December 2025 East Coast Timetable

[Starmill]

There are four diagrams in the new timetable on Mon-Sat, the same as there is now. I haven't checked the Sunday ones (there are currently five of those).

Surely it'd be a 'heroic' suggestion that they could offer more diagrams than at present.

 

[D1537]

So the 1640 Leeds-Kings X and 1708 Kings X-Leeds are both 5-car services? That is insane!

The 1708 is a little bonkers, yes. The 1640 Leeds-King's Cross, if still loads the same as the Summer 2024 data, is just about OK. The 1040 Leeds-King's Cross, though, not so much.

 

[weeklycommuter]

There are four diagrams in the new timetable on Mon-Sat, the same as there is now. I haven't checked the Sunday ones (there are currently five of those).

LNER will eventually have 10 ten-car Class 897 electric-battery-diesel tri-mode trains to replace the IC225s. Until these are in service it looks like they will be stuck with the 6 five-car trains on the Leeds and Newcastle services unless they can create more IC225 diagrams.

 

[Kite159]

Forming the 0940 and 0947 departure from the same platform at Kings Cross could be interesting. How long does it take to announce a second departure after the first one departs?

Similar to St Pancras when a 10 coach unit comes in from the north and splits within the platform with the front unit forming a Sheffield train and rear unit a Nottingham train 3 minutes after the Sheffield departs.

 

[55002]

There are four diagrams in the new timetable on Mon-Sat, the same as there is now. I haven't checked the Sunday ones (there are currently five of those).

4 every day with one spare at NL

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Similar to St Pancras when a 10 coach unit comes in from the north and splits within the platform with the front unit forming a Sheffield train and rear unit a Nottingham train 3 minutes after the Sheffield departs.

Presumably they load passengers in the platform simultaneously. Will something similar be done at Kings Cross?

 

[43055]

Presumably they load passengers in the platform simultaneously. Will something similar be done at Kings Cross?

Yes the platforms at St Pancras can get announced at the same time.

 

[Bikeman78]

The biggest flaw of this timetable is the loss of capacity on Leeds trains. Shortening the 225s to save what is effectively an unnoticeable difference in journey time is totally unacceptable imo.

History repeating itself. Connex took trailers out of CEPs so they could match the accelerated class 365 schedules and get to Ramsgate two minutes faster. In the real world, plenty of 4CEPs still turned out on 365 diagrams and kept time.

 

[geoffk]

If you've got a bike with you, you could cycle to the pub in Ellingham, probably take you 5 mins or so. If you haven't ... er, yeah.

The important thing at Chathill is to make sure you're on the right side of the level crossing in good time to catch your train.

 

[Megafuss]

How likely is it that the change to leaving Newcastle at 17:14 rather than ~18:00 will reduce demand for Chathill et al. even further? If finishing work in the city centre at five, that's not going to be enough time to comfortably get it (as well as having a 25 minute turnaround from the preceding Morpeth service, so hoping its departure is delayed probably wouldn't help).

It will be interesting to know if Northumberland County Council are going to make a timetable change to the 918 bus which they specifically procured to meet the train at its current arrival/departure

 

[30907]

How likely is it that the change to leaving Newcastle at 17:14 rather than ~18:00 will reduce demand for Chathill et al. even further? If finishing work in the city centre at five, that's not going to be enough time to comfortably get it (as well as having a 25 minute turnaround from the preceding Morpeth service, so hoping its departure is delayed probably wouldn't help).

The departure time in 1982 was 1718, so there's precedent.
And if feedback says it's a mistake, it could always go an hour later.

 

[reb0118]

Does anyone have a link to the proposed ScotRail December timetable for the northern part of the ECM? Im trying to see how their North Berwick & Dunbar services interplay with the other TOCs services.

 

[ainsworth74]

Does anyone have a link to the proposed ScotRail December timetable for the northern part of the ECM? Im trying to see how their North Berwick & Dunbar services interplay with the other TOCs services.

Yep! It's on the timetable page of the mainsite:

East Coast Main Line December 2025 Timetable

East Coast Main Line December 2025 Timetable

ecmltimetable.info

Second option down below the Long Distance timetable.

 

[Porty]

Does anyone have a link to the proposed ScotRail December timetable for the northern part of the ECM? Im trying to see how their North Berwick & Dunbar services interplay with the other TOCs services.

Does anyone know if the timetabled twice hourly service on daytime North Berwick services is actually starting in December. I'm sure I read somewhere that's it's dependent on ScotRail resources. Also nice to see an extra stop at Longniddry on the Dunbar service leaving Waverley at 2210ish. Fills an awkward gap for me before the last train.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Oct 2025 ==

Yep! It's on the timetable page of the mainsite:

East Coast Main Line December 2025 Timetable

East Coast Main Line December 2025 Timetable

ecmltimetable.info

Second option down below the Long Distance timetable.

A very handy link to the full set of 25 timetables on services which link to the ECML.

 

[hexagon789]

Does anyone know if the timetabled twice hourly service on daytime North Berwick services is actually starting in December. I'm sure I read somewhere that's it's dependent on ScotRail resources. Also nice to see an extra stop at Longniddry on the Dunbar service leaving Waverley at 2210ish. Fills an awkward gap for me before the last train.

It's Saturdays only if it runs.

Extra XX:10-ish from Edinburgh / XX:51-ish from North Berwick.

These are all showing as 'runs as required' on RTT, so possibly they aren't appearing immediately the new timetable comes into effect, but will be introduced at some stage or introduced incrementally as and when they can be resourced.

 

[geoffk]

Yes, I'm not entirely sure how anyone is supposed to do Newark/Retford during the daytime (there's one northbound service at 0712 and that's your lot, whilst there's an excellent 3 southbound services before 0811 ... and then nothing until 2200), which is quite bizarre. I suppose you could go via Lincoln, but the connections mean the journey is 1hr50 going north and 1hr30 going south, so it'd be quicker to get the bus (indeed, it'd probably be quicker on a bicycle). Oh, and it's not a permitted route, so it's more expensive.

Grantham/Newark isn't exactly brilliant either - northbound it's 2-hourly for most of the day but then has a weird gap from 1554 to 1917 because one of the Lincolns doesn't stop at Grantham (is that an error?), whilst coming south there is a 3-hour gap followed by a 3hr30 gap (there's only one train between the 1545 and the 2215).

Perhaps HT should be given the rights to call at Newark but what would the time penalty be (and the impact on following trains)?

 

[Porty]

It's Saturdays only if it runs.

Extra XX:10-ish from Edinburgh / XX:51-ish from North Berwick.

These are all showing as 'runs as required' on RTT, so possibly they aren't appearing immediately the new timetable comes into effect, but will be introduced at some stage or introduced incrementally as and when they can be resourced.

Sorry, yes I missed out mentioning it was Saturdays only. Just looked up Sat 20th and still hourly so I have answered my own question. However the Dunbar 2211 does stop in Longniddry in the week before Christmas so that's good news.

 

[reb0118]

Yep! It's on the timetable page of the mainsite:

East Coast Main Line December 2025 Timetable

East Coast Main Line December 2025 Timetable

ecmltimetable.info

Second option down below the Long Distance timetable.

Thanks for that, ironically after asking the question, I came across an information poster with a QR code - and got the same information.

Just like the London buses....

 

[Intercity_225]

Today is the last evening peak before the new timetable. Gonna feel weird not having this timetable/muddle of services that are late or cancelled (pick as appropriate)

 

[H F Stephens]

Gwyn Topham, The Guardian’s Transport Correspondent, has had a piece published in today’s issue:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/12/britain-new-rail-timetable-goes-live-sunday

‘Squeaky bum time’ as Great Britain’s new rail timetable goes live this weekend​

Gwyn Topham

Billions of pounds of investment, years of engineering works – and now, the moment of truth. On 14 December a revamped railway timetable goes live across Great Britain, with the biggest fanfare and radical changes for the east coast mainline, where passengers are promised more train services, faster journeys and a new era of reliability.

But the spectre of a previous, disastrous timetable change from May 2018 still looms over the railway. So will Sunday’s revamp be a great gift for passengers that the industry expects – or usher in a bleak midwinter ahead?

LNER, the leading intercity operator on the line from London to Scotland, will have 60,000 extra seats a week in total, and cut the fastest journey times from the UK capital to Edinburgh to shortly over four hours, and to Leeds to a little over two, with six instead of five trains an hour out of Kings Cross most of the day.

More TransPennine Express trains will run north of Newcastle upon Tyne and there will be more East Midlands services between Nottingham and Lincoln. Northern will start a new hourly fast service between Leeds and Sheffield, and more trains from Middlesbrough. At the southern end of the line, Greater Anglia and Thameslink are tweaking routes and adding extra seats.

With more than £4bn invested in track and trains over the last decade on the east coast mainline, the Treasury expected to see results sooner. A major revamp for the timetable initially was planned for 2021, before the pandemic upended assumptions. A full overhaul was then lined up in 2024, but concerns over the readiness led to plans being postponed for another year.

Timetables change every six months, but rarely to this degree. The railway still bears the scars of seven years ago, when no one pulled the alarm cord before a similarly sweeping timetable change, despite what became retrospectively evident: just how unprepared and ill-equipped the railway was to deliver the new services.

Overrunning track works in the north eventually led to hastily redrawn timetables, finalised just weeks rather than months in advance – while train operators, struggling already to provide drivers, belatedly admitted to not having trained enough people for all the new services.

Tony Miles, a rail writer and industry expert, remembers being with the then chief executive of Network Rail, Mark Carne, just before the fateful change. “Carne wasn’t anxious. He told me: ‘Everything will run perfectly on a good day,’ which is what he had been assured by his minions. But when I spoke to train planners, they said they didn’t have diaries that went far back enough to find the last good day,” says Miles.

The last major timetable revamp was in 2018. Widespread cancellations and delays led to a full review of the whole industry. Photograph: Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images
It was grim for rail and worse for passengers: widespread cancellations and delays over a calamitous few weeks led to a full review of the whole industry and ultimately to the fundamental changes that the government is bringing in, for a single “directing mind” to run an integrated Great British Railways.

So can the public be confident in the new timetable this time? It comes when rail punctuality is already erratic in many areas: the recent debacle of the 7am Avanti Manchester-London express service, which was due to run as an empty “ghost train” under the revamped timetable but was reinstated after a backlash, highlights nervousness over a capacity crunch.

With new open-access operations starting on the west coast mainline – First Group’s Lumo running from London to Stirling – the Office of Rail and Road had wanted a firebreak, or room in the timetable to minimise the fallout when things, inevitably, go wrong. Several more open access services will also use the east coast mainline in the new timetable.

There are, as one industry insider puts it, some “heroic assumptions about performance”. But with the timetable so long in the planning, and the key operators under direct state control, anxiety owes more to lingering trauma from 2018 than any of the danger signals that presaged that fiasco.

The rail minister Peter Hendy, who was chair of Network Rail in 2018, has signed this one off – and makes clear it is time for the railway to deliver on the investment, given the huge spend and scant reward for HS2, and Treasury scepticism surrounding other projects. As the government drags its feet over the funding of the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme, the railway needs to show money is well spent.

“The £4bn that has been put in was designed to increase the level of service, to create economic growth and better connect jobs and homes,” Lord Hendy says. “It’s taken several years to get any sort of agreement within the railway industry about putting this timetable in and we’ve finally done it. There’s been a lot of preparation.”

The major works enabling the changes, over the course of a decade, include: the remodelling of tracks at King’s Cross station and reopening a disused tunnel to reduce congestion; building a “dive-under” tunnel at Werrington in Cambridgeshire for freight trains to reach east England’s ports without crossing the main line; and new platforms at Stevenage and Doncaster stations to aid the swift passage of trains.

An LNER Azuma train at King’s Cross station, London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
Alongside that, the government splashed out on Hitachi Azuma trains that started running for LNER in 2019. A separate, ongoing multibillion-pound programme to “digitise” the line – replacing the line side signalling with direct communications to the train’s cab, to bolster reliability and capacity – will not be finished until 2030.

Hendy says he is not taking anything for granted, heading to York this week to see the gold control in the regional operating centre “to make sure that I’m satisfied that everything’s been done. I’ll be watching on Sunday and for the days afterwards, but we’re pretty confident that it will work well because a lot of effort’s been put into doing it.”

LNER says it has used “cutting-edge technology to work through numerous simulations of the timetable” to refine its plans, with staff in the control room at York preparing for several years, working directly alongside teams from other operators and Network Rail.

A Network Rail spokesperson says: “The new timetable has been developed through a whole railway approach, setting us on the right path to provide further journey improvements in the future for the passengers and communities we serve.”

The timetable, Hendy says, “represents possibly the maximum amount of service for the moment that you can run … but the prize is really significant”.

Fundamentally, that prize is a better railway; but the east coast intercity service in its various guises has also long been a significant contributor to Treasury coffers, and annual revenues to the state-owned operator are expected to go up by tens of millions of pounds.

“It’s squeaky bum time,” says Miles. “This timetable’s pushing everything to the limits of perfection. It may be brilliant but a lot of people in the industry are saying the government pushed it through rather than the operators. The concern is, is this over-optimism again?”

 

[Northern158170]

Today is the last evening peak before the new timetable. Gonna feel weird not having this timetable/muddle of services that are late or cancelled (pick as appropriate)

We can treat ourselves to a new muddle of services that are late or cancelled!

 

[D1537]

Today is the last evening peak before the new timetable. Gonna feel weird not having this timetable/muddle of services that are late or cancelled (pick as appropriate)

Yeah, let me come back to you on Monday about that ...

 

[GuyGibsonVC]

A lot of work has been done by Network Rail preparing for this. Internally, there has been a big focus on avoiding service affecting failures and make sure the optics and PR are good for the 10 days up until Christmas.

Does anyone know how the TOC feel about it? Nervous? Excited?

 

[Cach17]

In less than 48 hours I'll get to experience the new timetable's first day first hand, heading up to Leeds. Let's see how that goes...

 

[The Foghorn]

The four Mon-Fri IC225 diagrams see a reduction in passenger mileage of around 20%. The set that starts at York makes three round trips but the others only do two round trips. Currently three sets make three round trips. I wonder whether LNER are trying to eke out the remaining miles before major overhaul becomes necessary? I can't think of another reason why you would reduce workload when other assets are being spread so thinly.

 

[55002]

I was looking at Newark the other day, weekdays they have 46 trains to London and 45 I think from london, that’s a cracking service. Think there was 10/11 more than currently. Let’s hope it all goes well.

 

[weeklycommuter]

I was looking at Newark the other day, weekdays they have 46 trains to London and 45 I think from london, that’s a cracking service. Think there was 10/11 more than currently. Let’s hope it all goes well.

In contrast the train service between Newark and Retford in the December 2025 timetable is very severely limited. I assume this is because few rail passengers make this journey.

 

[xotGD]

In less than 48 hours I'll get to experience the new timetable's first day first hand, heading up to Leeds. Let's see how that goes...

Good luck with that. I have received an email from Northern saying that my booked train home from Leeds on Thursday evening has already been cancelled.

 

[43074]

The four Mon-Fri IC225 diagrams see a reduction in passenger mileage of around 20%. The set that starts at York makes three round trips but the others only do two round trips. Currently three sets make three round trips. I wonder whether LNER are trying to eke out the remaining miles before major overhaul becomes necessary? I can't think of another reason why you would reduce workload when other assets are being spread so thinly.

That will be partly because the turnaround times at Leeds have increased from 30 to 80 minutes, therefore fewer round trips are possible in a day and the diagrams have become less efficient.

 

[paulmch]

In contrast the train service between Newark and Retford in the December 2025 timetable is very severely limited. I assume this is because few rail passengers make this journey.

2,700 journeys in 2023/4, compared to approximately 270,000 between Newark and London in the same time period.