A new train timetable designed to speed-up rail travel between London and Scotland will make one of the world’s most iconic trains slower, The Standard can reveal.
The Flying Scotsman service, which takes exactly four hours to travel from Edinburgh Waverley to King’s Cross each morning, will instead take four hours 13 minutes to complete the journey when the East Coast Main Line (ECML) timetable changes in December 2025.
This is primarily because the Flying Scotsman – named after the most famous steam locomotive in the world but now using 125mph Azuma electric trains – will call at York in addition to Newcastle as it heads south.
It will depart from Edinburgh at 5.37am – three minutes earlier than at present – but will not arrive at King’s Cross until 9.50am rather than 9.40am, according to the “indicative” new timetable.
At present, the Flying Scotsman is believed to be the only London North Eastern Railway train between Edinburgh and London not to stop at York and Darlington.
A LNER spokesman confirmed the 5.40am departure from Edinburgh would become the 5.37am from next December.
The “Flying Scotsman” brand will be retained in the new timetable, The Standard has been told.
At present, the Flying Scotsman stops only at Newcastle – for two minutes – on its route south.
Reducing the journey time between the two capital cities is seen as vital to encouraging more travellers to choose to travel by train rather than plane.
Sources said that, in general, the new timetable would allow rail firms – including others such as Lumo, Hull Trains and TransPennine Express - to run faster services at more convenient times throughout the day.
It will also mean that more journeys between London and Edinburgh will take slightly closer to four hours to complete than at present, cutting the four hours 31 minutes average to four hours 20 minutes.
The total number of Edinburgh to King’s Cross trains will increase from 31 to 35 on weekdays, while those heading north from King’s Cross to Edinburgh will increase from 31 to 34.
From London to Newcastle there will be a train every hour for most of the day, taking around two hours 40 minutes, about 10 minutes quicker than the fastest hourly train at present.
Trains from Newcastle to London will generally be a few minutes quicker.
On weekdays, Lumo will introduce an additional early morning departure to King’s Cross with a pre-10am arrival.
There will also be an additional evening departure from King’s Cross at 6.42pm to Newcastle.
The introduction of the new timetable has been controversial because of the trade-off between making longer-distance journeys quicker at the expense of more stopping services.
The rail industry said the new timetable would “provide more trains, more seats and quicker journeys”.
This will include an additional 16,000 seats a day on LNER trains, improving capacity between Newcastle, York and London.
The additional capacity should generate an additional £60m a year in fares income.
On average, LNER services from Edinburgh to York, Doncaster, Newark, Peterborough and King’s Cross will be quicker, with journey times from Edinburgh to King’s Cross being about 10 minutes quicker, and from King’s Cross to Edinburgh about 15 minutes quicker.
The rail industry said that while the new timetable “does not introduce all of the aspirational service improvements for the East Coast Main Line, it will pave the way for more in the future”.
David Horne, managing director of LNER, speaking on behalf of the rail industry said the new timetable was “transformative”.
He said: “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.”
The new timetable has taken almost a decade of planning. It went out to public consultation in 2021, when there was support for two trains per hour between Newcastle and Manchester.
These will not form part of next year’s changes but the rail industry is “working with funders (e.g. Department for Transport) to increase further capacity on the ECML in the future to enable such services to operate”.
