LNER is celebrating the fifth anniversary of the launch of its Azuma trains on the East Coast Main Line.
The first Azuma journey took place on 15 May, 2019 and departed from London Kings Cross, terminating at Leeds.
The introduction of the trains was hailed as a key moment in LNER’s history, with the operator announcing that they would provide much higher levels of comfort and reliability than the InterCity 125 HST sets that they replaced.
They are also considerably more environmentally friendly, as LNER’s annual carbon emissions halved following the introduction of the new trains
The launch of Azuma five years ago was a monumental milestone for LNER
Linda Wain, Engineering Director at LNER
Now the operator’s fleet of 65 Azuma trains have travelled a total of 58 million miles, which is equivalent to 2,000 times around the globe.
They operate across LNER’s lengthy network, which links towns and cities in Scotland, the North East of England, Yorkshire, and the East Midlands to London.
Over the five years, several of the Azuma trains have become named or received special liveries.
One of these is ‘You Belong’ which was named and liveried to celebrate the fifth anniversary of LNER’s work with Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), a mental health charity that focuses on preventing suicide.
Meanwhile, in order to celebrate the operator’s work on Pride-related activities in the communities it serves, a special livery was created for the named train ‘Together’.
LNER also introduced a special livery on ‘Century’, an Azuma train which was designed to commemorate the 100th year since the LNER brand first began.
On Wednesday, 15 May, on-board staff will be handing out packets of special commemorative jellybeans to mark the trains’ fifth birthday.
The launch of Azuma five years ago was a monumental milestone for LNER, and a monumental moment for rail travel and rail engineering. Our Azuma trains are one of the most sustainable ways to travel. We are proud to have taken tens of millions of passengers to their destinations over the last five years. Whether their journey is for business, a trip to see friends and family, a holiday, or a day trip to remember, we help connect our towns, cities, and communities.
Linda Wain, Engineering Director at LNER
We continue to work closely with our maintainer, Hitachi, to ensure our customers enjoy the best
possible experience while travelling onboard
Responses
Are you joking? Avanti first class is absolute crap.
I’m proud to rack up around 40,000km over the past few years. LNER has had it’s moments during that period from
storms to driver strikes… However, the employee’s have been fantastic! Although, I feel that 1st class needs to up it’s game against Avani big time and fast!