London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is welcoming increasing numbers of passengers back to rail travel, according to the latest figures from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).
The publicly run operator has seen a greater increase in passenger number than other franchised operators over the last two years, and the newly-released data follows similarly encouraging figures for the previous quarter.
The newly-published data show that over the period January-March 2023, LNER recorded six million passenger journeys, which represents increases of:
- 11 per cent on the same period in 2019
- 22 per cent on the same period in 2022.
LNER's own data shows that:
- Fridays and Sundays are still the most popular days for people to travel as demand for leisure journeys continues to thrive
- more than 23 million passenger journeys were made on its services in the year to May 2023
- journeys between London and Peterborough, Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh are the most popular on the LNER route.
LNER runs more than one hundred and sixty daily services along its East Coast route. In response to changing travel trends shown by the data, LNER is considering increasing capacity on Sundays by adding services on its London King's Cross and Leeds route.
The wider rail industry is running trials of carrying out engineering work during the week to minimise disruption during the popular weekend period.
LNER continued to operate services throughout the Covid pandemic. Since the pandemic, it has become the most popular way to travel between Edinburgh and London.
Its fully-electric Azuma fleet carries more passengers between the two cities than air, as more people choose to travel in an environmentally-friendly way. Azuma trains can operate in bi-mode power, which means that services can often keep running when engineering works take place on electrified routes.
The operator also boasts that it leads the industry in allowing passengers to book their journeys many months in advance. Tickets are now available for many journeys up to and including 8 December 2023.
LNER is extending its provision of fares based on single rather than return journeys from this Sunday, 11 June 2023, after a trial of these options proved successful. It has also launched Deal Finder on its app, where passengers can look for ideas for travel and cheaper fares.
David Horne, Managing Director at LNER, said: “We are delighted that for two years running LNER has topped the table for franchised operators seeing record numbers of customers return to our services. We've seen a huge demand in leisure travel, with business travel continuing to grow. In the 2022-23 financial year, we carried one million more passengers than we than we did in 2018-19.
“We are continuously working to improve our customer experience, from our world-class Azuma trains and award-winning app, to extending our booking horizon, simplifying tickets and investing in our stations. We are also working with our wider industry partners to deliver transformational upgrades to the railway network to enable even smoother, greener and more comfortable journeys, as we encourage even more people to travel by rail.”
That’s great news. Maybe LNER should introduce new services from London King’s Cross to Scarborough, Cleethorpes, Hartlepool and Whitby as they have introduced new services to Lincoln and Harrogate.
In addition to LNER taking action with on train capacity and extra service, Network Rail also need to up their game on the ECML. The Huntingdon to Peterborough section should be increase from 2 to 4 tracks throughout. Rebuilding should also be undertaken at Grantham, and Newark Northgate to provide through/fast lines away from the platforms, and the Stoke Junction to Doncaster section quadrupled throughout. Arksey loop should be rebuilt with twin loops for 775m freight train. A further loop should be installed between Temple Hirst and Colton Junctions. Temple Hirst Junction should be grade separated with a diverging speed of 100mph. York Station should have a new platform added on the west side, and the north throat increased from 2 to 4 track. Skelton Bridge Junction should then be grade separated. Northallerton Station should then be rebuilt from 2 track to 4 to get stopping trains out of the way of fast trains. Northallerton High Junction should then be grade separated.
Then LNER really need to up their game in terms of capacity. I noticed only recently that even their midday trains have been running full and standing during the week. I travelled from York to Darlington 3 weeks ago at around 2pm and nearly missed my stop because I couldn’t get past the 40+ standing passengers, and a mountain of luggage in Coach B. Because I am disabled, a kind stranger ordered everyone out of the way and cleared me a path through the luggage. Very kind of him, but should not have been necessary. LNER need to increase their 9 car Azumas to 10 car and replace the windowless seats at carriage ends with more luggage racks. Then, they need to lengthen all of their 5 Car Class 801 Azumas to 10 car length too. The Class 91/MK4 sets need to be replaced with 10 Car Class 801’s, and additional 5 Car Class 800 trains to avoid short forming, and to allow more destinations such as Huddersfield, Cleethorpes, Middlesborough, and Scarborough to be serves by direct train.
Engineering works on weekday nights is nothing new we at Jarvis were doing it on the West Coast 23 years ago!!