More Seats and Quicker Journeys as New East Coast Main Line Timetable Given Green Light

LNER and the rail industry have welcomed the Government’s decision to give the green light to a new timetable for the East Coast Main Line (ECML) in December 2025, which will provide more trains, more seats and quicker journeys.

The new timetable will include growing capacity with more than 16,000 additional seats on LNER services per day and around six million seats per year between Newcastle, York and London, and better connectivity with faster services between London, the east of England, Yorkshire, the north-east and Scotland. It will also ensure better local services in many regions.

The December 2025 timetable is the result of £4billion invested on the ECML over the past decade, including the East Coast upgrade, and will:

• Enable passengers and communities to receive the benefit of significant investment including the East Coast Upgrade and a new fleet of Azuma trains;

• Improve connectivity between Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland with London, including reductions in journey times to long distance services;

• Allow all Thameslink and Great Northern services to call at the new Cambridge South station;

• Enable additional Northern services between Sheffield and Leeds, and between Middlesbrough and Newcastle;

• Increase TransPennine Express services between Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley to eight trains per day in each direction;

• Enable greater opportunities to further improve capacity in the future; with more work needed to increase capacity for freight customers

The new timetable will build on enhancements in May 2025, such as additional LNER services between Bradford Forster Square and London King’s Cross. These improvements will come during the year Bradford will be UK City of Culture, with weekday and Saturday services in each direction increasing from two to seven from May 2025. Sunday services will double from one to two in each direction, with further future enhancements planned.

This introduction of the new timetable follows close collaboration between Network Rail, ECML passenger and freight train operators, and other rail industry partners.

It represents a significant milestone in the ongoing enhancement of one of the busiest rail routes in the UK, and while the new December 2025 timetable does not introduce all of the aspirational service improvements for the ECML, it will pave the way for more in the future. It will also support the case for future funding, such as the investment needed for an additional high-speed service between Newcastle and Northallerton, and to improve capacity for freight.

David Horne, Managing Director of LNER, speaking on behalf of the rail industry said: “We’re delighted the new transformative timetable for December 2025 has been approved.

“It reflects a decade of significant investment to improve the ECML and will provide more trains, thousands more seats and quicker journeys. It will also set us on the right path to provide further journey improvements in the future.

“Train companies and Network Rail have worked together to create the new timetable and we encourage passengers to check our December 2025 timetable microsite to see what it means for them.

“Our focus as an industry, and with our stakeholders, is now on getting everything ready over the next 12 months to launch the new timetable so we can provide the best service possible for the passengers and communities we serve."

For more information on how the new December 2025 timetable will affect services from your local station, visit https://ecmltimetable.info