Thursday, 6 May 2021
- Improved Sunday services for Intercity and regional passengers
- Major change for Chesterfield and Sheffield services
- Matlock, Norwich and Skegness all receive improvements
East Midlands Railway (EMR) will roll out significant upgrades to its Sunday services when it introduces its new timetable on Sunday 16th May.
The new May timetable will provide more seats, quicker journeys, and a simpler and more resilient timetable for communities across the region.
EMR’s services between London St Pancras International and Corby, Nottingham and Sheffield, will increase to a full weekday timetable of six trains per hour in the afternoon. Making it much easier for customers to get home after a day or weekend away.
This change will make journey times and frequencies broadly comparable seven days a week and is a major improvement for the towns and cities on the Midland Main Line.
EMR Regional services will also see improvements. This includes earlier services on a Sunday to and from Norwich – previously this option was only available during the summer.
Services between Matlock and Nottingham will run hourly in the afternoons all year round - compared to the current timetable which offers services every two hours for much of the afternoon.
The Nottingham to Skegness route will also become an all-year timetable on a Sunday, meaning that even in the low season it's possible to arrive and depart from the Lincolnshire coastal town in the morning and not have to wait until 14:15 in the afternoon.
Also, the previous summer Sunday services between Nottingham and Cleethorpes will now now run throughout the year.
Will Rogers, Managing Director of East Midlands Railway, said: “This new timetable represents an exciting new chapter for train services in the region and will bring significant benefits to the communities we serve – including a important uplift in our regional Sunday services.
“It has been an incredible team effort to put this timetable in place, especially during a period so heavily affected by Covid and that is why we are so proud to be able to launch this new timetable.
“It which will enable better regional and intercity connectivity – helping people get to work and enjoy their leisure time, and in turn boost our local economies at time when it’s never been so important.”