December 2025 East Coast Timetable

[Riverside Redz]

I'm 99% sure they will do London - Leeds/Harrogate and were meant to do the Middlesbrough services.

Azumas will continue to do the Scottish services.

Edited to correct destinations

Yeah I’ve seen that too or at the very least a categorical statement that they won’t work the bimodes north of Edinburgh

 

[Starmill]

I wonder how BritRail / one-country GB Eu/Interrail pass sales compare with global Interrail passes used in the UK. At £1068 for a three month first class global pass, I can't imagine National Rail getting more than ~£100 at the absolute most per pass sold, which is considerably less for the whole of GB (or more) than what is often paid just for London to Edinburgh and back.

A lot of the benefits of Interrailers / Euraillers is that it's bringing in some volume and a huge majority of the spend on them is from abroad. A lot of people are also only visiting the place they're visiting because of Interrail / Eurail allowing them to get there in the first place e.g. a Japanese family adding a London leg to a Schengen trip by Eurostar on the passholder fare. Admittedly this concept works rather better with Interrail on the continent e.g. a wealthy Polish couple may buy global passes to tour France for two weeks, or an Italian family could take a trip to several German cities on a budget using Global passes. The point is really you're getting wider economic benefits by encouraging visitors to spend on hotel stays, museums, meals out and so forth.

 

[GoingNorth]

For us poor unfortunates from Northallerton, though, we're now dependent on that flaky TPE as the first LNER service to Newcastle is at 8.49. It surely wouldn't have broken the timetable to stop 1S02 at Northallerton (as its equivalent 1S01 does now), it starts at Doncaster and there's literally sod all going north at that time.

What about Thirsk users wanting to go to Newcastle? We have almost an hour wait whilst changing trains at Northallerton. Ironically, Thirsk station was originally called Newcastle Junction

 

[D1537]

What about Thirsk users wanting to go to Newcastle? We have almost an hour wait whilst changing trains at Northallerton. Ironically, Thirsk station was originally called Newcastle Junction

That's the problem with clockface timetables where there are two services that interconnect. Thirsk to Newcastle passengers get 45 minutes to wait at Northallerton, because the Newcastle services connect into the Redcar services at Northallerton with a 15 minute wait. But of course if the Thirsk passengers connected into the Newcastle train with a 15 minute wait, then ....

 

[H F Stephens]

A lot of the benefits of Interrailers / Euraillers is that it's bringing in some volume and a huge majority of the spend on them is from abroad. A lot of people are also only visiting the place they're visiting because of Interrail / Eurail allowing them to get there in the first place e.g. a Japanese family adding a London leg to a Schengen trip by Eurostar on the passholder fare. Admittedly this concept works rather better with Interrail on the continent e.g. a wealthy Polish couple may buy global passes to tour France for two weeks, or an Italian family could take a trip to several German cities on a budget using Global passes. The point is really you're getting wider economic benefits by encouraging visitors to spend on hotel stays, museums, meals out and so forth.

Whilst that can be true, it‘s not always without consequence and, therefore, can be another somewhat specious contention.

It may be worthwhile when there’s spare capacity or, in extremis, to justify building additional infrastructure.

It can, of course, also be of benefit to economically struggling areas.

However, in this case, Edinburgh is not only not a notably deprived city, but many would contend that it’s already feeling the negative effects of over-tourism.

Actively encouraging low-yield visitors to crowd-out services through the North East of England, which then apparently encourages politicians and planners to further dilute the provision of service to those living, working and studying in the North East, whilst also presiding over significant fare increases for those domestic passengers, neither looks good nor will assuredly drive overall economic benefit.

It is, however, another example of the UK rail industry not really having much of a notion as to who its passengers are, why they travel, where they go and how much they pay, as it has absolutely no way of knowing.

Ultimately, as has so often been the case, change and development in the industry is driven by political whim and the use of direct incentives to corporate level employees, to achieve targets which may be completely at odds with rationality, practicality or long term sustainability.

 

[Starmill]

Whilst that can be true, it‘s not always without consequence and, therefore, can be another somewhat specious contention.

It may be worthwhile when there’s spare capacity or, in extremis, to justify building additional infrastructure.

It can, of course, also be of benefit to economically struggling areas.

However, in this case, Edinburgh is not only not a notably deprived city, but many would contend that it’s already feeling the negative effects of over-tourism.

Actively encouraging low-yield visitors to crowd-out services through the North East of England, which then apparently encourages politicians and planners to further dilute the provision of service to those living, working and studying in the North East, whilst also presiding over significant fare increases for those domestic passengers, neither looks good nor will assuredly drive overall economic benefit.

It is, however, another example of the UK rail industry not really having much of a notion as to who its passengers are, why they travel, where they go and how much they pay, as it has absolutely no way of knowing.

Ultimately, as has so often been the case, change and development in the industry is driven by political whim and the use of direct incentives to corporate level employees, to achieve targets which may be completely at odds with rationality, practicality or long term sustainability.

If you remember there was actually an attempt to do just this and take the UK out of Interrail. If you disagree with it, I await your proposals for how we might leave Interrail again and avoid the rather large pitfalls that it suffered last time. Otherwise you'll have to accept that yes there are people on Interrail who are far lower yielding than typical advance ticket holders are. Same as every other operator in Interrail does...

 

[NER1621]

most likely down to the Tees Valley Mayor insisting on Darlington calls.

And possibly also that a very large new office in Darlington (in addition to the existing one) for relocating civil service policy posts out of London has just been given the go-ahead?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Sep 2025 ==

I'd say get your local MP on it like people in Durham did, but, err....

He’s not my political flavour, but in fairness I regularly saw Rishi Sunak on the train from London to Northallerton or Darlington when he was a backbencher and junior minister.

 

[H F Stephens]

If you remember there was actually an attempt to do just this and take the UK out of Interrail. If you disagree with it, I await your proposals for how we might leave Interrail again and avoid the rather large pitfalls that it suffered last time. Otherwise you'll have to accept that yes there are people on Interrail who are far lower yielding than typical advance ticket holders are. Same as every other operator in Interrail does...

Is it possible to identify any mention of withdrawing from any international agreements in the post referred-to?

This thread is about the December 2025 East Coast Timetable, and other discussions centre on the current LNER fares 'trial' which many consider to be highly disadvantageous to some retail customers on the East Coast Main Line.

This thread includes a number of posts positing that the forthcoming timetable is highly disadvantageous to some retail customers on the same line.

The point being made, therefore, amongst others, is that the forthcoming timetable actively appears to prioritise certain cohorts of customer, one being passhholders, whilst others are apparently likely to be highly disadvantaged.

If those strategising don't understand or know who all those different cohorts are, nor the impacts of variously affecting them positively or negatively, then a suboptimal/worsening situation is risked/likely.

Passholders are only one cohort, and one that's barely (if at all mentioned) in these discussions, but their low direct yield to the railway remains relevant, I'd contend.

It's notable, in context, that there's plenty of defence, hereabouts, of high yield low load strategies (eg WCML Avanti Euston to Manchester, ECML LNER King's Cross to York/Newcastle) on 'peak' services, yet conversely we have a timetable development here which seems to obsess with providing capacity that can be accessed by low yield pass-holding customers, whose contribution to the farebox would horrify domestic retail customers.

 

[stevieinselby]

It is I guess very similar to the Avanti vs. WMT thing at Milton Keynes Central (much further out than Watford) or indeed GWR at Reading. Avanti/Virgin cut back at MKC a bit but there are still three an hour albeit some with peak restrictions. If MKC lost all its Avanti services to/from London there would be uproar.

There is a big difference to the service pattern between Milton Keynes and Euston and the service pattern between Stevenage and Kings Cross/St Pancras.

From MKC, West Midlands run a half-hourly stopping service taking over an hour and then two fast services that run within 10 minutes of each other, with the fast and semi-fast services along with the 3tph Avanti taking 30–40 minutes.

From Stevenage, Thameslink run a 15-minute semi-fast frequency taking up to 30 minutes (as well as Great Northern's half-hourly stopper taking 40 minutes), as against LNER's half-hourly service taking 24 minutes.

Passengers travelling from Stevenage to London have a decent alternative in Thameslink, and while yes it will add a bit of time to some passengers' journeys, it won't be a huge inconvenience. Passengers travelling from Milton Keynes to London don't have a decent alternative on West Midlands, the service is irregular and for the most part much slower, so yes I would support any MKC passengers in their uproar if Avanti withdrew the option to use their trains for that journey!

 

[takno]

Is it possible to identify any mention of withdrawing from any international agreements in the post referred-to?

This thread is about the December 2025 East Coast Timetable, and other discussions centre on the current LNER fares 'trial' which many consider to be highly disadvantageous to some retail customers on the East Coast Main Line.

This thread includes a number of posts positing that the forthcoming timetable is highly disadvantageous to some retail customers on the same line.

The point being made, therefore, amongst others, is that the forthcoming timetable actively appears to prioritise certain cohorts of customer, one being passhholders, whilst others are apparently likely to be highly disadvantaged.

If those strategising don't understand or know who all those different cohorts are, nor the impacts of variously affecting them positively or negatively, then a suboptimal/worsening situation is risked/likely.

Passholders are only one cohort, and one that's barely (if at all mentioned) in these discussions, but their low direct yield to the railway remains relevant, I'd contend.

It's notable, in context, that there's plenty of defence, hereabouts, of high yield low load strategies (eg WCML Avanti Euston to Manchester, ECML LNER King's Cross to York/Newcastle) on 'peak' services, yet conversely we have a timetable development here which seems to obsess with providing capacity that can be accessed by low yield pass-holding customers, whose contribution to the farebox would horrify domestic retail customers.

You seem to be riding an incredibly weird hobby-horse into the discussion. I can't imagine that as many as 1% of the passengers on London-Edinburgh trains across the year are travelling on international passes. Furthermore, as a company which appears to be almost unreasonably revenue-focused, I strongly doublt that LNER is doing anything to encourage or benefit these passengers.

 

[Starmill]

Is it possible to identify any mention of withdrawing from any international agreements in the post referred-to?

This thread is about the December 2025 East Coast Timetable, and other discussions centre on the current LNER fares 'trial' which many consider to be highly disadvantageous to some retail customers on the East Coast Main Line.

This thread includes a number of posts positing that the forthcoming timetable is highly disadvantageous to some retail customers on the same line.

The point being made, therefore, amongst others, is that the forthcoming timetable actively appears to prioritise certain cohorts of customer, one being passhholders, whilst others are apparently likely to be highly disadvantaged.

If those strategising don't understand or know who all those different cohorts are, nor the impacts of variously affecting them positively or negatively, then a suboptimal/worsening situation is risked/likely.

Passholders are only one cohort, and one that's barely (if at all mentioned) in these discussions, but their low direct yield to the railway remains relevant, I'd contend.

It's notable, in context, that there's plenty of defence, hereabouts, of high yield low load strategies (eg WCML Avanti Euston to Manchester, ECML LNER King's Cross to York/Newcastle) on 'peak' services, yet conversely we have a timetable development here which seems to obsess with providing capacity that can be accessed by low yield pass-holding customers, whose contribution to the farebox would horrify domestic retail customers.

The point is that passholders are such a minor part of the numbers that they haven't been a motivating factor in developing the timetable, as you hint. So yes technically they're low yield but they're something you just have to accept.

 

[Bletchleyite]

From MKC, West Midlands run a half-hourly stopping service taking over an hour and then two fast services that run within 10 minutes of each other, with the fast and semi-fast services along with the 3tph Avanti taking 30–40 minutes.

Eh?

The fast WMT service from MKC to Euston (Bletchley, Leighton Buzzard and 1tph Watford Junction) is a half hourly pattern but with the Crewe laid on top in addition. I don't know where you got the idea that it was only hourly. The Avanti/Virgin service was clustered into a 15 minute period, but I don't think that's the case any more.

You also now have the Birmingham semifast which is kind-of a WMT service operated by Avanti (see also the LNER York stopper which is sort-of analogous to the WMT Crewe) which is intended for more local journeys than the two fasts and so removing MKC stops from that wouldn't make much sense.

From Stevenage, Thameslink run a 15-minute semi-fast frequency taking up to 30 minutes (as well as Great Northern's half-hourly stopper taking 40 minutes), as against LNER's half-hourly service taking 24 minutes.

That's clearly better than MKC-EUS to be fair. With Thameslink there's also the fact that it's much more likely to go somewhere useful - Kings Cross is all very well and a nice enough station, but it isn't the City, whereas Thameslink goes there directly, which probably means that people would get a shorter overall journey time by using Thameslink than LNER.

It's perhaps more comparable to Bedford I suppose?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2025 ==

The point is that passholders are such a minor part of the numbers that they haven't been a motivating factor in developing the timetable, as you hint. So yes technically they're low yield but they're something you just have to accept.

And there are a lot of people paying good money to go to Edinburgh from London, which is clearly an underserved market because they're being priced off and the trains are still often full!

 

[stevieinselby]

This is all the more important when you have fake compulsory reservations as selling a seat from Kings X to Stevenage prevents you selling it from KX to Edinburgh. Though I think the reservations system is these days intelligent enough to allow LNER to sell only counted places for the former and keep the actual seat reservations for the latter?

This is where the move to get more and more people on advance purchase tickets comes back to bite them, especially when passengers are able to choose their seats – you end up with a very inefficient stacking system where lots of seats are unsold for part of the journey meaning that long-distance passengers can't book a ticket because there is no single seat that is available for the whole journey.

Actually, it is very, very efficient. It's purely not to your liking.

It depends how consistent it is.
If long-distance trains are filled with local passengers at all points along the route, and there is a lot of churn, lots of passengers travelling Newcastle to Durham, lots travelling Durham to Darlington, lots travelling Darlington to York and so on, then that keeps the train full, and while it might not be great for long-distance passengers, it can still be a very efficient use of rail capacity.
But that only works if it is full all along the route.
If large numbers of people book seats for Durham to Newcastle journeys but corresponding local journeys elsewhere on the route have far fewer passengers then you end up with lots of empty seats that can't be used by long-distance passengers because they've already been taken for part of the journey, and aren't being used by local passengers because there isn't the demand, so you end up carting a load of fresh air around ... and that is not efficient.

The whole lner tt is a farce. No lner trains at Dunbar or Morpeth except early morn late eve. Berwick and alnmouth drop to 2 hourly. Gaps at places like Durham .no newark Retford services just for a start . Should be torn up

Dunbar is a small town of about 10k people. Alnmouth and Alnwick combined are similar. Morpeth is only slightly bigger.
These are not places that need stops on long-distance intercity trains.
What they need are regular services to get people to Edinburgh or Newcastle – if the most efficient way to provide that is with stops on long-distance trains then fine, do that, but if the most efficient way to provide a service is with stops on a local or regional route then do that, and the small number of long-distance passengers can change at a main hub.

Dunbar will have a train every 1–2 hours to Newcastle, and all of those plus more to Edinburgh – it would be nice if they could be clockface hourly to Edinburgh, but that level of service is perfectly sufficient.
Alnmouth has at least one train an hour to Newcastle – again, it would be better to be more regular, although that would probably lead to a diminution to hourly rather than the current level of about 1.5tph, but this is more than adequate – I can only see one gap of more than an hour.
Morpeth generally has at least 1tph long-distance plus 1tph local to Newcastle.

Yes, it is important to have a sufficient level of service for smaller towns along the route, but not when that is at the expense of the much larger number of long-distance passengers.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is where the move to get more and more people on advance purchase tickets comes back to bite them, especially when passengers are able to choose their seats – you end up with a very inefficient stacking system where lots of seats are unsold for part of the journey meaning that long-distance passengers can't book a ticket because there is no single seat that is available for the whole journey

Though I believe the present reservations system is flexible enough to have it set up so only counted places are sold for shorter journeys rather than an actual seat being able to be reserved and selected? If you must have fake compulsory reservations this is an effective way to avoid semi-vexatious seat reservations, whether selected or not.

 

[bramling]

That's clearly better than MKC-EUS to be fair. With Thameslink there's also the fact that it's much more likely to go somewhere useful - Kings Cross is all very well and a nice enough station, but it isn't the City, whereas Thameslink goes there directly, which probably means that people would get a shorter overall journey time by using Thameslink than LNER.

Purely anecdotal, however Stevenage passengers like using LNER services, especially off-peak.

For as long as I can remember, if you are on a southbound GTR service which arrives around the same time as an LNER, it’s very noticeable how substantially fewer people board the GTR service. Likewise if the LNER is late or cancelled, noticeably more board at Stevenage.

It does seem to be the case that many Stevenage passengers would rather use the LNER and change at King’s Cross.

Even back in the 90s when there were restrictions, I recall many Stevenage passengers took the Intercity train in the southbound direction at least.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2025 ==

This is where the move to get more and more people on advance purchase tickets comes back to bite them, especially when passengers are able to choose their seats – you end up with a very inefficient stacking system where lots of seats are unsold for part of the journey meaning that long-distance passengers can't book a ticket because there is no single seat that is available for the whole journey.

It depends how consistent it is.
If long-distance trains are filled with local passengers at all points along the route, and there is a lot of churn, lots of passengers travelling Newcastle to Durham, lots travelling Durham to Darlington, lots travelling Darlington to York and so on, then that keeps the train full, and while it might not be great for long-distance passengers, it can still be a very efficient use of rail capacity.
But that only works if it is full all along the route.
If large numbers of people book seats for Durham to Newcastle journeys but corresponding local journeys elsewhere on the route have far fewer passengers then you end up with lots of empty seats that can't be used by long-distance passengers because they've already been taken for part of the journey, and aren't being used by local passengers because there isn't the demand, so you end up carting a load of fresh air around ... and that is not efficient.

Dunbar is a small town of about 10k people. Alnmouth and Alnwick combined are similar. Morpeth is only slightly bigger.
These are not places that need stops on long-distance intercity trains.
What they need are regular services to get people to Edinburgh or Newcastle – if the most efficient way to provide that is with stops on long-distance trains then fine, do that, but if the most efficient way to provide a service is with stops on a local or regional route then do that, and the small number of long-distance passengers can change at a main hub.

Dunbar will have a train every 1–2 hours to Newcastle, and all of those plus more to Edinburgh – it would be nice if they could be clockface hourly to Edinburgh, but that level of service is perfectly sufficient.
Alnmouth has at least one train an hour to Newcastle – again, it would be better to be more regular, although that would probably lead to a diminution to hourly rather than the current level of about 1.5tph, but this is more than adequate – I can only see one gap of more than an hour.
Morpeth generally has at least 1tph long-distance plus 1tph local to Newcastle.

Yes, it is important to have a sufficient level of service for smaller towns along the route, but not when that is at the expense of the much larger number of long-distance passengers.

I agree for the likes of Morpeth Dunbar and Alnmouth. However Durham isn’t a small town, and Berwick is essentially a railhead for the whole of Northumberland.

 

[35B]

Purely anecdotal, however Stevenage passengers like using LNER services, especially off-peak.

For as long as I can remember, if you are on a southbound GTR service which arrives around the same time as an LNER, it’s very noticeable how substantially fewer people board the GTR service. Likewise if the LNER is late or cancelled, noticeably more board at Stevenage.

It does seem to be the case that many Stevenage passengers would rather use the LNER and change at King’s Cross.

Even back in the 90s when there were restrictions, I recall many Stevenage passengers took the Intercity train in the southbound direction at least.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2025 ==



I agree for the likes of Morpeth Dunbar and Alnmouth. However Durham isn’t a small town, and Berwick is essentially a railhead for the whole of Northumberland.

Morpeth also serves a railhead function

 

[stevieinselby]

The fast WMT service from MKC to Euston (Bletchley, Leighton Buzzard and 1tph Watford Junction) is a half hourly pattern but with the Crewe laid on top in addition. I don't know where you got the idea that it was only hourly. The Avanti/Virgin service was clustered into a 15 minute period, but I don't think that's the case any more.

You're right, not sure how I missed that, I must have got my eyes crossed looking down the list.
Even so, with a roughly 15/15/30 "good" WMR service compared to 3tph AWC (biggest gap ~25 mins), it's still the case that AWC is a more important part of the MKC–EUS flow than LNER is for the SVG–KGX flow.

 

[NER1621]

Dunbar is a small town of about 10k people. Alnmouth and Alnwick combined are similar. Morpeth is only slightly bigger.
These are not places that need stops on long-distance intercity trains.
What they need are regular services to get people to Edinburgh or Newcastle – if the most efficient way to provide that is with stops on long-distance trains then fine, do that, but if the most efficient way to provide a service is with stops on a local or regional route then do that, and the small number of long-distance passengers can change at a main hub.

Fantastic - agree. I’d love to use a local train service between Darlington, Durham, Newcastle and York - the ECML journeys I do several times a week. Going to London or Edinburgh once or twice a month changing at York or Newcastle wouldn’t be a hardship if I had a seat reservation. So let’s have a new ECML timetable where LNER merges with LUMO and runs a fast Kings Cross-Peterborough-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh only service, and the local stations in between are served by connecting regional stoppers EDB-NCL, NCL-YRK and YRK-PBO. You know, like an integrated railway, not pretend franchises.

Yes, I know I’m over-simplifying. But I want something that makes train travel frequent and easier (even if a tiny bit slower and boring) rather than a timetable designed around the egos of executives who really want to run an airline.

And yes, add me to the ranks of those who don’t believe for a moment that LUMO was primarily aimed at attracting air passengers. If that was a genuine business plan then they should have been offered the chance to be the modern-day “Capitals Limited” OAO, running non-stop Kings Cross to Waverley only.

 

[Starmill]

If large numbers of people book seats for Durham to Newcastle journeys but corresponding local journeys elsewhere on the route have far fewer passengers then you end up with lots of empty seats that can't be used by long-distance passengers because they've already been taken for part of the journey, and aren't being used by local passengers because there isn't the demand, so you end up carting a load of fresh air around ... and that is not efficient.

But it is. The counterfactual is running local trains between Durham and Newcastle, incurring the costs of the additional driver and guard. There are all but none of these. Why? Because the capacity is all used up by the long-distance ones.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2025 ==

Fantastic - agree. I’d love to use a local train service between Darlington, Durham, Newcastle and York - the ECML journeys I do several times a week. Going to London or Edinburgh once or twice a month changing at York or Newcastle wouldn’t be a hardship if I had a seat reservation. So let’s have a new ECML timetable where LNER merges with LUMO and runs a fast Kings Cross-Peterborough-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh only service, and the local stations in between are served by connecting regional stoppers EDB-NCL, NCL-YRK and YRK-PBO. You know, like an integrated railway, not pretend franchises.

Yes, I know I’m over-simplifying. But I want something that makes train travel frequent and easier (even if a tiny bit slower and boring) rather than a timetable designed around the egos of executives who really want to run an airline.

And yes, add me to the ranks of those who don’t believe for a moment that LUMO was primarily aimed at attracting air passengers. If that was a genuine business plan then they should have been offered the chance to be the modern-day “Capitals Limited” OAO, running non-stop Kings Cross to Waverley only.

Indeed. A professional railway would be providing commuter style services from Durham at 2-4tph. Think of something like the NS Sprinter services. I'd be happy with that.

 

[mernrith]

Fantastic - agree. I’d love to use a local train service between Darlington, Durham, Newcastle and York - the ECML journeys I do several times a week. Going to London or Edinburgh once or twice a month changing at York or Newcastle wouldn’t be a hardship if I had a seat reservation. So let’s have a new ECML timetable where LNER merges with LUMO and runs a fast Kings Cross-Peterborough-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh only service, and the local stations in between are served by connecting regional stoppers EDB-NCL, NCL-YRK and YRK-PBO. You know, like an integrated railway, not pretend franchises.

Yes, I know I’m over-simplifying. But I want something that makes train travel frequent and easier (even if a tiny bit slower and boring) rather than a timetable designed around the egos of executives who really want to run an airline.

And yes, add me to the ranks of those who don’t believe for a moment that LUMO was primarily aimed at attracting air passengers. If that was a genuine business plan then they should have been offered the chance to be the modern-day “Capitals Limited” OAO, running non-stop Kings Cross to Waverley only.

This is a rather decent suggestion.
Honestly I would say the initiative to run KGX-EDI expresses isn't wrong, the problem is that how it comes in expense of local and regional connectivity (which isn't good now either but at least they exist).
But I'd still recommend a inter-regional service stays between expresses and locals, still providing some sort of connectivity at large passenger flows that exists between railheads and not only key stations.
Say expresses only call at YRK and NCL only, a regional express could calls extra at PBO, DON, either DAR/DHM - it's also somewhat rough but I believe worth discussing.

 

[Judith hambly]

This is a rather decent suggestion.
Honestly I would say the initiative to run KGX-EDI expresses isn't wrong, the problem is that how it comes in expense of local and regional connectivity (which isn't good now either but at least they exist).
But I'd still recommend a inter-regional service stays between expresses and locals, still providing some sort of connectivity at large passenger flows that exists between railheads and not only key stations.
Say expresses only call at YRK and NCL only, a regional express could calls extra at PBO, DON, either DAR/DHM and possibly BWK - it's also somewhat rough but I believe worth discussing.

There already is,a local service hourly service by tpe. Calling. Nc. Ch le st. Du dar. Yk. Just needs to call Thirsk.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2025 ==

What is needed going north is a properly hourly sevice calling Nc .cram. Morp. Alm. berw. rest. Dunb. East lin. Mus. Edin. The new service still has 3 hour gaps out of Newcastle in the evening.

 

[Farigiraf]

There already is,a local service hourly service by tpe. Calling. Nc. Ch le st. Du dar. Yk. Just needs to call Thirsk.

They've already cut Northallerton from that service and I don't see them adding Northallerton back let alone adding Thirsk. It's another case (like LNER) where they're trying to operate it like an 'express' service for the ECML just like how it is on the Transpennine Route, rather than the regional-express 'local-ish' service that it really is (and should be), which is what the actual users of the service see it as. As a result, journeys from the major cities are prioritised, while local connectivity is quietly ditched due to lack of capacity. Cynically I'd say you're lucky that the Redcar service exists or else Thirsk may have ended up in a situation like Pegswood/Widdrington - large enough to warrant a decent local train service but located on a line where there's no capacity for that, resulting in a measly 2 trains per day.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There already is,a local service hourly service by tpe. Calling. Nc. Ch le st. Du dar. Yk. Just needs to call Thirsk.

Classically (pre 1998) the TPE did call at Thirsk, so is that a pathing issue perhaps?

 

[mernrith]

There already is,a local service hourly service by tpe. Calling. Nc. Ch le st. Du dar. Yk. Just needs to call Thirsk.

What other members are possibly suggesting is this to be ran more frequent and not by an hourly TPE that goes onward to Manchester. Just an ECML local.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Classically (pre 1998) the TPE did call at Thirsk, so is that a pathing issue perhaps?

Potentially. It won't be directly linked to Thirsk though, as that's on the 4-track section, but perhaps if a train runs on the slows and stops at Thirsk then it won't have time to stop at Northallerton.

I don't really think Thirsk merits more than 1tph but it is regrettable that the northbound connections at Northallerton have been trashed.

 

[H F Stephens]

You seem to be riding an incredibly weird hobby-horse into the discussion. I can't imagine that as many as 1% of the passengers on London-Edinburgh trains across the year are travelling on international passes. Furthermore, as a company which appears to be almost unreasonably revenue-focused, I strongly doublt that LNER is doing anything to encourage or benefit these passengers.

It's likely only to appear 'weird' if the default expectation is that the numbers involved are as small as some may suppose.

However, the absolute reality is that a two-day First Class BritRail all-UK Flexi Pass, valid on any services network wide, including peak, currently costs cGBP213.51 at spot exchange rates.

This information is widely available to and discussed by potential international inbound travellers, not just in the English language, and compares to a domestic customer wishing to travel between London and Edinburgh return with LNER being offered the same flexibility for up to GBP654.60 when no Railcard is held or valid.

Random observation during ticket checks, especially on well-loaded services ex-Edinburgh, would suggest that inbound travellers are very aware of the opportunity that these passes present, and use them extensively.

The actual percentage of passengers using them will, likely and rightly come under 'commercially sensitive' provisions, of course, but London to Edinburgh - the primary focus of this timetable revision - would appear to be one of the most popular flows for this particular type of ticket.

Amongst the varied range of impacts and effects that the new timetable may present, then, effectively providing more capacity for low-yield custom between two discretionary travel honeypots should be taken into account, when other cohorts are subject to disbenefit.

It becomes even more relevant when the industry messaging is in part about modal shift between from air to rail, for which there's little to no evidence, but one of the impacts of pursuing that strategy is, potentially, to actually encourage modal shift from rail to road within regions negatively affected by the changes.

The point is that passholders are such a minor part of the numbers that they haven't been a motivating factor in developing the timetable, as you hint. So yes technically they're low yield but they're something you just have to accept.

Actually, that's not the hint.

The hint is that those designing the timetable may not be taking this cohort into account much or at all, because either the data on them is poor, or because no-one is incentivised to take them into account, or both.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the suggestion is not that this should be a 'major' consideration on its own, any more than students compelled to reach Newcastle College by 9am should define the timetable, but they both exist and it's relevant to consider all stakeholders.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The actual percentage of passengers using them will, likely and rightly come under 'commercially sensitive' provisions, of course, but London to Edinburgh - the primary focus of this timetable revision - would appear to be one of the most popular flows for this particular type of ticket.

I use Britrail passes on a semi-regular basis because they are very good value tickets.

However, the number of quizzical looks I get from revenue staff, even on intercity trains, suggests to me that there are not significant number of people using these tickets.

 

[GoingNorth]

Potentially. It won't be directly linked to Thirsk though, as that's on the 4-track section, but perhaps if a train runs on the slows and stops at Thirsk then it won't have time to stop at Northallerton.

I don't really think Thirsk merits more than 1tph but it is regrettable that the northbound connections at Northallerton have been trashed.

I dream of a direct train to Newcastle from Thirsk. The north platform even boasts a fingerpost saying something like 'this way for trains to Darlington and Newcastle' but no trains actually go there. Reinstate the direct connection and see what happens. It may well be popular.

 

[stevieinselby]

Though I believe the present reservations system is flexible enough to have it set up so only counted places are sold for shorter journeys rather than an actual seat being able to be reserved and selected? If you must have fake compulsory reservations this is an effective way to avoid semi-vexatious seat reservations, whether selected or not.

Certainly Northern have an advance quota on some of their services without having seat reservations at all – I don't know how feasible it would be to have a system that had actual seat reservations for passengers travelling to Peterborough and beyond and a quota of tickets with no seat reservation available for passengers travelling only between Stevenage and London, and for those two to interact. But if passengers don't actually get a seat reservation for KGX–SVG, I'm not sure how reliable any indicative numbers would be when they could travel on a different train from what was booked.

Classically (pre 1998) the TPE did call at Thirsk, so is that a pathing issue perhaps?

In the 1995 timetable, Thirsk generally only got an hourly call on the Middlesbrough service plus the odd peak-time call on a Newcastle service. The issue seems to be that a town the size of Thirsk only merits 1tph and so doesn't need more calls, but it doesn't necessarily have the most useful 1tph calling.

That said, last year 5% of passenger journeys were to/from Thornaby and Middlesbrough, compared to less than 2% for Darlington, Durham and Newcastle – it would be interesting to know how much that is travel patterns shaped by the provision of direct services or whether there genuinely is more demand for travel to Cleveland than to points further up the mainline.

 

[GoingNorth]

Certainly Northern have an advance quota on some of their services without having seat reservations at all – I don't know how feasible it would be to have a system that had actual seat reservations for passengers travelling to Peterborough and beyond and a quota of tickets with no seat reservation available for passengers travelling only between Stevenage and London, and for those two to interact. But if passengers don't actually get a seat reservation for KGX–SVG, I'm not sure how reliable any indicative numbers would be when they could travel on a different train from what was booked.

In the 1995 timetable, Thirsk generally only got an hourly call on the Middlesbrough service plus the odd peak-time call on a Newcastle service. The issue seems to be that a town the size of Thirsk only merits 1tph and so doesn't need more calls, but it doesn't necessarily have the most useful 1tph calling.

That said, last year 5% of passenger journeys were to/from Thornaby and Middlesbrough, compared to less than 2% for Darlington, Durham and Newcastle – it would be interesting to know how much that is travel patterns shaped by the provision of direct services or whether there genuinely is more demand for travel to Cleveland than to points further up the mainline.

A lot of people in the area support Boro! The population of Thirsk has doubled in past 10 years, so maybe time to get Newcastle trains back. Another problem for Thirsk is that the ticket prices are criminal. Perhaps amongst the most expensive in UK mile for mile.