East Midlands Railway has been generating some very negative headlines over the last few months.

New Hitachi rolling stock aside, the EMR trains that call at Chinley have had serious problems of overcrowding - particularly at rush hour- but the problem has been going on for years. One of our members writes:

My experiences of the EMR trains that call at Chinley from July 2026 - and July 2017 !

July 2017

Due to the arrival time of our flight into Manchester, we needed to take the last EMR connection back to Chinley on the Liverpool to Nottingham/Norwich service. As a result of ‘an incident,’ only one carriage of the two-car set was usable. Many passengers were travellers with suitcases; other people were returning from a night out in Manchester - everyone crammed into one ridiculously overcrowded carriage, the central aisle and door areas packed with standing passengers.

July 2026

Work commitments meant I had to travel back home to Chinley on an EMR Liverpool to Norwich service from Manchester Piccadilly. At 16.45 my EMR train was already running late, and when it turned up, it had just two carriages. Platform 13 was already desperately overcrowded - the platform of course also serves Manchester's major airport, and the train due to arrive after Norwich service was a connection to the airport.

Rail staff struggled to remain calm whilst having to direct highly disgruntled boarding passengers - many with heavy bags - to move ever further down the narrow aisle, a small space already crammed with standing passengers. Some travellers were not allowed to board for safety reasons.

On board, my neighbour seemed a little confused, and when I asked if I could be of assistance, it turned out that he was a Canadian tourist, who in the confusion had boarded the wrong train. He should have been heading for the airport in order to catch a connecting flight back to Toronto....

Problems, problems, problems... 

In July the Guardian carried an article on the new Hitachi fleet here...

Also in July Rail magazine carried a couple of articles, both with regard to the departing CEO (here) and on operational problems (here)