In 1996 the group acquired its first UK rail franchises, Gatwick Express and Midland Mainline.

* Midland Mainline absorbed into East Midlands Trains franchise

Midland Mainline ran fast and semi-fast passenger services from London to the East Midlands and Yorkshire, on the Midland Main Line.

InterCity Midland Mainline were probably the forgotten operator in the 1990s.

All this changed in 1999 when Midland Mainline introduced a new timetable and new trains.

* All Midland Mainline services ( except The Master Cutler morning up service ) called at Leicester with the fastest journey time to and from London of 1 hour 9 minutes.

Midland Mainline rail bus link ran between Corby town centre and Kettering railway station

Midland Mainline operated a limited service between St Pancras and Leeds, with three early morning departures from Leeds and four evening return trips from St Pancras.

Midland Mainline had plans for a regular service between St Pancras and Leeds via Nottingham, the Erewash Valley Line, Sheffield and Barnsley but these were rejected by the Strategic Rail Authority.

Midland Mainline operated weekend services between St Pancras and York via Doncaster.

From May 2003 until September 2004 Midland Mainline operated an hourly service between St Pancras and Manchester Piccadilly at the request of the Strategic Rail Authority whilst the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Manchester underwent engineering work using former Virgin CrossCountry High Speed Trains.

Former Virgin Cross-Country High Speed Trains were used and after overhaul were repainted into Midland Mainline livery.

Categorised as a long distance operator Midland Mainline compared favourably to other operators in its category.

The last performance figures for Midland Mainline published by the Office of Rail Regulation were a Public Performance Measure of 92. 9 % for the third quarter of the financial year 2007 / 8 and a Monthly Annual Average of 92. 4 %.

Midland Mainline was also awarded Passenger Operator of the Year 2006.

Midland Mainline trains boasted a buffet car, known as the MM's Bar, which served hot and cold food and drinks.

Midland Mainline was the only operator to offer complimentary free tea and coffee to all passengers, including those in standard class.

Midland Mainline inherited a fleet of High Speed Trains from British Rail.

In October 1997 Midland Mainline ordered seventeen Class 170 Turbostar trains to operate stopping services.

In February 2002 Midland Mainline ordered sixteen four-carriage and seven nine-carriage Class 222 Meridian trains based on the Virgin Cross Country Class 220 Voyager, but with developments to improve passenger comfort and address some of the criticisms aimed at the Voyager.

To cover for a shortage of High Speed Trains Midland Mainline hired two Fragonset Class 47s to top and tail a HSBC Rail Mark 2 set on a morning service from Nottingham to St Pancras and evening return to Sheffield from February until October 2002.

In 2007, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association in the United States, whose members include Hershey, Nestlé, and Archer Daniels Midland, lobbied the Food and Drug Administration to change the legal definition of chocolate to let them substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter in addition to using artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes.

The London Midland & Scottish Railway Company continued to exist as a legal entity for nearly two years after Nationalisation, being formally wound up on 23 December 1949.

Although construction and interior finishes works were largely complete by the December of 2010, legal disputes between London Midland, Network Rail and Centro caused delay to the opening of the entrance by over a year.

It is all very well for the Midland Railway Company now to plead that they are busily employed in fitting up their passenger trains with continuous breaks, but the necessity for providing the passenger trains with a larger proportion of break power was pointed out by the Board of Trade to all Railway Companies more than 20 years since ; and with the exception of a very few railway companies that recognised that necessity and acted upon it, it may be truly stated that the principal Railway Companies throughout the Kingdom have resisted the efforts of the Board of Trade to cause them to do what was right, which the latter had no legal power to enforce, and even now it will be seen by the latest returns laid before Parliament that some of those Companies are still doing nothing to supply this now generally acknowledged necessity

At this point legal action was taken against a common purse agreement which existed between the LNWR and the Midland.

The play's themes of popular discontent with government have been connected by scholars with the Midland Revolt, a series of peasant riots in 1607 that would have affected Shakespeare as an owner of land in Stratford-upon-Avon ; and the debates over the charter for the City of London, which Shakespeare would have been aware of, as it affected the legal status of the area surrounding the Blackfriars Theatre.

Legally these companies still exist, with buses in Warwickshire and Banbury still carrying legal lettering for Midland Red ( South ) Ltd, whilst buses in Oxford ( including the Oxford Tube ) and Witney are legally lettered for Thames Transit Ltd.

Shortly afterward, the company changed its legal name to Midland Bluebird Ltd. Operations in Oban were sold to Oban and District.

Strathtay Scottish was formed in 1985 as a subsidiary of the Scottish Transport Group, from parts of Walter Alexander & Sons ( Midland ) Ltd and Walter Alexander & Sons ( Northern ) Ltd. Stagecoach have retained the right to the operating name Strathtay Scottish ; this is reflected in the legal lettering on the company's vehicles.

The bank continued to operate under the Marine Midland name until 1998, when the branch offices were rebranded as HSBC and the legal name changed to HSBC Bank USA N. A ..

Place name scholars have found a number of place names through the Midland dialect regions of Britain that incorporate the ambre-element: examples include Ombersley in Worcestershire, Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, Amberley in Herefordshire, Amberley in Gloucestershire and Amberley in West Sussex.

In the Midland Revolt of 1607, the name was used to refer to those who ' levelled ' hedges in enclosure riots.

* Midland, California, former name of Midoil, California

* Midland, Texas, the most populous and largest US city with this name.

* Midland Red, the fleet and trading name used by the Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company ( BMMO )

The town was platted in 1820 and was originally called Osceola ; however, there was already a town of that name in the state, and so the name of Advance was chosen " in anticipation of the advancement which the coming of the Midland Railway would bring to the community ".

Some say that Midland derived its name from its location, some say it was named after the Midlands in Scotland by the Scottish settlers.

Oakland was home to the Swedish Basketball Classic from 1993-2006, which has since moved to Midland University in Fremont, NE and changed its name to the Warrior Classic.

The main impetus behind the change in name was to avoid confusion with the nearby community of Midland Park.

It was founded in 1894 by Anthony Wechtenhiser and received its name from its central location along the projected Midland Railroad.

Midland was originally established in June 1881 as Midway Station, on the Texas and Pacific Railway ; it earned its name because of its central location between Fort Worth and El Paso.

" But because there were already other towns in Texas by the name of Midway, the city changed its name to Midland in January 1884 when it was granted its first Post Office.

The name turnip is also used in parts of Northern and Midland England, Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

On 1 July 1903, the Midland Railway took over the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway and operated it under the name of Midland Railway ( Northern Counties Committee ).

The SMJR came into being from the amalgamation of ' The East & West Junction Railway ' ( E + WJR ), ' The Evesham, Redditch and Stratford Railway ' ( ER + SR ), and changing its name to ‘ The Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester and Midland Junction Railway ’ ( ST + MJR ), ‘ The Easton Neston Mineral and Towcester, Roade and Olney Junction Railway ’ ( ENM + TROJR ).

Since then the ' Midland Road ' was dropped from the station name.

That year, Searle split Midland Light Car Bodies from Rover in an effort to save money < Ref name = NMM /> and instructed Robert Boyle and Maurice Wilks to design a new small car.

It is owned and promoted by Centro, and operated by West Midlands Travel Limited, a subsidiary of the National Express Group ( NEG ), under the brand name Travel Midland Metro ( TMM ).