East Midlands Trains has announced plans to run more seats and extra services for 2012 Games spectators travelling to London over the next two weekends. The train operator will be providing an additional 1,000 seats over and above its normal weekend service on each day on Saturday 4 and 11 August and Sunday 5 and 12 August, to meet the extra demand for people travelling to the Games.  These extra train services also offer maximum flexibility as customers with pre-booked Games train tickets will be able to travel on one of these alternative train services on the same day.

David Horne, Managing Director for East Midlands Trains, said: “This is a very exciting time for the country and we are committed to doing everything we can to make sure people can enjoy all the excitement of the Games.

“We already had plans in place to deliver over 60,000 additional seats throughout the Games by providing longer and later trains for passengers returning home from London.  However, we’ve now gone one step further and are pleased to announce we will be providing even more seats for passengers travelling over the coming weekends.”

To get passengers into the spirit of the Games, East Midlands Trains has been handing out free ice-creams at St Pancras, and keeping passengers informed with a regular flow of information through social media channels.

Mr Horne continued:  “We’ve had some fantastic feedback about the ice-creams we’ve been handing out every day at St Pancras.  We’ve already given out 50,000 and we’ve got plenty more to keep people going through the Games.

“All of our head office staff are out and about providing extra assistance to passengers as they travel to the Games.  On top of our normal customer communication, we’re also sending out a steady flow of messages around the clock through social media channels to keep passengers on the move informed about the latest travel information and some of the GB team’s great successes so far.”

Following news that the planned ASLEF drivers strikes have been called off, East Midlands Trains will be running its full service throughout the rest of the Games.

Details of the additional services to run on Saturday 4, Saturday 11, Sunday 5 and Sunday 12 August are detailed below:

Saturday 4 and 11 August

The following services will operate with more carriages to help provide additional capacity:

0708     Lincoln to London
0702     Derby to London
0818     Derby to London
0925     London to Sheffield
1025     London to Sheffield
1030     London to Nottingham

Extra train services will run as follows:

Sunday 5 and 12 August

0714     Derby to London
0745     Derby to London
1345     London to Derby

East Midlands Trains will continue to run its five late night services throughout the Games and details can be found at www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk.