The largest timetable change on the East Coast Main Line in over ten years has bene announced, with the alterations set to launch on Sunday 14 December 2025.
Backed by £4 billion of investment, including the East Coast Upgrade, the new timetable will deliver more trains, thousands of extra seats, and quicker journeys across the network.
The changes will improve connectivity between Yorkshire, the North East, Scotland, and London, while also enhancing services across other parts of the UK rail network.
- Faster long-distance journeys, including London to Edinburgh in just over 4 hours and London to Leeds in just over 2 hours
- New Sunday LNER services between Bradford Forster Square and London King’s Cross
- All passing services to call at the new Cambridge South station (opening early 2026)
- New hourly fast Northern service between Leeds and Sheffield
- Additional Northern services between Middlesbrough and Newcastle
- Increased TransPennine Express services between Newcastle and Edinburgh
- More frequent East Midlands Railway services between Nottingham and Lincoln, doubling to two trains per hour
Network Rail’s Eastern Regional Managing Director, Ellie Burrows, commented:
“The new timetable will unlock thousands more seats, more frequent trains, and quicker journeys along the East Coast Main Line. Our priority now as an industry is to reliably deliver this transformative timetable in December, setting us on the right path to provide further journey improvements in the future for the passengers and communities we serve.”
These changes will add over 60,000 extra seats per week across the ECML, improving capacity and passenger experience.
Chief Executive Officer of Rail Delivery Group, Jacqueline Starr, also said:
"We’re pleased to support the introduction of this major update to this year's December timetable and we continue to work closely with industry partners on its implementation. Customers can look forward to more trains and quicker journeys, boosted by the biggest change in more than a decade to East Coast Main Line services.
"In the long-term, this timetable will bring more services, and a more resilient railway that meets the needs of today’s customers.”
The December 2025 timetable also includes more Avanti West Coast services from London Euston, Expanded services from Grand Central, Hull Trains and Lumo, and Transport for Wales upgrades, including two trains per hour between Chester and Wrexham, and the first-ever Sunday service to Coryton
Image credit: Network Rail
