Thameslink for Corby

Last November, in the House of Commons, Rail Minister Paul Maynard explained that once electrification was completed to Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby in 2019, East Midlands Trains would be running two distinct services on the Midland Main Line – one for the longdistance market and another for outer-suburban commuters.

This would enable long-distance trains to be speeded up by about 20 minutes, by omitting stops between Corby, Kettering and London which are “mainly used by commuters” and “would be served by electric trains up to 12 carriages long”.

Surely it is more logical for the new outer-suburban service to Corby to be transferred to the Thameslink franchise?

The introduction of the new Thameslink timetable in May 2018 will have a planned 16tph at peak times on the MML (eight fast to St Albans for Bedford, four semi-fast for Luton and four all stations for St Albans).

The additional four trains per hour to Bedford are peak-only from East Grinstead (TL3) or Gatwick and Littlehampton (TL4), and will omit smaller stations between Luton and Bedford. These services could become daily and be extended to Kettering/Corby, which is a logical extension as Thameslink services are also being extended on the parallel Great Northern routes to Peterborough and Cambridge.

If the Corby electrics remain as an EMT service, there will be a problem with restricted platform space at St Pancras International. At present, there is some doublingup of trains in the four available platforms, but this will not be possible if the promised 12 carriages are used on the Corby electrics. Furthermore, EMT will clearly benefit from sole occupancy of St Pancras for its long-distance services.

There is no likelihood of new stock for the Corby electrics, so it is likely that passengers from Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby will find their journeys downgraded from an Inter-City type service using IC125s and Class 222 Meridians to cascaded outer-suburban units.

Furthermore, they are presently paying premium inter-city-type fares of up to 60% higher per mile than Thameslink fares from Bedford.

Corby passengers would suffer from a transfer to Thameslink by a possible ten-minute increase in journey times. However, this would be compensated for by the convenience of services direct to the Thameslink Core and the connection with Crossrail at Farringdon. They would also suffer some loss of comfort, but this would be compensated if fares levels are reduced to equivalent Thameslink rates.

EMT should ensure a twicehourly intermediate connectivity with Thameslink services at Kettering, with one connection being into a Nottingham train and the other into a Derby and Sheffield service.

Through trains to Leicester and beyond were cut back to an hourly service when Corby was reopened in 2009, but they were historically half-hourly (alternating

destinations between Derby and Nottingham) – a frequency which reflected the considerable volume of local commuting in the East Midlands and the needs of London Luton Airport.

If the extra path in the Hope Valley is allocated to an East Midlands-Manchester service, this could start back at Kettering. Edmund Worthy, Wellingborough