East Midlands Railway

East Midlands Railway (EMR; legally Transport UK East Midlands Limited) is a British train operating company owned by Transport UK Group, and is the current operator of the East Midlands franchise.

Originally owned by Abellio, EMR took over operations from East Midlands Trains (EMT) on 18 August 2019, on an agreement to run the franchise for eight years. As part of the franchise commitments, EMR placed an order for 33 new bi-mode Class 810 Aurora high speed train sets, and sourced over 40 pre-existing Class 170 Turbostar diesel multiple units from other operators.

During early 2020, passenger numbers and ticket revenues collapsed following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the original franchise agreement being initially suspended before being replaced entirely. Under the new National Rail Contract signed in 2022, the franchise is to last until October 2030. In February 2023, Transport UK Group concluded a management buyout of Abellio's United Kingdom business, which included EMR.

In March 2017, the Department for Transport announced that Arriva, a joint venture between FirstGroup and Trenitalia, and incumbent Stagecoach had been shortlisted to bid for the next East Midlands franchise. Abellio was also shortlisted for the franchise during February 2018.

In April 2018, FirstGroup and Trenitalia pulled out of the bidding process, their stated reason for doing so being to focus on the West Coast Partnership franchise. During April 2019, it was announced that the franchise has been awarded to Abellio, with East Midlands Railway (EMR) to take over the franchise from East Midlands Trains (EMT) on 18 August 2019 for a period of eight years; rival bidder Stagecoach had been disqualified from the process because its submission failed to meet employee pension obligations.

In June 2019, Abellio revealed its branding and colour scheme for EMR, which featured distinct purple and white colours that reflected the heritage of the East Midlands. The company also confirmed that it would divide the franchise's services into three segments:

EMR Electrics was later rebranded as EMR Connect following an announcement in April 2021.

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and a resulting collapse in both passenger numbers and ticket revenues in March 2020, the franchise agreement was suspended and replaced by an Emergency Measure Agreement for six months under which the Department for Transport assumed responsibility for all revenues and costs and EMR was instead paid a management fee. This arrangement was superseded by an Emergency Recovery Measures Agreement (ERMA) under which the original franchise agreement was terminated. At the time, it was announced that the EMR franchise would operate until March 2022.