East Midlands Railway swab tests reveal no traces of virus in stations or on trains

East Midlands Railway (EMR) has found no traces of Covid-19 after it conducted 80 separate tests at touch-points across its busiest stations, trains, and staff areas.

EMR carried out the tests at its stations in Sheffield, Nottingham, London, Derby and Leicester.

The negative results were found from testing the most commonly touched areas such as ticket machines, door handles and toilet flush buttons. Regularly used staff areas such as drivers cabs and mess rooms were also tested.

After the swab test samples were taken, they were analysed in a laboratory so the company could react quickly to any positive results and conduct a thorough deep clean.

The swabbing project is part of a plan that EMR has put in place so passengers feel they can travel with confidence. Other steps taken include it employing the most cleaners in its history, sourcing disinfectant products and purchasing specialist fogging cleaning equipment.

Neil Grabham, customer services director at EMR, said: “Quite rightly passengers expect that we are doing everything possible when it comes to cleanliness. These negative results are a testament to the hard work our cleaning colleagues have been doing to keep our trains and stations safe but also reflects the dedicated efforts of our staff to follow rules and work in a Covid-secure way.

“The swabbing project is just one part of our new enhanced cleaning measures that we have put in place to make sure passengers can feel confident when they return to our network and we intend to maintain it as the country slowly moves out of lockdown.”