The East Coast Main Line, its history, troublesome franchises and the new Class 800 Azuma, 20 May 2019
0700 Hull (My Home Town) to London King’s Cross, First Class
A tale of franchise disasters, fond farewells and welcoming the awesome new 800 – it’s a belter of a blog.
Forget the media event reports on YouTube. I paid real money to give you an honest review!
Back in 2002, Frank Martin, in the hugely successful movie ‘The Transporter’, told us that “transportation is a very precise business”. And so it is. Frank’s objective was to transport ‘a package’, no questions asked, across France whilst evading various crime syndicates. London North Eastern Railway (LNER), on the other hand, whilst not having to deal with the Chinese Mafia, has the arguably more daunting task of moving 22 million people a year, safely, on time and as comfortably as possible. By comparison, Frank’s poor old ‘package’ was consigned to the boot of his 7-series BMW!
So, let’s get down to business. After a few years wait, today is the day I finally get to try out the new LNER Class 800 from Hull to London King’s Cross. Dubbed ‘Azuma’ by LNER, these trains will eventually replace the ageing but much loved HST / InterCity 125 and Class 91 / InterCity 225 trains.
Launched in a fanfare of publicity just five days ago, LNER has done a cracking job getting the word out about their new train. But, is it any good? You’ll have seen a lot of YouTube reports from the media who attended the launch event last Wednesday travelling on the press train between London and Peterborough. Now get the actual low down from someone who paid real money to travel on a proper, timetabled service!
We depart Hull about 50 minutes behind schedule. Sadly for some poor soul he’s threatening to jump off a bridge and so nothing is moving in or out of Hull, and a number of other services are cancelled as a result. I guess no matter how grumpy I can be a on a morning, someone, somewhere, is having a much worse day than me.
This mornings service is quiet. There are fewer than ten people in my carriage.
First impressions are excellent. The train has a delightful new smell to it, and the seats feel nice and supportive without being overly firm.
I’m surprised to see that these trains don’t have information screens along the carriage, as per the Italian Frecciarrossa’s – they would have made a useful and fun addition detailing route progress and speed etc. There is however information on small screens at the end of each carriage.
“You’ll have seen a lot of YouTube reports from the media who attended the launch event last Wednesday travelling on the press train between London and Peterborough. Now get the actual low down from someone who paid real money to travel on a proper, timetabled service!”
A bit of background on the east coast service
Originally the LNER Class 800 was scheduled to go into service with the then private operator, Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC). But after a troubled relationship with the Government and a disagreement over who was to blame for high financial losses, the route was brought back into state run hands and in came LNER, an arms length government operator. VTEC was the third consecutive franchise operator since privatisation to fail on this route. No private operator has ever made a success of the East Coast Main Line franchise. You can see Martin Griffiths’ (Stagecoach CEO) YouTube video on having to hand the franchise back, here: https://youtu.be/Znl4gzRYFv8 – his is, of course, one point of view, which he is perfectly entitled to. My own, passenger, view is that VTEC wasn’t that good. Yes, it brought all the pizzazz that Virgin products normally come with, such as onboard entertainment, along with some garish marketing like “Hey There Gorgeous” whilst taking a pee. That’s all lovely, but they couldn’t get the basics right – like getting me home on time.
“That’s all lovely, but they couldn’t get the basics right – like getting me home on time”
Franchising
As a regular on this route for the last four decades, my favourite operator of the line was Great North Eastern Railways (GNER), the original franchise operator, which ran a pricey but excellent service (anyone remember the outstanding GNER Time programme?), but had to abandon the franchise when its parent company, Bermuda-based Sea Containers, ran into financial difficulties.
The thing I loved about GNER was its CEO, Christopher Garnett. An incredibly intelligent, well spoken chap; a naturally charismatic man who always made a point of saying that GNER would provide a great service, but at a price. And he was a man of his word. Everything about this franchise oozed quality, down to the way the knives and forks were arranged in the restaurant car and the GNER crest that adorned every one of his rail carriages. You didn’t mind paying the premium price. It was worth every penny.
I recall him speaking about the award-winning catering on his trains, fairly early on in the franchise. He stated “you can’t do things in a cheapskate way – because the passengers will see through it. They’ll say ‘if I don’t get quality, I might as well fly. Let me be uncomfortable but for a shorter period of time’’. He went on to say “our trains have china cups, at-seat service with menus, restaurant cars, trolleys in economy and more staff on board.” An amazing mindset of quality. Something that I really appreciated at the time and look back on with fond memories.
People like Mr Garnett were societal thoroughbreds. Pedigree breeds. He identified that quality came at a price, and that a number of his customers would spend whatever was required to get that attention to detail. It wasn’t about ripping people off, gouging them for whatever you could. You paid a premium and got a premium product. And I loved it.
“Everything about this franchise just oozed quality”
After GNER’s demise, came National Express East Coast (NXEC) *stop to sigh*, the second franchise operator, who cheapened the service immensely and who also abandoned the franchise when it also ran into financial difficulties. Remember the tomato sauce sachets at every table in First Class? Ghastly.
Unlike GNER, the public were happy to see the back of NXEC. Even Hull’s own John Prescott was delighted – see his happy little face in this video recorded at London King’s Cross station, the day after NXEC was booted off the route: https://youtu.be/YjE8MjVjEkk
After National Express the route was once again operated in state hands by ‘East Coast Main Line Company’. They, like GNER, provided a fantastic frequent traveller scheme called ‘East Coast Rewards’. East Coast provided five excellent years of sterling service and I enjoyed their simple but reliable proposition.
The most recent private franchise operator was Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC). Oh boy. Within months the service and loyalty programme was wrecked. We had a choice of Nectar points or a paltry sum of Virgin Red Flying Points, the latter only being granted due to intense lobbying by frequent east coast passengers. In my forty odd years using this service, VTEC was the hardest service to use and, certainly in our office, the least popular of the three franchises with frequent cancellations, noticeable cuts in the First Class product (Bells Whisky, anyone?) as well as a notorious absence of the trolley service in Standard! VTEC also had to leave the franchise, as mentioned earlier. But nobody attended that funeral.
At the time of the Stagecoach retreat, the franchise was losing the company around £2 a second and the company had burned through about £200m of shareholder money in the life of the franchise.
The debate about who was to blame for the VTEC failing rattled on for a while. Stagecoach pointed to Network Rail’s failure to deliver promised network upgrades. Alternative views suggest that the Stagecoach bid for the franchise was simply too optimistic and that projected passenger growth simply didn’t materialise.
Nectar, and the immediate future of the east coast line
In terms of loyalty programmes, with LNER, I’m afraid you’re stuck with Nectar, for the time being. Nectar isn’t a particularly exciting scheme and all I know is that if I scan my nectar card for my weekly shop at Sainsbury’s, it just about pays for a bottle of Bushmills at Christmas! Whilst the glory days of East Coast Rewards and GNER Time are long gone, I do hope that we get some kind of worthwhile frequent traveller scheme back. Something that at least makes an effort to be valuable would be good! As our friend Mr Garnett identified many years ago, if trains are to lure people away from planes, then they must behave like the airlines, and loyalty schemes are a key part of this.
Sadly the Government is hell bent on returning the east coast service to private ownership at some point in 2020. I’m rather cynical on franchise operators plying this route – let’s face it, franchising so far hasn’t been stellar on the east coast! That said, can a fourth attempt really fail as well? You’d hope not.
“Sadly the Government is hell bent on returning the east coast service to private ownership”
My relationship with the east coast service
Being York born and bred, prior to moving to Hull in 2010, I grew up with trains. York, once upon a time, made train carriages at the British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) works on Holgate Road. Sadly the works closed in 1996. York has also historically been the headquarters of the east coast mainline, dating as far back as 1906 in fact and as I grew up in York, whilst not working in the rail industry myself, a number of my friends chose careers with what was then simply ‘East Coast’, the name that was carried by the east coast mainline operator in its transition from state ownership to GNER. As a passenger, I’ve been been travelling the east coast mainline for around 40 years and have seen a lot of change in that time. That’s more years than the age of many rail bloggers today..with age of course comes wisdom, experience and the entitlement to speak authoritatively!
“As a passenger, I’ve been been travelling the east coast mainline for around 40 years and have seen a lot of change in that time. That’s more years than the age of many rail bloggers today..so I think that makes me uniquely qualified to comment on all things LNER passenger related!”
Back to today’s train
So, back to the train. Only put into service with LNER within the last five days, I am today seated in Coach L towards the rear of the train. As is customary on a weekday LNER morning service, a good selection of made to order breakfasts is provided at seat, and is complimentary.
Unfortunately no menus had been loaded onto this train but the choice is normally the cooked breakfast, plus a continental or vegetarian alternative.
I travel on this service most weeks for work, so I already know that I’m having the Full English..and as usual it does not disappoint!
With breakfast service out of the way I can tell you a bit more about the history of this particular service and give you my first impressions of the new train that I’m on today.
Interesting Fact: up to March 2015, this service was officially known as the ‘Hull Executive’. To this day the name lives on, colloquially, even though it was dropped several years ago and you won’t find it featured in any current timetable.
LNER operates a direct service between Hull and London once a day in each direction. The southbound service that I’m on leaves Hull at 0700, usefully calling at most stations between Hull and Doncaster, including Brough and Selby. The return service leaves London King’s Cross at 1718. More frequent direct services are provided by the ‘open access operator’ Hull Trains, which uses the notoriously unreliable Class 180. Hull Trains will however be receiving Class 802 rolling stock by early 2020 (allowing for delays). You can see my review of Hull Trains here: https://youtu.be/cqCdjb3hXbI
The Class 800
The Class 800 train that I’m on today is eventually to become a key train of the long distance rail fleet in the UK. It will be the core fleet of LNER, Hull Trains (the 802 variant) and has already been in service with Great Western since 2017.
In addition to bringing new rolling stock these trains also run on both diesel and electric power which is excellent for the Hull to London service, as not all of the line is electrified. A previous plan to electrify the entire stretch to Hull was shelved several years ago.
Interesting Fact: the former Transport Secretary and retired MP, John Prescott (now Baron Prescott), was my local MP when I first moved to Hull
The Seat
The seat feels very comfortable and First Class is laid out in the usual 2 + 1 configuration. The seat is spacious, has a good amount of recline and legroom feels much improved. I also have standard three pin and USB sockets to charge my phone. Being so new the seats are a little firm, but that should wear nicely over the next few weeks as they receive a few more northern bottoms!
Teething troubles..
Today the seat reservation system is broken. That’s surprising for a train that has only been in service for five days.
Additionally, I really struggled to get logged on to the train WiFi. I tried ten times at various stages of the journey, but got nowhere.
“Being so new the seats are a little firm, but that should wear nicely over the next few months as they receive a few more northern bottoms!”
The Ambience
The coach feels airy, quiet and the lighting more bright than subtle but I think this is more down to what I’m used to on the HST’s, which used to ply this route for many years up until just five days ago.
The temperature is set to my liking, more on the warm side than cool but there’s no pleasing everyone. Anyone who has ever worked in an air conditioned office will know what I mean!
Pic: the Hull Trains HST on standby to support their notorious fleet of Class 180’s
The Staff
As is usual with a state owned operator, the staff are pleasant and seem very happy talking to customers about the new train – there are clearly customers on here who had no idea about the launch of this new rolling stock. Importantly, they seem happy!
What happened next took me by pleasant surprise. The person checking my ticket addressed me by name. I have never had personalised service like this on LNER before. As a regular British Airways flyer with their Gold card, BA’s Customer Service Manager iPad tells them my status and so I do, sometimes, get a personalised welcome when flying. But I’m fairly sure that Nectar doesn’t have status levels! I’m not aware of my relatively small travel blog being on any transport providers radar either, but a nice touch there by LNER, however they knew who I was!
Can the class 800 capture the hearts of minds of the travelling public, like the 125 / HST did?
Possibly! You really can’t tell at this stage. I guess nobody knew back in 1975, the year in which both I and the 125 were born, that the 125 would still be in service some 44 years later – but without going into UK public policy on transport, and the political hot potato that the rail industry has always been, the reality is that some trains have had to last the best part of half a century. And in those 44 years people have become connected, in a weird sort of way, to a train. But there exists a perfectly understandable reason for this. Back in the mid-70’s, the 125 was to be the core of British Rail’s new long distance product, ‘InterCity’. This was to be the train that would lure people out of their cars, and onto the rails. The 125 was designed to be great. As the flagship for BR’s premier new long-distance product, the new 125 simply had to be great. And so it has been, for over four decades, in fact.
I grew up travelling the east coast on the 125, remember the 80’s adverts well – “this is the age of the train”, said one advert, and I still have my school badge from visiting the factory making electrical equipment for the east coast electrification project. For people like me the distinct 125 engine howl, seat comfort and spaciousness, remains unparalleled.
“For people like me the distinct 125 engine howl, seat comfort and spaciousness, has so far been unparalleled”
In Summary
The Class 800 is a superb train, feels well engineered, modern and I’m assured it’s much cleaner for the environment and a lot cheaper to operate than the HST, which can only be a good thing.
This new train is also operated by the excellent LNER who have made strides to undo everything that VTEC did. And the positive results are showing (but they are still serving Bells in First Class – ugh!).
It is such a pity that our Government insists on this service being put into private hands, but, GNER proved if nothing else that the private sector understands quality, when it chooses to.
I enjoyed my first trip on the 800 and looking forward to many more, particularly given that the Hull Trains variant will arrive in the not too distant future. Here in Hull it’s going to be Hitachi heaven!
Well done to LNER on a really successful launch.
About Neil
Neil lives in Hessle, a small East Yorkshire town, west of Hull, with his wife and dachshund. He is a highly experienced rail and air passenger of some forty years standing, as well as an American Express aficionado since 1997!
Neil spent most of his formative years in the mid to late 80's indulging in premium travel, having come from a staunchly middle class, traditional upbringing in a small village on the outskirts of York, UK.
Neil is extremely particular when it comes to great service, so if he endorses something, you can be sure it’s excellent. Neil focuses on east coast UK rail travel and OneWorld airline alliance flying where he is a British Airways Executive Club Gold member.
