The Railway is Full. (Full of Trains).
The December 2025 timetable change saw the biggest recast of train paths across the East Coast Main Line (ECML) in over 15 years. The most notable change to passengers might be the new departure times at terminus stations such as London King’s Cross, but behind the scenes the difference can be summed up in one word: capacity.
LNER, the principal InterCity operator on the route, have decreased their journey times between London & Edinburgh by 13 minutes, and increased their service level from 5 trains per hour to 6tph. This means roughly six million additional seats are available every year. Whilst this is undoubtedly good news, it highlights a greater issue at play. Prior to the commencement of the timetable, and the full uplift at the end of March 2026, many respected railway figures highlighted a concern for the performance on the route: the percentage of trains calling at stations on time. The reality of fitting more train services onto the existing infrastructure means that there are fewer firebreaks that can facilitate service recovery. A firebreak is simply a gap in the timetable where you theoretically could fit in an extra train or two, but elect to keep it free.
One of the side effects of decreasing journey times is that station stops have to be skipped. London to Leeds or Newcastle journeys are well catered for, but if you want to travel from Stevenage to Retford there is a train at 6am and the next one is at 10pm! Previously there was a 'stopper' train every two hours. This is a trade-off in lieu of making the same enhancements through infrastructure upgrades e.g. increasing the line-speed from 200 to 225km/h, as was planned in the 1980s, tested, and then never came to fruition. With the fusion of track & train under Great British Railways (GBR), the incentive structure will change from the current system where Network Rail does the hard work, and LNER reaps the rewards.
The reality is this: the ECML is full. We need to invest in infrastructure upgrades now. Actually, we should have done it already, but there is no time like the present. That we were one of the railway pioneers over 200 years ago means that we had a head start over most other western European countries. Yet France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and more, have all managed to build and open dedicated High-Speed Lines (HSL), as well as grade-separate many of their classic lines. Contrary, the UK has so far built one high-speed line, HS1, between London St. Pancras International and the Channel Tunnel portal near Dollands Moor. The French managed to open the LGV Nord between Paris and Calais by 1993 in time for the first Eurostar departures, meanwhile HS1 wasn’t opened until 2003, and extended through to St Pancras from 2007. And of course it is only high-speed (250km/h or more) for international traffic; the few domestic services that use HS1 are limited to 225km/h compared to Eurostars 300km/h.
Not only do we need HS2 in full, we need more small-scale, large impact infrastructure projects on the existing railway. The rationalisation of previous decades needs to be reversed. Doncaster station has the same number of through-platforms as it did in 1938, yet it has so many more services using the station. From a timetable planning perspective, the station workings are incredibly tight and making changes for engineering work are sometimes unworkable. This is just one example of many right across the country.
GBR needs to deliver for the passengers of today, as well as the passengers of tomorrow. If we don't start to increase capacity soon we will have no chance of meeting the demand in 10, 20, or 50 years time. InterCity trains will have to limit demand by introducing compulsory reservations and raising prices to exorbitant levels that will prohibit the vast majority of working people from using the railway.
The author is a Timetable Planning Specialist for LNER, but is writing in an independent capacity.