Passengers at King's Cross station in London.
A new timetable will start this weekend on a major UK railway route (Picture: PA)

Train journeys on one of the UK’s busiest railway routes are being transformed after a £4.4 billion boost to add millions of extra seats and a new timetable.

It has been a big week for UK train travel after the unveiling of Great British Railways’ red, white and blue branding, which will officially launch in the spring.

However, customers will see some changes before then as the new timetable kicks in from Sunday, December 14, as part of the industry-wide changes.

The east coast main line, one of the UK’s main routes connecting London, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh, will get millions of extra seats a year and quicker journey times after a decade of improvement works. Over £4 billion investment has been pumped into the rail route – a likely relief for passengers facing delays and cancellations on services.

Two women looking at a train departure station board.
Train capacity is being boosted with 60,000 extra seats per week on the east coast main line route between King’s Cross and Edinburgh (Picture: In Pictures/Getty Images)

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Here is a roundup of the benefits the change promises to bring for passengers on the east coast route.

What are the new rail changes – and how do they benefit passengers?

The biggest change is the addition of 60,000 extra seats each week on the busy route.

Journey times are set to be quicker too – London to Edinburgh would take just over four hours, and London to Leeds a little over two hours, while people travel between the capital and Newcastle in under three hours.

The new timetable will affect train services on the east coast main line – CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, GTR, Grand Central, Great Northern, Hull Trains, LNER, Lumo, Northern and ScotRail.

But if you are a regular traveller, journey times will change, so your usual train might leave at a different time.

LNER

Passengers walking on a platform with an LNER train on the background.
LNER alone will have 10,000 additional services each year as part of the east coast main line upgrade (Picture: SOPA Images/ Getty Images)

The main operator on the east coast main line is London Northeastern Railway (LNER) with trains between London King’s Cross, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

It will have 10,000 additional services per year, equivalent to 37 additional daily weekday services, meaning 4.4 million extra seats every year. There will also be more weekend trains and options to travel on Sundays, LNER said.

Passengers will also have more cheaper tickets available, the government said.

There will be an additional Sunday service between King’s Cross and Bradford Foster Square.

As part of the improvements, stations along the line will get new passenger information screens and new ticket vending machines, while Darlington station is undergoing a multi-million pound revamp.

London King’s Cross station has been remodelled over the years and a disused railway tunnel was opened to reduce congestion and boost reliability.

On the front line, LNER’s frontline training is being developed by March ‘to provide every passenger with a consistently helpful and informed service,’ the government said.

LNER has been publicly owned since 2018, and it has become a blueprint for the government’s push to nationalise the railway to create Great British Railways.

The Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, has said: ‘LNER is making more journeys than ever under public ownership and has become a trailblazer for innovation across our railways from trialling simpler tickets to using antennas to boost wi-fi.

‘They’ve proven time and again that public ownership can deliver cutting-edge services that put passengers first, and this is a blueprint that we’ll be following as we overhaul the rail network and set up Great British Railways (GBR).’

What is the east coast main line?

The UK railways are divided up into key routes like the busiest west coast main line and the east coast main line route.

The east coast main line covers 393 miles with 52 stations between London King’s Cross and Edinburgh Waverley.

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