Following the national timetable changes which took place on Sunday, December 15, the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) have announced that the changes to their timetables include faster services and more trains.
Seen as LNER’s most enterprising timetable yet. The current timetable which is now in operation until May 2025, offers 16,000 extra seats each day.
The new train services which most of the 16,000 extra seats will be on, are being added to the route between Kings Cross and Newcastle.
These trains are running in addition to the pre-existing services between the capital and Newcastle.
Whereas before trains ran every 30 minutes between Kings Cross and Newcastle, under the new current timetable, there is now a train every 20 minutes.
Adding up these services across the week means that overall there are 37 extra LNER services per week along much of the East Coast Main Line.
Faster journey times between Edinburgh and London are also in LNER’S new timetable, the time it takes to travel between the two capitals now takes little over four hours.
This new appealing time schedule aims to capture the public interest, through business and leisure travel offering a greener alternative which will reduce climate emissions.
It can also potentially increase rail’s share of the travel market between the capital cities to 60%.
It is predicted that faster journey times between Kings Cross and Edinburgh will aid the UK economy. Independent research indicates that the December 2025 uplift will result in at least an additional £108 million per year, on top of the £3.11 billion investment and spending on LNER services already generated for the UK economy.
An estimated £60 million per year can be raised to assist the rail industry thanks to the introduction of this timetable.
This additional revenue from ticket sales will enable further enhancements on the East Coast route to support the industry’s continued growth.
Looking further ahead to the 2025 timetable changes next year, LNER plans to build on the additional services between Bradford Forster Square and London King’s Cross, which will start in May, as Bradford becomes the UK City of Culture.
The Monday – Saturday services will increase from two to seven direct trains per day from Kings Cross to Bradford. Sunday services will be doubled from one to two direct trains a day in each direction, with further additional direct services currently in the pipeline.
All the above changes to LNER’s timetable have come with collaborative work between the Department for Transport, Network Rail, and other train operators.
“This transformational timetable will guarantee thousands of extra seats each day on the East Coast route, cutting journey times and providing much needed capacity.
With this new timetable, we’ll be able to serve many destinations more regularly and contribute at least an additional £108 million per year of economic value to the UK, while supporting greener and more sustainable journeys.
We’re delighted to be kick-starting the transformation of our timetable by significantly increasing services to Bradford from May 2025, in what will be a very special year for the city and wider area.”
David Horne, Managing Director at LNER
Responses
As LNER are no longer serving Sunderland. Perhaps they could run a new service to Scarborough and Grand Central to continue on with the Sunderland service.
Hmmm, focus on providing capacity on their core route … or introduce random one-off services to seaside towns that make no sense in the context of the network that is already in place just to keep crayonistas happy?
[insert distracted boyfriend meme here]
Would really love it if LNER did direct routes from Newcastle though Birmingham Newstreet! The only direct trains are with CrossCountry and they’re rubbish. It would be great if they had a good competitor on the line!
What about the planned reduction in services from Retford to save eight minutes journey time. How does that encourage people to use rail if they have to travel to Doncaster or Sheffield to get to London or York?