The Department for Transport has announced that it has made a Direct Award to London North Eastern Railway (LNER).
The Direct Award means that LNER can continue operating trains for another three years between London King's Cross and the East Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland.
There is also an available extension period of up to 26 rail periods, equivalent to 2 years, for the direct award.
The award will allow LNER to continue with planned improvements for passengers, including new timetables and the roll-out of the Azuma train fleet.
LNER is owned and overseen by DfT OLR Holdings Ltd.
A spokesperson for LNER told RailAdvent: “We are pleased the Department for Transport has made a Direct Award to LNER to continue operating intercity rail services on the East Coast for another three years with the option to extend for a further two.
“This will allow us to continue delivering planned improvements for customers, including completing the introduction of Azuma trains and associated increase in services, destinations and journey times as well as our enhanced customer experience.”
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It is good news, we need stability on the rail system more than ever. Personal experience on LNER has been good, although I struggle to meet Mr.Chivers unbridled enthusiasm for the 800’s, within 2 years they will be ubique with all main-line operators, nationalised or not. I should have bought shares in Hitachi! A little bit of me still mourns the passing of the HST fleet.
This is Most Certaily Good News… LNER Are doing A Fine Job at Running these fascinating new and even faster Astonishing Azuma Express Trains.
I’d look forward to hopefully ride aboard one of these fascinatingly fast modern Azuma Trains someday.
Don’t Know Why Only Another 3 Years, Surely the Modern LNER could have further Potential On Keeping it up for A Further 15 to 20 Years.
LNER could even be known (in my book) as the ”British Rail of the 21st Century” Depending how well they still manage to keep it up.
This is the start of renationalisation. No private rail company will be able to make money in the future and franchises will be put back into government hands. The way forward is a properly funded state run railway. Competition is wasteful, ask any economist. Privatisation has brought billions of pounds of investment into the industry, which is good but the
franchise system won’t work going forward because there is no profit to be made.
This is just the start of renationalization of Britain’s railway network. When all the private operators fail to make any money they will hand back their franchises to the government.
When First group start running trains to Scotland next year the East Coast franchise’s profits will be dented. This has happened several times over the years. A properly funded state railway network is the answer, privatisation has brought billions of private capital investment to the railways, which is good but the franchise model won’t work in the future because there will be no money to be made. Competition on the railway is wasteful.
LNER should be very pleased. But next year they will have competition with First Group East Coast Trains and the Class 803 AT300s. As long as LNER will still provide services not just on the East Coast Main Line. But also to operate services for Yorkshire, County Durham and the rest of Northeast England as well as Scotland with the Class 800 and Class 801 Azuma AT300 sets.
That’s good news. Maybe LNER should introduce more new services such as in the Northeast including Middlesbrough, Scarborough, Whitby, Redcar, Hartlepool, Battersby & Stockton. That would make LNER more of a better rail operator that uses the East Coast Main Line. With their Class 800 and Class 801 Azuma sets and additional Class 91 Mk4 rolling stocks.