East Midlands Railway new cycle provision

[Slowroad]

Hi, posted on here as it could have most impact on people going on tours by train. Our local cycle campaign group has emailed today with the following information on the new trains coming to the EMR network. It means that even more of the national network has poor train facilities for people using bikes. It'd be great to get lots of people contacting them to say what they think!

Cycle Capacity on East Midlands Railways

Dear Pedals supporters and fellow cyclists,

As you may have read in the recent Pedals' newsletter, East Midlands Railway (EMR) are introducing new trains, initially for 'Intercity' (i.e. the London St. Pancras run) but later for the 'Regional Fleet'.

The new class 810 Hitachi AT300 Intercity 5 carriage train, currently in test and due to begin introduction in 2025, has only TWO spaces for cycles, using hooks for vertical storage.

This ignores the need:

to foster cycle-rail integration to reduce car use, the cycle capacity of the new trains is the same as the old ones;
to encourage Active Travel, including by family sized groups;
of many cyclists who will struggle to use the planned vertical hook storage.

For greater detail on these points, please see below, the reply to Pedals' first email to EMR and our response, saying why they should change their plans.

EMR's second reply failed to engage with our points, saying as the trains are now being tested it is too late to change the design. They should change this detail now as they would a technical error found during test that affected operation. Delaying correction will increase the financial cost to the business (potentially the tax payer after the planned re-nationalisation), ignoring the broader societal costs which, of course, are more compelling in themselves.

Once the new trains are in service with this short-termist limitation, the life-span could be decades. The current '222' Meridian trains came into service in 2004!

I am writing to ask you to write in support of the campaign to increase the space for cycles on the new trains.

Please email the Combined Authority Mayor, your local Member of Parliament or EMR themselves. The more messages on this subject sent, the more chance of changing their minds. Feel free to use/adapt the points above, or create your own.

themayor@eastmidsdevo.org.uk

contact@eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk

If you write to your MP please include your name and postal address to confirm you are a constituent.

If you could copy in contact@pedals.org.uk to any messages, that would allow us to see your valued support.

Please also feel free to contact us with any suggestions or queries that come from your own discussions.

Many thanks and ride safely,

David Smith

on behalf of Pedals (Nottingham Cycling Campaign).

https://www.pedals.org.uk

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Autumn Pedals meetings

Monday 18 November at 7.30 pm: Discussion with James Hatchett, Sustrans Network Development Manager for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire
Monday 16 December at 7.30pm: includes Christmas Social evening

Meetings take place in the Visitor Centre at the Vat and Fiddle PH on Queen’s Bridge Road near Nottingham Station and there is bike parking nearby. All are welcome!

[LucyEliz]

Thanks for posting. This is really disappointing.
Will write as suggested.

[PH]

I saw this and my heart sank, EMR is my most used ToC. I shall write and complain, though with the trains already in testing it's unlikely to make any difference. Looks like my folder may be getting a bit more use.

[Nearholmer]

There must be a strong case to raise this topic, which is widespread, with the current Transport Minister, preferably from the CUK chairman, and ideally in a joint memo with Mr Boardman and the CEO of Sustrans, because it is the DfT that agrees train specs in this regard with TOCs …… indirectly The Minister is approving/instructing this rubbish.

As regards retro-fitting bike provision to trains: it is nothing like as difficult as TOCs like to make out, because modern trains use seats bolted to rails in the floors, rather like aircraft. Seats can be taken out, and replaced with bike spaces fairly easily, although how well that turns out in a practical sense depends on the relationship to the doors. It’s less simple to implement the best setup, where longitudinal tip-up seats are flipped to provide bike spaces off-peak, as a retrofit, because the body side support rails for tip-up seats aren’t always present in the design.

[mjr]

As regards retro-fitting bike provision to trains: it is nothing like as difficult as TOCs like to make out, because modern trains use seats bolted to rails in the floors, rather like aircraft. Seats can be taken out, and replaced with bike spaces fairly easily, although how well that turns out in a practical sense depends on the relationship to the doors.

The LNER Hitachis (Azumas) have end doors and a luggage rack right by the vestibule wall, so I'm pretty sure that swapping the bike cupboard for a large luggage rack and putting a roll-on-roll-off bike space in one end of the seating area (instead of the current small luggage rack) would cost only two airline-style seats and provide a much-needed larger luggage rack, as well as one more bike space (3 instead of 2 for each previous cupboard). I think GWR's are similar but I've not checked the other layouts.

[simonineaston]

Just a thought, but given that the bill that will bring all rail companies back into public ownership over the next few years, has gone into law (am I right?) is there any milage in attempting to press the gov to oversee raised levels of cycle provision on what will be “our” trains?

[rareposter]

I think GWR's are similar but I've not checked the other layouts.

There's a video walkthrough of the interior here:
https://news.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/ ... -interiors

They're actually not standard at all, they're custom build units, shorter than a standard one by about 2m. This is because they get run as 5-car units and if you join 2 together to make a 10-car (which some ECML services use) or you double stack them, they no longer fit on St Pancras platforms so they need to make each car shorter. The reduction from 26m to 24m per car means they just about fit and as an added bonus, it means less of a gap between car and platform when they're standing at curved platforms. But it adds extra challenge to providing bike storage (and toilets and accessible access)

There must be a strong case to raise this topic, which is widespread, with the current Transport Minister, preferably from the CUK chairman, and ideally in a joint memo with Mr Boardman and the CEO of Sustrans, because it is the DfT that agrees train specs in this regard with TOCs …… indirectly The Minister is approving/instructing this rubbish.

Well, indirectly, the design and build was approved by whichever idiot was Transport Minister in 2018/19. Also note that there are no Rail Industry Standards that mandate the number of bike spaces on trains. If you want to start with a complaint, that'd be the best angle - put a rule in that says all new trains must be able to take x number of bicycles minimum.

Just a thought, but given that the bill that will bring all rail companies back into public ownership over the next few years, has gone into law (am I right?) is there any milage in attempting to press the gov to oversee raised levels of cycle provision on what will be “our” trains?

I understand that the public doesn't really know (or care, or need to know) but the trains belong to the ROSCOs - Rolling Stock Leasing Companies - and they are leased to the operators. There's a maze of who owns what, who is leasing what, who is responsible for what on the railways; surprisingly, much of it actually works most of the time but they're not "our" trains. And given the timelines on the railways in terms of tenders, bidding, design, build, testing etc, there's precious little scope to amend anything now.

[mjr]

Well, indirectly, the design and build was approved by whichever idiot was Transport Minister in 2018/19.

Grayling, who famously doored a cyclist near Parliament.

And given the timelines on the railways in terms of tenders, bidding, design, build, testing etc, there's precious little scope to amend anything now.

They're probably going to keep on ordering these Hitachi trains for a while yet, so the sooner we can get a roll on roll off bike space option designed, the better. If walls and beams don't need moving, it might also be possible to fit it to the older trains when they're refurbished.