Great North Eastern Railway
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Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) is a British train operating company, owned by Sea Containers. They operate high-speed express train services on the East Coast Main Line.
Most of their trains run between London Kings Cross and either Edinburgh Waverley or Leeds.
From Leeds, a number of trains run to and from Bradford, Skipton, and Harrogate. From Edinburgh, some services continue to Glasgow, Inverness, or Aberdeen.
One service per day also runs to and from Hull. Other towns and cities served by GNER trains include Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Wakefield, and Dundee.
Contents |
History
GNER were originally awarded a seven-year franchise in April 1996, and then granted a two-year extension allowing them to operate trains until 2005. When this franchise expired, they won a renewal until 2015, overcoming rival bids from Danish State Railways, First London, Scottish and North East Railway, and inter city-railways (a consortium of Deutsche Bahn, Stagecoach Group, and Virgin Group). For this new franchise, GNER’s annual payment to the government has increased to £130 million, quadruple the previous amount. As a result, the company said that they were likely to raise fares and make job cuts. [1]
The initials ‘GNER’ were almost certainly chosen for their similarity to LNER, the company that operated the route before being nationalised as part of British Railways in 1948. Additionally, two of the LNER’s predecessor companies were the GNR, who built Kings Cross station, and the GER.
GNER were the second-to-last English train company to allow smoking in designated areas on their trains, but banned it completely on August 29, 2005. First ScotRail at that time still allowed limited smoking, although it was subsequently banned in advance of the March 26 2006 deadline, when a smoking ban in public places came into force in Scotland.
In 2005, GNER and Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation made an unsuccessful joint bid, under the name Great South Eastern Railway, for the Integrated Kent Franchise now held by Govia, who operate it as Southeastern.
Under the name Great South Western Railway, GNER and MTR have pre-qualified to bid for the new South Western franchise, which will begin 4 February 2007 and combine services currently operated by South West Trains and Island Line. [2]
Train fleet
Image:GNER-1stclass.jpg GNER’s primary rolling stock are InterCity 225 electric trainsets, each comprising a Class 91 electric locomotive, nine Mark IV coaches, and a driving van trailer. These sets, which have recently been refurbished by Bombardier Transportation, and are known as ‘Mallard’ in honour of the record-setting Mallard steam locomotive, boast re-designed interiors and new features such as ‘Wi-Fi’ wireless Internet services.
For routes where the infrastructure for electric trains is absent or inadequate, or to cover for shortages of electric sets, they also use the older diesel-electric InterCity 125 High Speed Train sets, which use two Class 43 locomotives with either eight or nine slam-door Mark 3 coaches. As part of their commitments for the new franchise, they have agreed to upgrade these trains in a fashion similar to the Mallard project. [3]
The 225 ‘Mallard’ electric sets are all allocated to Bounds Green depot in north London, whilst the diesel HST fleet is allocated to Craigentinny in Edinburgh. The depots at Neville Hill in Leeds and Heaton in Newcastle carry out light maintenance and stabling.
Until December 2005, this fleet was supplemented by three Class 373 high-speed trains leased from Eurostar, which operated the White Rose service between London and Leeds. Two of these had been adapted to GNER’s livery through the use of vinyl ‘wraps’, while the third retained its Eurostar colours. These trains have since been withdrawn and returned to Eurostar.
GNER purchased and for some years used the unique Class 89 Co-Co prototype electric locomotive 89001 Avocet that had previously been briefly used by BR (in the end, the simpler Class 90 was adopted as a successor to classes 81-87). 89001 served mostly on the Leeds route until it failed in 2001.
Service patterns
Image:GNER coaches at Newcastle Central station 2005-10-08.jpg
Principal routes
In off-peak times, there are three or four trains per hour to and from Kings Cross. The following details apply to weekday operations.
London–Newcastle–Scotland
A half-hourly service between Kings Cross and Newcastle operates for most of the day, departing from London on the ‘top of the hour’ and on the half hour. The ‘top of the hour’ departures continue through to Edinburgh (with the 10.00 keeping the traditional name The Flying Scotsman), with extensions to Glasgow Central and through trains to Aberdeen and to Inverness. These Anglo-Scottish trains generally run as limited-stop expresses between London and Newcastle: all trains call at York, and most at Peterborough and Darlington. The 14.00, 15.00, 16.00, and 17.00 departures from Kings Cross run non-stop to York. The trains leaving Kings Cross on the half hour generally terminate at Newcastle and serve other intermediate stations such as Newark, Doncaster and Durham as well as Peterborough, York, and Darlington. A few of these trains continue on to Edinburgh or beyond.
London–Leeds
The service between Kings Cross and Leeds is not yet half-hourly. There are still some hourly gaps in the pattern. Trains leave Kings Cross at five and (where applicable) thirty-five minutes past the hour, and serve most main intermediate stations. With the completion of the Allington Chord, near Grantham, having increased track capacity, GNER hope to finally implement a half-hourly service throughout the day on this route.
Stations served less frequently
Glasgow Central
GNER operate six trains per day between Kings Cross and Glasgow. With the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Glasgow to 125 mph now complete, GNER can no longer compete with Virgin on this route when it comes to journey times (still 5hrs 30mins compared to the new 4hrs 25min time on the WCML), but they do provide a useful link from Glasgow to Newcastle and York. GNER's Kings Cross to Glasgow services are still heavily used at weekends, since ongoing engineering works on the WCML still mean that there are (as at 2006) few direct services between Euston and Glasgow Central on Saturdays, and none at all on Sundays.
Aberdeen
Image:43116 at waverley.jpg There are three trains per day between Kings Cross and Aberdeen, leaving London at 10.30 (The Northern Lights), 14.00 and 16.00. The journey time is just over seven hours. These services are operated by HST sets, as the line between Edinburgh and Aberdeen is not electrified.
Inverness
A daily service operates between Kings Cross and Inverness, called The Highland Chieftain, it leaves at 1200, but may leave earlier on Sundays due to engineering works. The journey time is just over eight hours. This route is also operated with diesel HSTs, as the line north of Edinburgh is not electrified. The stations served are:
- Peterborough
- York
- Newcastle Central
- Edinburgh Waverley
- Edinburgh Haymarket
- Falkirk Grahamston
- Stirling
- Gleneagles
- Perth
- Pitlochry
- Kingussie
- Aviemore
- Inverness
Hull
GNER continue to run The Hull Executive between Hull and Kings Cross. This leaves Hull at 07.00 and arrives in London at 09.47. The return journey leaves Kings Cross at 17.20 and arrives in Hull at 20.02. Since the branch to Hull is not electrified, this route too is operated using diesel HST sets.
Hull Trains provide a more frequent, all-day service between London and Hull, using Class 222 ‘Pioneer’ units, which have more limited catering facilities than GNER’s full restaurant service.
Bradford Forster Square
Image:Kings Cross GNER White Rose.jpg There are two trains per day between Kings Cross and Bradford. From Bradford there is a morning departure at 06.30 (arriving Kings Cross at 09.08), and an evening train leaving at 19.13 and arriving at 22.04. From Kings Cross, there are two afternoon departures: at 15.35 (arriving in Bradford 18.30), and 17.33 (arriving 20.24). These are extensions of the Kings Cross–Leeds services and usually utilise the ‘Mallard’ electric sets.
Skipton
There is a morning train from Skipton and Keighley to Kings Cross with an early evening return. As is the case with the Bradford trains, this is an extension to the Leeds–London service. Though the line to Skipton is electrified throughout, the GNER service to/from the town is operated using a diesel HST, because the electrical infrastructure on the Leeds to Skipton line was not designed to handle trains as powerful as the Class 91 locomotives. The test run of a Class 91 on the line caused a voltage drop large enough to halt every other electric train on the line.
Harrogate
There is a morning HST departure from Harrogate to Kings Cross at 0728 on weekdays. However, there is no return journey so passengers are required to change at Leeds on to WYPTE Metro services to Harrogate.
Calling points on the Harrogate service:
- Horsforth (stops to pick up passengers only)
- Leeds
- Wakefield Westgate
- Doncaster
- Peterborough
- Stevenage
- London Kings Cross
See also
External links
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