In the early hours of this morning (Friday 28 March), London North Eastern Railway (LNER) ran an Azuma train on a test run from Leeds to London St Pancras and back.
The publicly-owned operator is examining options for diverting trains when Network Rail carries out disruptive engineering work on parts of the East Coast Main Line (ECML).
LNER hopes to be able to establish routes that it can use to get passengers to London terminal stations.
The test run involved a bi-mode LNER Azuma train with nine cars. The train (unit no. 800108) departed from Leeds in West Yorkshire. It took the East Coast Main Line to Doncaster in South Yorkshire, where it left the line before joining the Midland Main Line at Chesterfield in Derbyshire.
The journey continued to London, terminating at St Pancras station.
While at London St Pancras, LNER workers carried out safety and validation checks. The train then travelled back to Leeds.
LNER has to carry out more work before it can operate Azuma trains into London St Pancras with passengers on board.
However, the operator sees last night’s successful test run as “an exciting step” towards it being able to make arrangements that will give its passengers options for travelling during engineering work.
LNER introduced its Azuma trains in 2019. In their first five years, the trains travelled a total of 58 million miles, the equivalent of two thousand journeys around the globe.
The operator has also been developing new technology to predict delays to its trains in order to help reduce them and improve the assistance that it offers to passengers.
“While planned engineering work is vital in delivering infrastructure upgrades and keeping the rail network safe, it can be disruptive to customer journeys. With this test, LNER is looking at how it can keep its customers on the move and minimise disruption to journeys when engineering work is being carried out.
“There is still work to be done, but this is an encouraging development for future service options.”
Mark Smith, Development Engineer at LNER
Responses
Highlights long term issues with nothing being done to replace HS2 with electrifying the EM line all way to Leeds. It’s the least they could do!!
A very good idea to plan to provide an alternative London terminal for when the ECML has blockades for ERTMS installation. The difficulties are lack of capacity south if Bedford and the severe constraint at St. Pancras of just four platforms for the Midland Main Line, since Eurostar took over the trainshed. Any intrusion by LNER would bound to affect EMR services.