A short history of the LNER and the East Coast route

The original LNER, 1923–1947

The Railways Act 1921 grouped Britain's many railway companies into four large ones, known as the Big Four. The London and North Eastern Railway was the second largest of them. It began operating on 1 January 1923 and ran until nationalisation on 1 January 1948.

It was formed mainly from the Great Northern, North Eastern, North British, Great Central, Great Eastern, Great North of Scotland and Hull and Barnsley railways, giving it a network of around 6,700 route miles covering most of the country east of the Pennines. Its main line was the East Coast route from London King's Cross to Edinburgh via York and Newcastle, with lines on to Aberdeen and Inverness. Head-office functions were split between York, Edinburgh and London, and its principal locomotive works were at Doncaster.

Flying Scotsman: the train and the locomotive

The name came first from a train. An express between London and Edinburgh began in 1862 as the Special Scotch Express, and the LNER formally named it the Flying Scotsman in 1924. LNER still runs a train of that name today, an early-morning departure from Edinburgh to London.

The locomotive Flying Scotsman, No. 4472, was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley and built at Doncaster Works, entering service in February 1923 and taking its name from the train in 1924. It hauled the first non-stop service between London and Edinburgh in 1928, and on 30 November 1934 it became the first steam locomotive to be officially recorded at 100 mph.

Withdrawn from regular service in 1963, it passed through several private owners and toured North America and Australia before the National Railway Museum acquired it in 2004. A major restoration was completed in 2016.

National Railway Museum

Mallard and the 1938 speed record

Gresley's streamlined A4 locomotives were built to haul fast, prestigious expresses such as the Silver Jubilee and the Coronation. Mallard, an A4 built at Doncaster in 1938, was tested with a new design of brake and, on 3 July 1938, reached 126 mph on the downhill run of Stoke Bank, south of Grantham, between Little Bytham and Essendine.

That remains the world speed record for a steam locomotive. Mallard was retired in 1963 and is preserved at the National Railway Museum in York as part of the National Collection.

See Mallard at the National Railway Museum

British Rail: diesels, the HST and electrification

After nationalisation in 1948 the old LNER lines became part of British Railways. In the early 1960s steam on the East Coast expresses gave way to diesels, notably the powerful Class 55 Deltics, and between 1976 and 1981 British Rail introduced the InterCity 125 high-speed trains.

Electrification of the whole East Coast Main Line was completed in 1991, with electric services running the full length from London to Edinburgh from 8 July that year. The electric InterCity 225 trains introduced in that era are still, just, part of the LNER fleet today.

Privatisation and a succession of operators

When British Rail was privatised, the InterCity East Coast franchise passed to Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) in April 1996. National Express East Coast took over in December 2007, but ran into financial trouble and the route was brought under public control as East Coast from November 2009.

Virgin Trains East Coast, a partnership of Stagecoach and Virgin, took over on 1 March 2015. After the government ended that contract early, the route returned to public ownership on 24 June 2018, operated by the new London North Eastern Railway.

Today's LNER

The present-day LNER is owned by the government, through DfT Operator. Since 2019 it has replaced almost all its older trains with the Azuma fleet, and it has ten new Class 897 Serenza trains on order from CAF, which it says will be introduced under Great British Railways.

LNER keeps the tradition of named trains alive. As well as the Flying Scotsman, its timetable includes the Highland Chieftain to Inverness, the Northern Lights to Aberdeen, the West Riding Limited from Bradford, first introduced by the original LNER in 1937, and the Carolean Express, named in 2023 to mark the coronation of King Charles III.

LNER (official website)