As Bradford celebrates being the City of Culture for 2025, London North Eastern Railway (LNER) has announced that from the summer timetable change in May, extra services will run from the capital to the Yorkshire city.

The timetable change will enable greater flexibility for travellers intending to travel during the longer days of the summer months, offering them the chance to travel to Bradford and experience the events and festivities in the space of a day.

Beginning on May 19th, LNER will increase its direct services from two daily trains to seven between Monday and Saturday.

At present, only two daily direct services run to London at 06:30 and 08:43.

As of mid-May, the extra trains will leave Bradford Forster Square every two hours at 11:17, 13:17, 15:16, 17:16 and 19:15, with a travel time of 2 hours and 45 minutes to reach London Kings Cross.

At the time of writing, the corresponding direct down trains from London Kings Cross to Bradford Forster Square are yet to be finalised, though the first direct train of the day to leave London Kings Cross will be at 07:03 with others following a similar pattern throughout the day.

A single additional direct service will also run on Sundays, though this is yet to be finalised in the timetable planning before ticket sales go live for these additional trains in February.

This news follows the news about increasing the number of trains and seats between London and Newcastle, which began during the December 2024 timetable changes

“We are proud to be introducing additional services to and from Bradford, especially during the year it celebrates UK City of Culture status. We are delighted to be the official travel partner of Bradford 2025.

“The extra LNER services will make it even easier for people to visit the region and enjoy all it has to offer, while also benefiting the area by contributing an estimated £4 million per year of economic value.”

David Horne, Managing Director at LNER