East Coast rail services

16 May 2018

Today the East Coast rail franchise was brought to an end. Services will continue to run, under the name London North Eastern Railway (LNER) from 24 June.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said:

“Whichever organisation runs East Coast services, under whatever new arrangements, passengers will be looking for the quality of current services to be maintained and built on. East Coast is currently the top-rated franchised train service in Great Britain – with 92 per cent overall satisfaction with the last journey in the latest National Rail Passenger Survey.
“While reliability must continue to improve, and promised and new investments made, passengers will continue to judge services by the performance on the day of the train company and Network Rail, value for money, cleanliness of the train and crowding levels.
“Having more stability in the underlying contract between Government and the train company will help achieve these things that matter most to passengers.”