{"id":258747,"date":"2025-07-29T19:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T09:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/railuk.com\/?p=180557"},"modified":"2025-07-29T19:01:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T09:01:00","slug":"orr-approves-limited-new-passenger-services-on-east-coast-main-line-from-december-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=258747","title":{"rendered":"ORR approves limited new passenger services on East Coast Main Line from December 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/railuk.com\/industry-news\/orr-approves-limited-new-passenger-services-on-east-coast-main-line-from-december-2025\/\" title=\"ORR approves limited new passenger services on East Coast Main Line from December 2025\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"485\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.railuk.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29094828\/orrnews-485x360.jpg\" class=\"webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" style=\"display: block; margin-bottom: 5px; clear:both;max-width: 100%;\" link_thumbnail=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.railuk.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29094828\/orrnews-485x360.jpg 485w, https:\/\/cdn.railuk.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29094828\/orrnews-80x60.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 485px) 100vw, 485px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has approved some additional services from December 2025 for three open access operators, extending or adding to their existing services on the East Coast Main Line (ECML).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>ORR said the additional services from East Coast Trains Limited (Lumo), Grand Central Rail Company Limited (Grand Central) and Hull Trains Company Limited (Hull Trains) will offer passengers extra direct rail links between London King\u2019s Cross and Glasgow, Hull and Newcastle and also introduce links to other destinations, including Seaham, on the North East coast. ORR\u2019s decisions also mean more services between Wakefield and Bradford.<\/p>\n<p>The additional approved services are:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Grand Central:<\/strong>\u00a0two additional Wakefield Kirkgate to Bradford Interchange services on weekdays and Saturdays; one additional Bradford Interchange to Wakefield Kirkgate service on weekdays and Saturdays; and one additional Bradford Interchange to Wakefield Kirkgate service in each direction on Sundays, and some additional Seaham calls on existing services<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hull Trains:<\/strong>\u00a0one additional northbound service weekdays and Saturdays between London King\u2019s Cross and Hull<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lumo (Newcastle):<\/strong>\u00a0one additional return service between London King\u2019s Cross and Newcastle on weekdays and one additional service in opposing directions on a Saturday and Sunday<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lumo (Glasgow extensions):<\/strong>\u00a0the extension of existing London King\u2019s Cross-Edinburgh services so that Lumo can provide two northbound services and one southbound service between London King\u2019s Cross and Glasgow on weekdays and one in each direction on Sundays<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>ORR said it rejected other proposed services from the above applicants, on the basis of insufficient capacity and potential performance impacts, or impact on the Secretary of State\u2019s funds. The rail regulator also rejected an application from Hull Trains for new services between London King\u2019s Cross and Sheffield.<\/p>\n<p>In making its decisions, ORR said it put weight on its duties to promote the use of Britain\u2019s rail network, help give certainty to train operators, promote competition for the benefit of passengers and have regard to the funds available to the Secretary of State.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stephanie Tobyn, ORR\u2019s director of strategy, policy and reform, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Approving these additional open access services will increase connectivity on the East Coast Main Line. Importantly, we have ensured the approval of these services can be accommodated alongside the major service uplifts by other operators, which have been planned into the December 2025 timetable, so together passengers and freight customers can benefit from more direct connections and greater choice from December.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Image credit: ORR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/railuk.com\/industry-news\/orr-approves-limited-new-passenger-services-on-east-coast-main-line-from-december-2025\/\" title=\"ORR approves limited new passenger services on East Coast Main Line from December 2025\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"485\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.railuk.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29094828\/orrnews-485x360.jpg\" class=\"webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"><\/a>The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has approved some additional services from December 2025 for three open access operators, extending or adding to their existing services on the East Coast Main Line (ECML). ORR said the additional services from East Coast Trains Limited (Lumo), Grand Central Rail Company Limited (Grand Central) and Hull Trains [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16013,16017,47,913,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest","category-industry-news","category-rail-news","category-travel","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258747"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258842,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258747\/revisions\/258842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}