Is this railway station POINTLESS?

[@katrinabryce]

Google Maps tells me if I want to get from their to the Airport, I should take the train to either Derby or Nottingham, and then a bus.

[@rockerjim8045]

at the moment the Skylink Bus services to the Airport are £2 each way. Why anyone pays to park at the airport or get a taxi is mad.

[@SomeoneExplores]

The buses make so much more sense for folk, doesn't it?

[@Thedavidbiodanza]

The thing about the non electrification of the East Midlands line is that apparently it is actually the easiest from an engineering view as it requires a good deal less preparatory work like lowering track in tunnels and raising bridges, etc than any other candidate for electrification. Given the amount of traffic that it generates making it a good return on investment, it may be the best example of not being able to organise a piss up in a brewery when running Britain's railway.

[@rockerjim8045]

combined with the fact we have had anti rail governments that only invest in them when they are forced to

[@Marcsharp82]

So as someone who has lived in Leicester all his live I can say this. I agree about the electrification of the of the Railway, it's happening very slowly. But its happening after decades of delays and cancellations and election promises. Now for East Midlands Parkway, National Express who operated Midland Mainline at the time didnt want the station as they felt it slowed the services down but the Department for Transport demanded it, eventually it opened with Stagecoach operating East Midlands Trains. There was a frequent shuttle bus from the airport to the station but Taxi companies objected and eventually it was withdrawn, it now has a four hourly service several days a week only. People wanting to get a bus from there to the Airport now have to change at Loughborough which means its pointless. EMR offered through tickets and connecting Megabus tickets but that stopped when Abellio took over. It's definitely a white elephant of a station now. Oh and the EMT mascot is creepy as hell

[@nathanw9770]

So basically what I am getting from this is that the dft demanded something that nobody wanted and with that wasted our tax money. Typical. I assume the station is mainly used as an interchange for other EMR services at this point.

[@VTS1337]

@@nathanw9770 privatisation unintuitively means ministers have a lot more control over the railway then they should or had previously. And miniters are the worst people to be in charge of anything. Too much ministerial control is like 70% of why britain's railways are a croc of shit. As shown by the lack of bus service, everything about east mids parkway is a total planning failiure

[@Marcsharp82]

​@@nathanw9770Yep pretty much.

[@philwoodward5069]

Good Lord. The only appropriate response to taxi companies objecting to the existence of buses is "thanks for your input; we have no plans to withdraw the bus service".

[@craighobbs3708]

Completely agree with you! Massive white elephant!- great video! Keep it up! I totally get your reference to ‘Haute Picardie TGV’ station too!

[@andyburbidge4938]

When opened, there were over 200,000 passengers a year travelling via MegabusPlus to/from West Yorkshire, Lancashire & Humberside via coach connections.

[@ccjelley2390]

wait until they build a massive new town on the power station site.....

[@the1gip]

Great video. This does an excellent job of showing just how ridiculously ill-joined-up the British transport system is, and thanks for including the potted history of the attempts to provide the airport link over the years. I will always maintain that DRT is a smokescreen for swingeing cuts to public transport services and has no place whatsoever in transport network planning. Your experience here demonstrates this perfectly. Keep up the good work!

[@tomq6491]

Completely agree about DRT. There was a remote village around Loch Lommond I wanted to visit after a hiking trip that only had a kind of DRT scheme. I didn't know when I was going to arrive so couldn't book in advance and didn't want to be stranded so in the end I just abolished the whole journey altogether. The worst thing is I think there used to be a regular service so it appears it was a cost cutting exercise and claiming they offer a better on demand service.

[@geoffreylee5199]

The last time there, in 1979, the station was a dark grungy rusted structure that had a strong aroma of diesel fuel. Nice fix up of a beautifully designed structure, everything has been lowered to below track level. Understand this where the train to Paris starts.

[@stephendavies6949]

Hi there. East Mids Parkway wasn't opened until 2009.

[@indetermite]

@@stephendavies6949 I think he's talking about St. Pancras mate.

[@stanmarsh14]

Greetings from the next station up on the Derby / Sheffield leg of this service, Long Eaton. I know EM Parkway extremally well, and it makes me laugh as to why it never has any regular bus service, barring the Z1 Nottsbus On Demand service, and yet TrentBarton has it's Skylink Express between East Mids Airport and Nottingham (Via the A453, which also called at the NET Tram Clifton Park & Ride), passing the place. In 2018 during the Derby Resignaling Project, I worked as one of the staff (We was known as Green Jackets), working at Long Eaton, Derby, Burton-On-Trent, and EM Parkway, with EMP being quite interesting, though somewhat strange. Yep, Megabus was very much active when I worked there. For East Mids Airport, would recommend going to either Derby (For the Yellow Kinch Bus Skylink, front of the station), Nottingham (For the TrentBarton Skylink Express, again front of the station), or Long Eaton (For the TrentBarton Blue Nottingham > EMA or MY15 for the Ilkeston > Sawley - EMA limited service, 2 an hour) For your situation bud, I'd of gone up to either Long Eaton, Beeston, or Nottingham, for the Blue Skylink, or Derby if I was trying to get to Kegworth.

[@rockerjim8045]

Sawley Juction

[@stanmarsh14]

@@rockerjim8045 great little micro pub that place :)

[@davidgrainger5378]

A big problem for East Midlands Parkway is the fact that only 5 miles along the main newly upgraded dual carriageway road is South Clifton Park and Ride from where you can get a tram into Nottingham. Now if they extend the tram to the station and the airport things would make more sense.

[@liltenchu527]

East Midlands parkway is close to download festival which can be useful occasionally, great video 🎉

[@KasabianFan44]

Yup, exactly why I went there two years ago.

[@stanmarsh14]

Interesting thing about Download Fest (Which I can never understand why!), is the shuttle buses (Operated by TrentBarton's / Kinch Bus sister firm, Notts-Derby) mostly used Derby (Pride Park entrance), or Nottingham, never East Mids Parkway, which is much better suited for the massive volumes of traffic involved..... years back, it was very common for Long Eaton to be used, which made it hell on earth for us here, but thankfully happens no more. Last year (I work over at SEGRO East Mids Gateway, very close to Kegworth Island / J24 M1), up to 3 hours delay for traffic, it was hell, but fortunately, I was not at work at the time.

[@paulharvey9149]

Are there any scheduled flights at East Midlands airport? I think the airport's fortunes have a lot to do with the absence of a bus service. DR bus services often cover quite a large rural area and are usually bookable in advance. The fact that your app said no journeys available may simply mean it was already booked to go elsewhere at the other side of it's catchment area, and couldn't get to you in a reasonable timeframe.

[@TransportGeekery]

I used this station for a very unusual multi modal journey. Back when Stagecoach ran the East Midlands franchise, they offered “MegabusPlus” services where you could travel cheaply from London to the north by using the train to East Midlands Parkway and then transfer onto a specific Megabus connecting service. In my case, I travelled to Bradford but a range of destinations along the M1 corridor were available.

[@stephendavies6949]

It's certainly not being utilised to its full potential. The bus service to the airport was never widely advertised. As you say, it's very badly connected. I lived on the outskirts of Derby for many years, and the station was widely anticipated. It should be a hit, but its connectivity and strange timetabling/lack of services to popular destinations counts against it.

[@johnd6487]

Ah.. at 50 years old, if i had a £1 for every time the government said it was finally going to electrify the MM, and then a few months later cancelled the plan, i'd be able to buy my own personal train by now

[@ItzHussain]

It’s happening though….its planned to go up to wigston in Leicester I think later this year. It’s needed as the 810 although bi-mode work better electric.

[@SomeoneExplores]

I remember seeing somewhere that they were supposed to have finished electrification by now haha! Might be earning a couple more £s at this rate.

[@Jakegriffin2006]

@@SomeoneExplores It is it starts at Wigston and the rest of the way to London

[@anthonyholroyd5359]

The lack of electrification of the Midland mainline to Nottingham & Sheffield and; the Great Western line all the way to Plymouth & Swansea is shameful to be honest, and shows the lack of any real ambition for the railways at the higher levels of British politics. Also - if I was EMR? I'd be running my own shuttle bus (decked out in EMR purple) that would be timetabled to meet the trains and run in a circular route linking East Midlands Parkway - Kegworth - East Midlands Airport - Castle Donnington - East Midlands Parkway. I'd even allow passengers to buy through tickets from any station on the EMR network through to East Midlands Airport so passengers could just show their ticket to the bus driver and use it for travel to their final destination.

[@IS-L]

Sadly a lousy set of rolling stock on EMR

[@nikandjb1]

As someone who grew up in Sawley, just the other side of the tunnel, I love the fact that it stiops right by Ratcliffe on Soar power station. It means I'm very close to Long Eaton station, and very close to seeing Trent Lock which is just the other side of the tunnel. Apparently it's a bit rubbish for anything else according to my family!

[@jamiehawker7345]

As someone who lives sort of nearby, I can confirm that this station is utterly useless. I barely ever interchange here (and I use trains a lot). Trains barely ever running to Luton (or stopping at basically anywhere beyond Leicester for that matter) don't help. And the car park and waiting areas are always practically deserted, showing it's true very few people use East Mids for its intended purpose as a car and ride for Nottingham and Derby - there's places closer to either city that can be used in that way. Whenever I go to Leicester/London by train, this is always the one station where very few passengers board/get off even if every other station gets loads. It's a well-meant station like you say but with no real plans of getting people out of cars besides the facilities and there being no bus routes to the airport don't help at all.

[@david65219]

I think the primary function of East Midlands Parkway is the collection and, 6 days later, dispersal of metal heads every June.

[@stanmarsh14]

Nope, they use Derby / Nottingham for Download strangely enough, which I never understood why!

[@rockerjim8045]

Steel Panther. fucking hilarious

[@stephendavies6949]

A very good video. The Midland Mainline has been earmarked for electrification since 1955. I guess it will never happen now, as new energy technologies mature.

[@REDARROW_A_Personal]

This is finny, becuase East Midlands Parkway is designed almost the same as Bristol Parkway... I wounder if that was intentional.

[@gainsbourg66]

Ratcliffe Power Station is beautiful. Far too many have been demolished.

[@robertthomson1587]

We can remember them with fondness when we're all sitting in the darkness of the bleak 'green' future.

[@StuBobsGhost]

You should check out the photographs that landscape photographer Michael Kenna has taken of it over the decades.

[@rockerjim8045]

I prefer the Taj Mahal

[@teecefamilykent]

That logo guy, is Miles the emr mascot!

[@SomeoneExplores]

Miles sure seems like an interesting fellow!

[@teecefamilykent]

He is!

[@LoneSheWolf09]

Thanks for GY shout out!

[@SalvageDev]

multi train boarding also happens at london marylebone :)

[@EuroDC1990]

East Midlands Parkway is a bit pointless at the minute but it has potential. Were it up to me I'd abandon plans to build a third runway at Heathrow airport and instead massively expand East Midlands Airport to be a new Central UK Hub airport and the centre of a new High Speed Rail Network for the UK rather than the complete waste of money that HS2 has become. A bit of joined up thinking.

[@mrglide7078]

HS2 wouldn't have been such a complete waste of money (although that's a bit of a dramatic conclusion), had the original plan to link up with East Mids not been canned. Which was ironically going to be part of a new highspeed network, before Richie and his coterie of tory ghouls collectively sh@t themselves.

[@Andrewjg_89]

East Midlands Parkway railway station is quite a unique station in Nottinghamshire and is close to Derbyshire and Leicestershire and also near to the M1 Motorway.

[@stupididiot6116]

………..what you should of said is “ it’s nowhere near any place “

[@robertwalters5654]

Try Worcestershire parkway Station

[@sr6424]

List of stations which opened or reopened since Beeching which never really worked. The others Teeside Airport, Stratford upon Avon Parkway, Sinfin. I checked the ORR figures EM Parkway 300,000 entries exits per year - pathetic.

[@greenockscatman]

I find it fascinating that a railway station has "international" in its name. Can't think of any other examples.

[@katrinabryce]

Ashford International Birmingham International Ebbsfleet International Harwich International London St Pancras International Prestwick International Airport Rhoose Cardiff International Airport Stratford International

[@greenockscatman]

@@katrinabryce well that's me swiftly corrected! Seems it's a UK thing then.

[@nathanw9770]

​@@katrinabryce And the funny thing is that Ebbsfleet and Ashford no longer have an International service anymore. Stratford never did to begin with.

[@geoffreylee5199]

Graphics are too fast!

[@justwobert9850]

a station that summs up all the problems with UK transport

[@jamesgilbart2672]

This station fails to meet its billing ('For East Midlands Airport' ) if there's no public transport way of getting there. 'Parkway' seems to mean have your own car parked here or walk.

[@ThrumptonVillageHall]

There is a bus service from East Midlands Parkway to the Airport, it's called Bus on Demand and runs from 7:00 a.m. until midnight. Operated by Kinch on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, cost £2.00 a journey.

[@davidcronan4072]

A half-hourly bus runs between Nottingham and East Midlands airport. This bus runs right past the road that leads to the station but does not make a call. If it did, then this station would have a direct link to and from the airport. At the moment, apart from using a taxi, there is no way to get to the airport from this station.

[@robtyman4281]

Another example of a lack of joined up thinking, and not much in the way of logic.

[@ThrumptonVillageHall]

​@@robtyman4281 1 second ago There is a bus service from East Midlands Parkway to the Airport, it's called Bus on Demand and runs from 7:00 a.m. until midnight. Operated by Kinch on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, cost £2.00 a journey.

[@michellebell5092]

I like EMR, I kept my EMR plastic cup I got from on the refreshment trolley asa souvenir on ( possibly) my last ever trip with EMR . And I hope they keep,the Radcliffe on Soar power station towers. I think they are awesome and beautiful

[@rockerjim8045]

I thought about when they demolish the power station instead of pulling down the cooling towers why don’t they convert them into flats or offices

[@chloeerose004]

My least fav national rail station! I could rant about this place all day, its do pointless, thank you for making this video and echoing everything from my rant. Youve earned a sub from me for sure!

[@lewiss626]

Ive been at Kings cross before when they have done multi train boarding with a Grand Central and a Lumo service.

[@Welshy1717]

It is kind of a pointless station..... With Nottingham clearly a few miles up track. why not invest the money used on the Parkway, on Nottingham. Having a station in the middle of nowhere, when you need a car or bus to get to it. might as well use Nottingham station.

[@harryelliott4310]

Trains Station 🚉

[@tristanveal7634]

Love it

[@MartinBrez]

Extremely pointless station. From East Mids Parkway and train to either Long Eaton 5 mins or Loughborough 10 mins and then Skylink Bus to the airport.

[@ThrumptonVillageHall]

@user-gz7qk7xf3j 1 second ago There is a bus service from East Midlands Parkway to the Airport, it's called Bus on Demand and runs from 7:00 a.m. until midnight. Operated by Kinch on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, cost £2.00 a journey.

[@buzzukfiftythree]

Parkway stations are OK, but this one is pretty pointless if it doesn't offer any decent link to the airport.

[@rockerjim8045]

it did but the shuttle bus was discontinued and now you have to use the taxis. One thing I would introduce is a combined ticket. When you book your flight you add on a token rail fare from any rail station and it also includes a bus ticket from this station to the airport and vice versa. This service will continue until a proper rail link to the airport is built

[@ThrumptonVillageHall]

@@rockerjim8045 j 1 second ago There is a bus service from East Midlands Parkway to the Airport, it's called Bus on Demand and runs from 7:00 a.m. until midnight. Operated by Kinch on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, cost £2.00 a journey.

[@eddherring4972]

Is this more pointless than the Garston/Liverpool South Parkway white elephant?

[@philwoodward5069]

The lack of a bus link to the airport is, quite simply, shit. I know it's a small airport but there's enough staff and airline passengers to justify it if you make the bus service attractive enough. Typical local authority thinking: there's not much demand so we'll only provide a crappy, "demand-responsive" service. Except it's not demand-responsive because you tell it what journey you want to make (from the station that says "change here for East Midlands Airport" to East Midlands Airport) and it effectively tells you to piss off. If the local authority can't or won't do it then the DfT should make it part of the contract with the train company that the bus link (and ideally through ticketing for a small, defined supplement on the train ticket) must be provided and that it must connect with the trains.

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

hold the camera a lttle further away so you aren't so much in our faces.