future, though they will be electric between Kettering and London. No details of the actual rolling stock are yet given; this will be for the new operator to sort out with the DfT, though we are told that they will be 'modern, fast, efficient and comfortable'. Bi-mode trains are currently being built for the Great Western main line, where planned electrification has been similarly curtailed. The franchise consultation proposals make much of the split between electric commuter services to Corby and the bi-mode (diesel for us!) intercity trains on the non-electrified main line. Nothing is said about Market Harborough itself, though the consultation document seeks a speeding-up of intercity journey times from Nottingham and Sheffield to London 'by up to 20 minutes, by reducing the number of calls to pick up commuters, alongside the line speed improvements' (page 22 of the document). It would appear from the proposals that this means stations south of Kettering, as these will be served by the new electric service to Corby. The implication is that our trains would call at Kettering only, then run non-stop to London. Anyone travelling to, say, Bedford or Luton Airport, would change at Kettering. However, whether this would apply to all trains or only some of them is not yet known. The consultation makes clear that there are numerous and varied aspirations for the next franchise, such as a sufficient level of service for Luton Airport. The overall tone of the document is positive, seeking growth in business and improvements to services. The questions are about how best to achieve this and do so affordably. We in Harborough Rail Users will be preparing our full response to the consultation, which closes on 11th October. We will seek to ensure that we retain at least a level of frequency, quality and speed comparable with the service we have now. We also seek improvements to the timetable to give us later southbound weekday last trains and earlier first trains on Sundays. See the DfT website for:
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