According to the latest reports from Ministers at the Department for Transport and London North Eastern Railway, direct trains between Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire and London King’s Cross are expected to be restored by next December.
Direct services from Cleethorpes to London were withdrawn more than 30 years ago.
Three years ago, London North Eastern Railway held a public consultation to assess potential changes to train services from Cleethorpes.
Those changes would include reinstating a Cleethorpes to London direct train services operating seven days a week.
Last June, a test train ran from Doncaster and performed tests including checking platform and train clearances at Grimsby Town, Cleethorpes, Barnetby, and Market Rasen to determine and validate whether the train could safely operate over the line.
All required tests on the line have now been completed, and both the Department for Transport and the Treasury have given their approval for the services to resume.
As this will be a new service, before the service can be introduced at the end of this year, London North Eastern Railway drivers, who do not currently operate services to Cleethorpes, must update their route knowledge to include the new stretch of line.
The new services will add the destinations available by direct trains from the seaside town, as these are currently limited to Transpennine Express services to Liverpool via Doncaster, Sheffield, Stockport, Manchester and Warrington, East Midlands Railway services to Barton-on-Humber, and an early morning East Midlands Railway service to Lincoln.
In May last year Cleethorpes station was in the news after it was one of three stations where TransPennine Express installed new recycling bins specifically for single-use coffee cups.
The station has also benefitted from a new accessible footbridge that connects it with the town centre and the beachfront, and includes ramps and stairs to provide an accessible and safe route over the railway to the promenade.
Responses
LNER should extend more of their services using Class 800 Azumas including Skegness, Scarborough, Hartlepool, Whitby and perhaps in the future to run to Leven since the new Levenmouth Rail Link is completed.
EMR are being a bit funny about it, they run the trains all day and now this interloper nicks passengers.
Plus LNER don’t sell return tickets, what’s that all about, that get more money out of us.
Does anybody remember Immingham “Brittanias” (noteable because their smokebox hinges were painted white) working the direct passenger trains to Kings Cross ? They were attached at Grimsby Town where the train was reversed having arrived from Cleethorpes behind an Immingham “B1”. Happy days, but quite frankly those direct trains were not that well patronised and it is hoped that this new direct service will attract passengers.
Nice to see possible reinstatement of the service along the same route as previously, via Market Rasen. Another potentially feasible route south of Lincoln albeit with a reversal there would be via Sleaford and Spalding. It’s been many years since either of these two towns, both of significant size, saw through carriages to the capital.
Nice to see LNER to run to Cleethorpes. Perhaps they should run more new services including Skegness via Grantham, Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.
Inter city used to run direct services to Cleethorpes in the early nineties
I remember working a HST from Cleethorpes to Newark Northgate as a Peterborough BR train guard in the early 90s because of staff sickness at Doncaster. It was a one off but nice to see the direct link being reintroduced. They went from an 8 coach HST on a Friday morning to a 2 coach mark 150 on a Monday morning when they scrapped the service.
I remember class 47 and 55 powering the cleethorpes to kings cross in the 80,s
Yep was pretty quick too.
Two & a half hours?