New London-Edinburgh rail service to offer £15 tickets
A new train service will offer one-way tickets from London to Edinburgh for less than £15, it was announced today.
First Group-owned Lumo will begin running services on the east coast mainline from 25 October.
The 100 per cent electric service is a bid to encourage people to take the train rather than fly between the English and Scottish capitals.
It is estimated that the new service will carry 1m passengers a year.
For the first couple of weeks, Lumo will run four services a day – two in each direction – before ramping up to 10 services a day in the first quarter of 2022.
The new business will look to offer customers considerably cheaper prices than they would pay on other services. Lumo said that 60 per cent of all single fares will be available at a cost of £30 or less.
Its lowest price for a single to Edinburgh will be £14.90, while the highest will be £69.
On rival London North Eastern Railway (LNER), the cheapest advance single on 25 October costs £31, while the most expensive is £107.70.
Lumo’s cheapest return fare will cost £29.80, and its most expensive £139.
Between 25 October and 1 December, all tickets booked up to one day before travel will cost £19.90 or less, it added.
Over the next decade, the new rail service hopes to create over 13m additional passenger journeys and add as much as £250m to the UK economy.
It is especially targeting the 74,500 people who fly between Edinburgh and London each month on budget airlines like Easyjet.
Adding to its green credentials, the service said that 50 per cent of its on-board menu would be made up of plant-based options.
Helen Wylde, managing director for Lumo, said: “Travelling in the UK should not cost a fortune and it certainly shouldn’t be the planet that pays. Whatever your preferred mode of transport, we are likely to be more affordable and kinder to the planet.
“We believe everyone has the right to travel in style. We are empowering people to make green travel choices that are genuinely affordable without compromising on comfort.”
The new service will also call at Newcastle, Morpeth and Stevenage, the firm said. The full journey will take 4 hours and 30 minutes, it added.
When it was first announced last year, Lumo was called East Coast Rail Ltd. It had been due to open the new service by May this year.