Management, infrastructure specialists, and operations experts travelled on the 09:00 LNER service from Edinburgh Waverley to London King’s Cross in order to identify performance issues on the East Coast Main Line.

Teams from Network Rail, LNER, Hitachi Rail and Northern Trains were all involved.

The event, called the Coffee Cup Run, enables industry professionals to get a passenger’s-eye-view of the rail journey.

Those involved were especially looking out for infrastructure-related problems, such as issues with overhead lines, cable theft and weather-induced issues.

In earlier years, this annual networking event simply involved putting a cup of coffee on a train table and monitoring whether it moved or fell off the table.

This would enable engineers to understand which areas of the East Coast Main Line were suffering from track quality issues.

However, with the advance of technology, the onboard engineering teams are now able to use the train’s front and rear pantograph livestreams to observe performance.

Following last year’s event, twelve issues were identified, and solutions were then formed.

We’ve taken an innovative approach to the issue of collaboration and engagement with the aim of improving performance on the East Coast route. By bringing together experts from different organisations, we’re helping to forge new relationships and, importantly, our teams get to see at first-hand how their actions can have a direct impact on the customer’s journey experience.

We believe the Coffee Cup Run sets the standard for future industry collaboration and that initiatives such as this will be invaluable to ensuring we deliver the high-performing, customer-focused railway of the future.

John Grainger, Joint Head of Performance for the East Coast Partnership

These initiatives are vital, allowing us to work effectively with colleagues across the industry to find ways to improve our rail network so that we can deliver better journeys for our passengers.

The Coffee Cup Run is a unique event in cross-industry collaboration and recent iterations have already brought about positive change to our railway, such as improvements to ride quality at Colton Junction near York.

We look forward to continuing to work with our partners on this event and finding ways to deliver more reliable, smoother journeys for our passengers.

Paul Rutter, Route Director for Network Rail’s East Coast route