December 2025 East Coast Timetable

[D1537]

All the diagrams appear to be holding up. Everything that is supposed to be a 9-car is a 9-car, and the same with the 5-car and 10-cars.

 

[dk1]

All the diagrams appear to be holding up. Everything that is supposed to be a 9-car is a 9-car, and the same with the 5-car and 10-cars.

Excellent start. Well done LNER.

 

[sjm77]

I appreciate that is Sunday morning, but the first FAST Edinburgh (08:30 from Kings Cross) made it to York at 10:14, has now left ontime northwards at 10:19.

 

[Intercity_225]

Cracking start to the new timetable so far, well done everyone involved. I'm sure lessons have been learnt from previous changes (I'm sure you can guess which one )

 

[David Bullock]

It’s 60,000 seats across the piece.

As others have said upthread, many stations between London and Doncaster see many more services (heading to York, Newcastle, etc), which will free up seats on the Leeds services.

On this point - if travelling from KGX-HGT, journey planners send you via York more frequently than before, and the cheapest way to do it is on the new Newcastle service, generally speaking.

 

[dk1]

On this point - if travelling from KGX-HGT, journey planners send you via York more frequently than before, and the cheapest way to do it is on the new Newcastle service, generally speaking.

And an excellent service it is now via Poppleton these days.

 

[sjm77]

Signalling issues at Darlington unfortunately!

 

[D1537]

On this point - if travelling from KGX-HGT, journey planners send you via York more frequently than before, and the cheapest way to do it is on the new Newcastle service, generally speaking.

I think that's partly a function of there being fewer Harrogate direct trains on weekdays, as it was usually slightly quicker via York in the previous timetable as well.

 

[danielhogg2005]

Signalling issues at Darlington unfortunately!

Currently stuck there right now on the 0900 LNER from Edinburgh so can confirm.

 

[The Planner]

Cracking start to the new timetable so far, well done everyone involved. I'm sure lessons have been learnt from previous changes (I'm sure you can guess which one )

As in people listened a bit more this time?

 

[Intercity_225]

As in people listened a bit more this time?

Yes (although maybe still not enough)

 

[jfollows]

Yes (although maybe still not enough)

This time they didn’t put their fingers in their ears and shouted “la la la, we know what we’re doing” when they clearly didn’t.

 

[xotGD]

This time they didn’t put their fingers in their ears and shouted “la la la, we know what we’re doing” when they clearly didn’t.

I think they still had their fingers in their ears when those of us in West Yorkshire were giving our feedback!

 

[BrianW]

The Dec25 Velocity timetable was, for a period, known as the ESG timetable. Except no-one could tell me what it stood for... I've since discovered it is 'Event Steering Group', but it is unfortunately rather common in the railway for accronyms to be thrown around haphazardly, despite often not knowing what they stand for! Apologies for the above, I assumed they we would be largely known on a rail forum.

Thank you AU. I'm an interested amateur. Every day a learning day

 

[weeklycommuter]

There is an inconsistency between the number of extra seats on LNER trains in the December 2025 railway timetable stated in the following LNER press release (60,000 seats a week which is about 3.1 million seats a year) and the following Department for Transport press release (4.4 million seats a year which is 85,000 seats a week). I am assuming the LNER press release has the correct number of extra seats as LNER are running the trains.

LNER Transformational Timetable Drives Growth For The UK | LNER

www.lner.co.uk

12/12/2025

The new timetable, which launches on 14 December 2025, will see the introduction of an additional 10,000 LNER services per year and 60,000 extra seats available each week

GBR: improvements train operators in public ownership are making for customers

Train operators in public ownership are demonstrating they are putting passengers first, by delivering customer improvements.

www.gov.uk

Case study
GBR: improvements train operators in public ownership are making for customers
Train operators in public ownership are demonstrating they are putting passengers first, by delivering customer improvements.
From: Department for Transport and DfT Operator Limited
Published 8 December 2025

In public ownership, LNER are:
Adding 4.4 million extra seats annually and even more great value fares through the December 2025 timetable

 

[hexagon789]

There is an inconsistency between the number of extra seats on LNER trains in the December 2025 railway timetable stated in the following LNER press release (60,000 seats a week which is about 3.1 million seats a year) and the following Department for Transport press release (4.4 million seats a year which is 85,000 seats a week). I am assuming the LNER press release has the correct number of extra seats as LNER are running the trains.

Is it possible the discrepancy is from the services not currently running, but due to commence in March instead?

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Excellent start. Well done LNER.

I hate to be that person, but it speaks volumes if we feel the need to now praise a TOC for not short-forming. It gives the impression that running formations as booked is the exception rather than the rule.

 

[xotGD]

I hate to be that person, but it speaks volumes if we feel the need to now praise a TOC for not short-forming. It gives the impression that running formations as booked is the exception rather than the rule.

They have formalised short forming to Leeds, with so many 5 and 7 car services.

No press release trumpeting the seat reduction each week on these services.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

They have formalised short forming to Leeds, with so many 5 and 7 car services.

No press release trumpeting the seat reduction each week on these services.

Well that's just it - I don't see a need to be giving LNER a bigger head than it's already got just yet
Hull Trains, however, have been churning out more and more 10 car sets, which is great to see.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Dec 2025 ==

An interesting thing I just picked up on:

From the same timetable change where LNER became pick up/set down only at Stevenage, it appears Hull Trains have withdrawn this restriction. The weekly southbound call on 1A94 is now advertised from Stevenage as the 16:52 10 carriage Hull Trains Paragon service to London King's Cross only.

 

[D1537]

Is it possible the discrepancy is from the services not currently running, but due to commence in March instead?

Partly, but not completely. In the current timetable there are around 150 extra trains per week, which works out at around 400 seats per train. Whilst quite a few are 5-cars, some are 9s so 400 seems about right to make up that 60,000 figure. When/if the deferred services come in, that's another 22 trains per week (all 9-car), so that suggests another 13,300 seats, which makes 73,300. However I'm unsure if there are any deferred Sunday services - but that's unlikely to make up the gap.

 

[Cach17]

Well that went a lot better than part of me had feared.

1D13 (which I was on) was a few minutes late arriving at Leeds and the onboard wifi was seemingly absent, but other than that it was plain sailing, and for a shortened 225 it didn't seem terribly busy either. Worth noting that the PA before Stevenage made it clear that passengers were very much not allowed to alight the train there.

Let's see how Wednesday goes, though...

 

[800001]

Well that went a lot better than part of me had feared.

1D13 (which I was on) was a few minutes late arriving at Leeds and the onboard wifi was seemingly absent, but other than that it was plain sailing, and for a shortened 225 it didn't seem terribly busy either. Worth noting that the PA before Stevenage made it clear that passengers were very much not allowed to alight the train there.

Let's see how Wednesday goes, though...

what would they do if they did alight at Stevenage? Chase them down the platform and drag them back on board.

Sounds like more, unnecessary announcements.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

what would they do if they did alight at Stevenage? Chase them down the platform and drag them back on board.

Sounds like more, unnecessary announcements.

As I'm sure you'd have experienced yourself back in the day, some of the LNER TMs are absolutely the worst for that. I remember I used to often get a certain one - I want to say Winston or something like that - and always felt very unwelcome (as though I was in an army drill or about to evacuate an aircraft) from the King's Cross boarding announcements. I think I made several complaints to Twitter IIRC.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Dec 2025 ==

Well that went a lot better than part of me had feared.

1D13 (which I was on) was a few minutes late arriving at Leeds and the onboard wifi was seemingly absent, but other than that it was plain sailing, and for a shortened 225 it didn't seem terribly busy either. Worth noting that the PA before Stevenage made it clear that passengers were very much not allowed to alight the train there.

Let's see how Wednesday goes, though...

I'd love to know how it was worded, if you remember? Was there any reference made to the fact that this is a new change?

 

[takno]

what would they do if they did alight at Stevenage? Chase them down the platform and drag them back on board.

Sounds like more, unnecessary announcements.

I suspect the short answer is that they probably won't do anything today. They made the trains pick-up only for a reason though, so they are likely to start doing something at some point if there are still significant number of London-Stevenage passengers using the train. If they make the announcements now then it's a lot harder for people to claim they didn't know later.

Putting in a revenue block on the platform is likely to be pretty doable, particularly on Sundays

 

[dk1]

I hate to be that person, but it speaks volumes if we feel the need to now praise a TOC for not short-forming. It gives the impression that running formations as booked is the exception rather than the rule.

No I wasn’t meaning it like that. Just that after all the planning it all got off the ground without a hitch apart from a few signalling issues that are obviously nothing to do with the years of planning to get to this point.

 

[Class 170101]

Not as many trains overall on a Sunday from other operators especially the Freight TOCs compared to weekdays.

Unless it goes badly wrong this week, I don't think it will kick off in a bad way, if its going to, until W/C Monday 5 January.

 

[Cach17]

I'd love to know how it was worded, if you remember? Was there any reference made to the fact that this is a new change?

I don't recall the exact phrasing (something along the lines of "please do not leave the train here") but I do remember that there was no reference to it being a new change.

 

[mityellow]

Partly, but not completely. In the current timetable there are around 150 extra trains per week, which works out at around 400 seats per train. Whilst quite a few are 5-cars, some are 9s so 400 seems about right to make up that 60,000 figure. When/if the deferred services come in, that's another 22 trains per week (all 9-car), so that suggests another 13,300 seats, which makes 73,300. However I'm unsure if there are any deferred Sunday services - but that's unlikely to make up the gap.

Have they accounted for the loss of seats on existing services which are reduced to 5 car though? Whilst I would have thought they had, that calculation doesn't seem too.

As a Durham train user I'm quite worried by the reduction in seats from here on a lot of services - the 5 car TPEs are often crammed at weekends already, can't see why the LNER services won't become likewise. The LNER service I got this evening back from York was pretty full.

 

[jon0844]

Not sure if it's permanent or just today, but there's now an extended dwell time for trains at WGC going north - of 4 minutes, which it seems can even be 5 minutes if the train arrives a bit early. That's a long time for a train not to move, and where people onboard start to wonder what's going on - unaware of the intentional delay.

 

[Bald Rick]

Have they accounted for the loss of seats on existing services which are reduced to 5 car though?

Yes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Dec 2025 ==

Not sure if it's permanent or just today, but there's now an extended dwell time for trains at WGC going north - of 4 minutes, which it seems can even be 5 minutes if the train arrives a bit early. That's a long time for a train not to move, and where people onboard start to wonder what's going on - unaware of the intentional delay.

Yes that’s in the plan. It’s a buffer to help with right time presentation onto the viaduct.