The first Monday in January saw most of the UK returning to work or school following the break for Christmas and New Year. For me, having been lucky enough to get an extra day off, the day saw me at Derby station in the early afternoon ready to head home, via London with East Midlands Railway (EMR). This journey came four months after my last journeys with EMR (a three leg round trip from London via Derby and Corby) and I was interested to see what changes had been made in the months since the franchise changed hands.

Having arrived in Corby on the afternoon train from Derby (read about that here), I had about a 50-minute wait until my booked train to London left at 1837. Unfortunately, Corby station has rather limited facilities and there is no first class lounge available. The station does have both a ticket office and coffee shop located within the ticket hall/waiting room area, however both were closed during my visit and the lone vending machine on the platform was ‘in operation’ but empty.

After my underwhelming trip from London to the Midlands with East Midlands Railway, I was looking forward to giving them another two attempts the following day. Therefore in the early afternoon of Tuesday 20th August I headed back to Derby station to take one of the rare trains that arrives into Corby from the north, 1P99, the 1627 Derby – Kettering service. After a planned arrival into Corby at 1747, I’d then have just under an hours wait until I took the 1837 Corby shuttle back down to London St. Pancras which will be covered in a later blog.

Monday 19th August 2019 brought a clear and chilly morning as well as the first weekday trains operated by the new East Midlands Railway (EMR). EMR had begun operation just a day earlier, beginning it’s period as the operator of the East Midlands franchise having taken over from it’s predecessor East Midlands Trains. Although many branding changes had already taken place, there was very little change this early in the franchise and so the 0831 departure from St. Pancras to Sheffield was still the sole train each day that offered a full breakfast service from London.

In October I headed to Birmingham for an event and decided to sample what would be a new product for me, Chiltern Railway’s Business Zone. I’ve traveled up the Chiltern Mainline to Birmingham multiple times, enticed by the extremely cheap advance fares available, however I’ve never been lucky enough to time my trip to coincide with one of the handful of trains each day that have the Business Zone available.