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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent

‘Squeaky bum time’ as Great Britain’s new rail timetable goes live this weekend

A Virgin train bound for Kings Cross.
Under the new timetable, LNER, the leading intercity operator on the line from London to Scotland, will have 60,000 extra seats a week in total. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Billions of pounds of investment, years of engineering works – and now, the moment of truth. On 14 December a revamped railway timetable goes live across Great Britain, with the biggest fanfare and radical changes for the east coast mainline, where passengers are promised more train services, faster journeys and a new era of reliability.

But the spectre of a previous, disastrous timetable change from May 2018 still looms over the railway. So will Sunday’s revamp be a great gift for passengers that the industry expects – or usher in a bleak midwinter ahead?

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