East Midlands Railway will switch to bi-mode Aurora fleet to cut emissions and noise but elsewhere electrification is delayed
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ailway fossil fuels once helped to turn King’s Cross and St Pancras into a seamy, smoke-choked area of London. Now, in the two grandly redeveloped stations with their swanky plazas, even a dropped paper ticket would look out of place.
One last corner of St Pancras station is polluted by the fug of diesel trains – but not for much longer. East Midlands Railway, which runs services to cities including Derby and Sheffield, will fire up its diesel units in London for the final time by the end of 2026.
It is a milestone moment for St Pancras – albeit one that has arrived later and with more difficulty than many had hoped. EMR’s fleet of cleaner Aurora trains, built by Hitachi, has arrived years behind schedule – and parallel engineering works to fully electrify the track they will run on, the Midland main line, have been scaled back.
