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 ( legal name Midland Main Line Limited, company no 3007934 ) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by National Express that operated the Midland Main Line franchise from April 1996 until November 2007.

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 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.

The first British railway to build coaches with bogies, instead of rigidly mounted axles, was the Midland Railway in 1874.

An example of this is the British narrowboat, which is up to long and wide and was primarily built for British Midland canals.

His Scottish father was manager of the Midland Bank's Wembley branch.

His father, in 1829, was appointed a magistrate for the Midland District.

When he was aged 10, his family scraped together the money to send him to Midland District Grammar School in Kingston.

Laura Lane Welch was born in Midland, Texas, the only child of Harold Welch ( 1912 – 1995 ) and Jenna Louise Hawkins Welch ( born 1919 ).

According to the accident report released by the city of Midland in 2000, in response to an open-records request, she was not charged in the incident.

Mark Edward Whitacre ( born May 1, 1957 ) came to public attention in 1995 when, as president of the BioProducts Division at Archer Daniels Midland ( ADM ), he was the highest-level corporate executive in U. S. history to become a Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) whistleblower.

Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, the seventh of eight children of Marvin Olof Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad, and his wife Selma Amelia ( Anderson ) Egstrom.

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

However, author Brian Keogh concluded in his privately published history of the Lea & Perrins firm on the 100th anniversary of the Midland Road plant, that " No Lord Sandys was ever governor of Bengal, or as far as any records show, ever in India.

Chancery Standard was largely based on the London and East Midland dialects, for those areas were the political and demographic centres of gravity.

* Also during 1965 through 1968, Dr. Albert M. Kligman was contracted by the Dow Chemical Company to perform threshold tests for TCDD on inmates at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia after Dow studies revealed adverse effects on workers at Dow's Midland, Michigan plant were likely due to TCDD.

Rolls was introduced to Henry Royce by a friend at the Automobile Club, Henry Edmunds, who was also a director of Royce Ltd. Edmunds showed him Royce's car and arranged the historic meeting between Rolls and Royce at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, on 4 May 1904.

This cavalry force was composed of the few Midland English Royalists who had rallied to Charles II, and largely consisted of Lord Talbot's troop of horse.

Much of the film version was shot at Carnforth railway station in Lancashire, then a junction on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.

The club was formed in 1901 when struggling Football League Club Burton Swifts amalgamated with Midland League ( and ex-Football League ) club Burton Wanderers.

The Art Deco Midland Hotel was built in 1932-33 by the London Midland & Scottish Railway to the design of Oliver Hill and included works by Gill, Marion Dorn and Eric Ravilious.

The third railway at Temple Meads was the Bristol and Gloucester Railway which opened on 8 July 1844 but was taken over by the Midland Railway ( MR ) on 1 July 1845.

The following year saw local services on the Midland Railway route to Gloucester withdrawn and the former Midland route to via was closed on 7 March 1966. and on the line towards Bath survived until 5 January 1970.

Clayton Wheat Williams, Jr., the 1990 Republican gubernatorial nominee, was reared in Fort Stockton but resides in Midland.