December 2025 East Coast Timetable

[mernrith]

I wouldn't count on the latter until you see the formation in person. Obviously it will be meaningful improvement on the 9/10 car services, as you say.

At least I think they will be lighter loaded than what we have now!

That would leave no services from Peterbrough, Newark and Doncaster to Scotland!

It's more on that 'I suggest' part and wouldn't ask for really serious thoughts. However, should they be swapped - They would have good connections at Newcastle when the following express is just 9 minutes away, which I think is reasonable.

 

[Farigiraf]

At least I think they will be lighter loaded than what we have now!

It's more on that 'I suggest' part and wouldn't ask for really serious thoughts. However, should they be swapped - They would have good connections at Newcastle when the following express is just 9 minutes away, which I think is reasonable.

You could make an argument for Newark, but Doncaster and Peterborough are significant interchanges for nearby large towns/cities and removing the direct service from them to Scotland would kill most of the e.g. Norwich to Scotland rail market, but many other large towns / small cities also apply (I would say Cambridge but it's well connected to Stevenage which would then have Lumo and the NCL terminator you propose extending.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

That would leave no services from Peterbrough, Newark and Doncaster to Scotland!

So? There aren't any (or many, there might be the odd one at the extremes of the day or hours where the Brum semifast isn't yet in place) services from Milton Keynes to Scotland now either. You change if you want to go there; the main destination is London.

We're not talking about the kind of situation Bedford is in where going north is painful unless it's to Corby (a comparison to that might be if everything stopping south of York on the mainline was to Leeds, fortunately that isn't being proposed!).

 

[35B]

So? There aren't any (or many, there might be the odd one at the extremes of the day or hours where the Brum semifast isn't yet in place) services from Milton Keynes to Scotland now either. You change if you want to go there; the main destination is London.

We're not talking about the kind of situation Bedford is in where going north is painful unless it's to Corby (a comparison to that might be if everything stopping south of York on the mainline was to Leeds, fortunately that isn't being proposed!).

There's a significant difference for at least Peterborough and Doncaster, in that they are both railheads for their area, as well as being interchange points for a large area.

 

[YorksLad12]

So now services are going to be cancelled to avoid the 225 set doing the Newcastle service. I wonder why the 225 set can’t simply go to Newcastle?

I wonder why it can't run to/from Leeds on the service that would have run to/from Harrogate. It would probably have to come out of Neville Hill and return there; so Leeds-London-Leeds-London-Leeds, but only the London-Leeds-London bit carrying passengers.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's a significant difference for at least Peterborough and Doncaster, in that they are both railheads for their area, as well as being interchange points for a large area.

MKC is an interchange for the WCML and soon East West Rail and is a major railhead for the local area too. I'd say it was largely equivalent to Peterborough. There's more interchange at Peterborough but fewer journey starts/ends for a total usage of around 5.5 million each.

 

[cle]

Feels like a lot of shilly apologism on this thread. Of course LNER are galvanising around Edinburgh/Newcastle P2P, and burying Lumo.

But that commercial strategy - which is plain - shouldn’t preclude discussion or unhappiness about a degradation of service to deliver said strategy.

For a journey of the Durham/Newcastle profile and demand, having no service for 30+ mins in the hour is not great. I think we can agree that.

Yes winners/losers/eggs for omelettes etc - but some of these high volume regional (non-London) pairs are hugely lucrative too.

Milton Keynes doesn’t have an equivalent as Northampton isn’t a real draw. It’s overwhelmingly London. Same with Peterborough.

And I don’t believe Newark or even Doncaster need Scotland service, it it was a critical decision. But the latter could be XC.

 

[43 302]

I wonder why it can't run to/from Leeds on the service that would have run to/from Harrogate.

No platform capacity at Leeds.

 

[Farigiraf]

MKC is an interchange for the WCML and soon East West Rail and is a major railhead for the local area too. I'd say it was largely equivalent to Peterborough. There's more interchange at Peterborough but fewer journey starts/ends for a total usage of around 5.5 million each.

However once you add in Cambridge (145k), Norwich (145k), Ely (20k), Thetford (25k) plus all the smaller settlements and potentially even Ipswich (140k) due to the 2-hourly service it's much less equal. The settlements I named above all rely on Peterborough to change at if going to anywhere in the North East or Scotland. At most, you could argue that the improved connections at Stevenage plus the Norwich-Liverpool service would provide some additional connectivity, but this is either much less frequent or considerably slower. Either way, you do have to factor in most of East Anglia when considering Peterborough's usage as tickets via the Great Eastern Mainline and London are usually going to be more expensive and inconvenient.

Post EWR, in terms of connectivity (on top of any railheading), MKC will serve Leighton Buzzard, Winslow, maybe Northampton, maybe Bicester, and Oxford only if the XC Reading-Newcastles aren't improved. Impressive, sure, but not to the levels of Peterborough.

For Durham, the answer to please most posters on this thread would be an additional 'InterRegio' service each hour (like they run in European countries which do clearly distinguise intercity from non-intercity). This would likely be a second TPE to Newcastle, for which there would most likely be capacity post-TRU to Manchester Airport/Liverpool, but probably not on the ECML. This still leaves it short of 1tph north of Newcastle but the Durham to Edinburgh/Berwick/Alnmouth flows are smaller than to Newcastle so will be fine with 1tph once XC sort out their capacity issues.

 

[mernrith]

And I don’t believe Newark or even Doncaster need Scotland service, it it was a critical decision. But the latter could be XC.

Donny has annual flows of around 26.3k, Newark 21.3k - West Coast counterparts would be Manc Vic (25k)/ Crewe (21.7k).
Not saying that it's extremely small flows - but when Durham (56.0k) 2tph would lost almost all LNERs and left with 1tph XC - I'm not the first to voice out the disappointment upon this rescheduling.

 

[cle]

I would say Peterborough is more akin to Doncaster, Crewe or Preston. Not a huge demand in itself but more than a railhead, it is a junction with local and regional random services branching out in all directions.

MKC is more like a Stevenage, or Slough. Lots of demand, but that is fairly consolidated and London focused. And lots of O/D in and out. Not especially diverse in different lines. Yes the shuttle to Oxford will change that to a degree, direct Marston would too.

 

[43074]

So? There aren't any (or many, there might be the odd one at the extremes of the day or hours where the Brum semifast isn't yet in place) services from Milton Keynes to Scotland now either. You change if you want to go there; the main destination is London.

We're not talking about the kind of situation Bedford is in where going north is painful unless it's to Corby (a comparison to that might be if everything stopping south of York on the mainline was to Leeds, fortunately that isn't being proposed!).

The Corby/Leeds comparison doesn't really stack up as Leeds does have connections towards York/Newcastle (albeit via a detour, suspect in practice you'd just change at Doncaster) as well as being a major destination in its own right. A better analogy would be, say, running the Lincoln to London trains hourly then reducing calls at Peterborough, Grantham and Newark by the longer distance trains in their place.

 

[mernrith]

For Durham, the answer to please most posters on this thread would be an additional 'InterRegio' service each hour (like they run in European countries which do clearly distinguise intercity from non-intercity). This would likely be a second TPE to Newcastle, for which there would most likely be capacity post-TRU to Manchester Airport/Liverpool, but probably not on the ECML. This still leaves it short of 1tph north of Newcastle but the Durham to Edinburgh/Berwick/Alnmouth flows are smaller than to Newcastle so will be fine with 1tph once XC sort out their capacity issues.

Hardly agree that Durham would need/have the demand to support another hourly transpennine service when trips to Manchester and Liverpool combined are less than those made towards Leeds or other ECML major stations. And XC sorting out capacity issues - don't really see it coming to fruition any time.

 

[Kite159]

..

They aren't, but they're key to the extra capacity, with Advances used to price people onto them. (If you look at LNER's pricing now, the faster Edinburgh is typically about £20 more expensive than the slower one).

Any more expensive then people will buy a flex ticket for the semifast and 'flex' it to use the fast service

 

[Farigiraf]

Hardly agree that Durham would need/have the demand to support another hourly transpennine service when trips to Manchester and Liverpool combined are less than those made towards Leeds or other ECML major stations. And XC sorting out capacity issues - don't really see it coming to fruition any time.

The point was that it would be an additional service to Newcastle, timed at half-hourly clockface intervals (removing the 40 minute wait), removing the need for calls on LNER Edinburghs as LNER don't seem to want commuters / people making short journeys on that service. Southbound where it runs matters less for Durham, but since it's a TPE service I thought Manchester/Liverpool. For what it's worth, it could be an all-day Northern to Teesside as well. However none of this likely to happen soon as the timetable is only just about to get a rewrite.

For XC - new longer trains eventually should sort out the issue of short-forming, but the voyagers still have up to a decade of life left in them so until then, I agree it's unlikely to get much better

 

[35B]

Hardly agree that Durham would need/have the demand to support another hourly transpennine service when trips to Manchester and Liverpool combined are less than those made towards Leeds or other ECML major stations. And XC sorting out capacity issues - don't really see it coming to fruition any time.

That largely makes sense - but Leeds isn't an ECML destination from north of York.

 

[mernrith]

The point was that it would be an additional service to Newcastle, timed at half-hourly clockface intervals (removing the 40 minute wait), removing the need for calls on LNER Edinburghs as LNER don't seem to want commuters / people making short journeys on that service. Southbound where it runs matters less for Durham, but since it's a TPE service I thought Manchester/Liverpool. For what it's worth, it could be an all-day Northern to Teesside as well. However none of this likely to happen soon as the timetable is only just about to get a rewrite.

For XC - new longer trains eventually should sort out the issue of short-forming, but the voyagers still have up to a decade of life left in them so until then, I agree it's unlikely to get much better

I'd say as TPE is running the EDI-NCL 1tp2h stopper, it could worth extending to York or Leeds as both are major destinations, albeit potential capacity issues especially for the latter. Or the promised Northern to Middlesbrough.
But yes southbound is comparatively better.

That largely makes sense - but Leeds isn't an ECML destination from north of York.

TPE does have a lot of passenger turnovers at Leeds from my experience.

 

[35B]

TPE does have a lot of passenger turnovers at Leeds from my experience.

Quite - which is why running a TPE service to Leeds and beyond may have valuu beyond what the raw numbers for Durham - Manchester/Liverpool would suggest.

 

[ryan125hst]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it but looking at LNER's PDF timetable, the named trains have had their names removed.

The priority on the ECML is more KX-Edinburgh capacity, and for that some others need to lose out. The one thing I think IS a problem is the Newark local connectivity (because that's making a commuting journey near enough impossible, not just making it a bit less convenient), and I think once that gets flagged up by media it will have to be dealt with in some way by tweaking with what stops where or fiddling with permitted routes to allow a double back.

I was pointing out that your comparison is entirely flawed. I'm afraid it still is. Newark local connectivity is indeed useless, however, it's so bad for public transport around there anyway that 99% of people will have car access. Car access into Newcastle city centre is much, much more important to prevent than car access into Grantham town centre from Newark.

It is shocking that two towns in the same county are loosing almost all of their direct rail connections. I know there isn't a huge amount of traffic between the two but part of the problem here was probably the Eureka timetable destroying connectivity. I think there used to be a service around 8am or so. When I had some work experience back in 2012, I was going to travel by train, but I would either have to have travelled at about 7am, or get there very late. Luckily my Uncle worked at the company and lived up the road so I went by car, but it was hopeless if you wanted to commute by train from Retford to Newark.

Philip Haigh has said this on X: "Want to travel from Newark to Retford on a weekday after December timetable change? Your train leaves Newark at 0712. And southbound workings from Retford to Newark? Take your pick of 0550, 0650, 0811 or 2200. Today there are 8 services each way."

I understand the need to get people between London and Edinburgh as quickly as possible to compete with airlines, and the limited paths available on the double track stretch of the ECML, but the government wants people to ditch cars for public transport. We should be making towns more connected by public transport, not less!

 

[Riverside Redz]

Thought Middlesbrough extra services can not happen until the new platform 3 is built, and also the extra CAF units are here?

You’re right but the plan in this timetable recast was always to put in a “building block” in place to allow this to happen immediately with ease when it’s ready to be

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Sep 2025 ==

Or the promised Northern to Middlesbrough.

Is this a thing? Always thought there should be one an hour between here and York, bridge some of that gap in their network

 

[Verulamius]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it but looking at LNER's PDF timetable, the named trains have had their names removed.



It is shocking that two towns in the same county are loosing almost all of their direct rail connections. I know there isn't a huge amount of traffic between the two but part of the problem here was probably the Eureka timetable destroying connectivity. I think there used to be a service around 8am or so. When I had some work experience back in 2012, I was going to travel by train, but I would either have to have travelled at about 7am, or get there very late. Luckily my Uncle worked at the company and lived up the road so I went by car, but it was hopeless if you wanted to commute by train from Retford to Newark.

Philip Haigh has said this on X: "Want to travel from Newark to Retford on a weekday after December timetable change? Your train leaves Newark at 0712. And southbound workings from Retford to Newark? Take your pick of 0550, 0650, 0811 or 2200. Today there are 8 services each way."

I understand the need to get people between London and Edinburgh as quickly as possible to compete with airlines, and the limited paths available on the double track stretch of the ECML, but the government wants people to ditch cars for public transport. We should be making towns more connected by public transport, not less!

Retford to Nottingham flow is just larger than Reford Newark.

There appears to be 4 different routes between Retford and Nottingham: Worksop, Lincoln, Newark or Grantham.

As Newark requires a walk I would have thought that this would not be the most popular option.

 

[D1537]

I wonder why it can't run to/from Leeds on the service that would have run to/from Harrogate. It would probably have to come out of Neville Hill and return there; so Leeds-London-Leeds-London-Leeds, but only the London-Leeds-London bit carrying passengers.

If it's a King's Cross crew (and I think that one is) they don't sign Neville Hill, so where does the set go for 2 hours+ between 1D19 and 1A33?

As someone from Durham, I'd say that going to London seems better : quicker service and supposedly emptier trains.

Well, some of them won't be quicker, and I'd suggest that most won't be emptier given that most of them will be 5 car.

 

[800001]

If it's a King's Cross crew (and I think that one is) they don't sign Neville Hill, so where does the set go for 2 hours+ between 1D19 and 1A33?

you would use the crew that should of worked Leeds to Harrogate but I believe the issue is there no available through platform for it to use at Leeds.

As the Harrogate would use a bay platform.

 

[43 302]

you would use the crew that should of worked Leeds to Harrogate but I believe the issue is there no available through platform for it to use at Leeds.

As the Harrogate would use a bay platform.

Correct x2.

 

[D1537]

you would use the crew that should of worked Leeds to Harrogate but I believe the issue is there no available through platform for it to use at Leeds.

As the Harrogate would use a bay platform.

Aye, you *could* drop it into 9 as long as it left sharpish so that 5V50 could get into 9 to form 2V50 at 1715, but it's all very messy and possibly not doable.

 

[43 302]

Aye, you *could* drop it into 9 as long as it left sharpish so that 5V50 could get into 9 to form 2V50 at 1715, but it's all very messy and possibly not doable.

And what of 2K24? Arrives 3 minutes after 1D19 into p9.

 

[D1537]

And what of 2K24? Arrives 3 minutes after 1D19 into p9.

Well 3 minutes is definitely "sharpish". Yeah, OK, as I said, probably not doable, I'm sure they've looked at it far more closely than I have!

One could argue that this is what happens when you have a set sitting in P8 for over an hour.

 

[Class 170101]

For XC - new longer trains eventually should sort out the issue of short-forming, but the voyagers still have up to a decade of life left in them so until then, I agree it's unlikely to get much better

The decade of life is irrelavant as you can run with two fleets.

Some services operate as pairs of Voyagers and some services operate as new fleet say 1x 9 Class 80x

 

[Peregrine 4903]

The railway isn't constrained, though, it is simply that LNER have made the decision to not stop the trains which leave Kings Cross at xx03 at Durham, where they pass at xx48. There is no good reason for this, as even with the stop they would stay in front of the trains which leave Kings Cross at xx30 and only stop at York.

The standard northbound pattern will be xx07, xx20, xx24, then nothing till xx07. a 43-minute gap between trains simply isn't good enough.

But, as always, the brains trust at LNER know best.

It would break the entire ecml timetable if those trains stopped at Durham.

 

[bramling]

MKC is an interchange for the WCML and soon East West Rail and is a major railhead for the local area too. I'd say it was largely equivalent to Peterborough. There's more interchange at Peterborough but fewer journey starts/ends for a total usage of around 5.5 million each.

I would say Peterborough is a lot more of a railhead. It’s used for connections by people travelling from destinations further south (eg Huntingdon to Hitchin), connections from the Ely and Cambridge direction, as well as a massive railhead for people arriving by car - eastwards along the A47 towards Kings Lynn, and significant parts of Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland. I’d imagine Doncaster is in a fairly similar position too.

I completely agree with the idea that Durham should have a good service to Newcastle. If it wasn’t on an Intercity route, it would have a decent commuter service in its own right. Ideally the Durham to Newcastle service shouldn’t be provided by the Intercity operator, and would have some sort of EMU service serving as a minimum Chester-le-Street and quite possible a couple of new or re-opened stations serving south Tyneside as well. In the absence of this, there should be a decent LNER service between the two.