East Coast Trains Ltd Launch and branding

[Ianno87]

I wonder if they will be reservation compulsory?

They won't want full and standing trains if they're planning to make money out of the catering service.

 

[Hadders]

They won't want full and standing trains if they're planning to make money out of the catering service.

I hate the thought of compulsory reservations but it would be a way of making it all but impossible for walk up ticket holders to travel on their trains.

 

[capitalconnect]

I would have thought that as an Open Access Operator they would want their trains to be full and standing. As trains that are full and standing will be carrying more passengers and therefore they will be making more money. If they become compulsory reservation only than they can only carry as many people as they have seats which means they will be missing out on lots of extra money they could make from all of the extra standing passengers. I certainly hope they do not do compulsory reservation on their trains.

 

[tommy2215]

Some of their fares seem to be on journey planners already too, £69 for an ECTL anytime single from Edinburgh to Kings Cross compared to £170 for an any permitted anytime single.

 

[pdeaves]

'Lumo' sounds to me like a mild exclamation like 'lummy'. Still, they can call it what they like!

 

[Ianno87]

I would have thought that as an Open Access Operator they would want their trains to be full and standing. As trains that are full and standing will be carrying more passengers and therefore they will be making more money. If they become compulsory reservation only than they can only carry as many people as they have seats which means they will be missing out on lots of extra money they could make from all of the extra standing passengers. I certainly hope they do not do compulsory reservation on their trains.

There is the point about whether they really want to be carrying standing passengers all the way from King’s Cross to Newcastle. Perhaps “reservation priority“, I.e. you can board at Kings Cross without a reservation provided there are still free seats.

 

[alistairlees]

Some of their fares seem to be on journey planners already too, £69 for an ECTL anytime single from Edinburgh to Kings Cross compared to £170 for an any permitted anytime single.

Which ones and on what dates?

 

[tommy2215]

Which ones and on what dates?

On November 3rd for example the 09:11 and 16:12 departures from Edinburgh to Kings Cross are showing in various journey planners inc. LNER, XC and EMR. A £69 ECTL only anytime single fare

 

[Merseysider]

Yes I can see those fares too. 1045 (etc) ex Kings Cross as well.

 

[John R]

On November 3rd for example the 09:11 and 16:12 departures from Edinburgh to Kings Cross are showing in various journey planners inc. LNER, XC and EMR. A £69 ECTL only anytime single fare

Given a walk on LNER off peak single is available at those times for 79.20, it's not really that much of a discount.

 

[trek]

I would have thought that as an Open Access Operator they would want their trains to be full and standing. As trains that are full and standing will be carrying more passengers and therefore they will be making more money. If they become compulsory reservation only than they can only carry as many people as they have seats which means they will be missing out on lots of extra money they could make from all of the extra standing passengers. I certainly hope they do not do compulsory reservation on their trains.

They aren't incentivised to do this because all Advance ticket holders will have a reservation due to the nature of those tickets coming with a seat reservation.

Beyond the seating capacity any tickets will be "Any Permitted" where they recieved a fixed ORCATS revenue anyway so those extra standees are generating them no more revenue than if they took the LNER service a few minutes behind. By allowing people standing down the train in this scenario they'll prevent the trolley from passing through and reduce ancillary revenue, and likely prevent a guard passing through to perform revenue duties too.

Even if they were able to oversell in a way that gave them more revenue per passenger reputationally this would likely be very bad for them and increases aminocity towards staff. It would be the same as a coach company using buses that allowed standing all the way between cities - yes it might "bring in more money" per passenger but you'd likely put enough people off the service for life after experiencing something like that. When you're trying to attract people off the airlines that's not what they'll want to do.


Edit: seems by the offerings of the booking engines they are offering a flexible ticket at £59 for an anytime single, but not yet showing in BR Fares.

 

[tiptoptaff]

Lumo sounds like it was devised by a team on The Apprentice and when presented, all the industry buyers/experts all ask then what on earth this name has to do with what they're selling and they can't answer it. Sugar, Claude and Karen all look confused and the team lose and they can't work out why.

 

[Nunners]

A summary of the advance prices (without Railcard):

Kings Cross/ Stevenage to Newcastle/ Morpeth:
Lowest: £7.90
Highest: £16.90

Kings Cross/ Stevenage to Edinburgh:
Lowest: £9.90
Highest: £21.90

Newcastle/Morpeth to Edinburgh:
Lowest: £2.90
Highest: £8.50

No advances between Kings Cross and Stevenage or Newcastle and Morpeth

 

[WestRiding]

Can we use our PRIV on these trains?

 

[dorsetdesiro]

It is possible "Lumo" is the public facing name of the company instead of a brand for their class 803s?

Something like "East Coast Trains Ltd trading as Lumo"? It seems strongly inspired by Ouigo. It's obvious the trains would be all in blue with large white "Lumo" wording on the sides with no or little mention of East Coast Trains.

 

[trek]

Can we use our PRIV on these trains?

Hasn't yet been confirmed but given their job advertisements suggested their own employees would get PRIV and that it's available on Hull Trains I would suspect the answer will be yes.

 

[centro-323]

It is possible "Lumo" is the public facing name of the company instead of a brand for their class 803s?

I think that's what's being suggested yes

 

[ModernRailways]

It is possible "Lumo" is the public facing name of the company instead of a brand for their class 803s?

Something like "East Coast Trains Ltd trading as Lumo"? It seems strongly inspired by Ouigo. It's obvious the trains would be all in blue with large white "Lumo" wording on the sides with no or little mention of East Coast Trains.

This would be correct. Not sure the stock has been given a 'name'

 

[jon0844]

I look forward to the launch so they can make me understand why 'Lumo' is a really clever and will soon become so famous that people will say they're going to travel by Lumo instead of by train.

It strikes me as being akin to a company name you'll see advertised on daytime TV or at 2am because rates are so low. But I do hope I'm just not getting it yet.

 

[WestRiding]

Upon googleing east coast trains, LNER comes up as the first result. Brilliant.

 

[jon0844]

I expect they may opt to pay to be put up top (as a sponsored result), at least if they have any sense.

 

[ModernRailways]

I wonder if they will be reservation compulsory?

Reservations are encouraged, but not compulsory. There will be an unreserved carriage on all trains.


Edinburgh to London will be capped at £69. Newcastle to London will be capped at £59. No OffPeak or Return discounted fares (return between Edinburgh and London would be £138, and £118 for Newcastle to London and return).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Sep 2021 ==

Upon googleing east coast trains, LNER comes up as the first result. Brilliant.

This is kind of irrelevant though isn't it, LNER will still sell tickets for these services?

 

[ServerHoster]

Edinburgh to London will be capped at £69. Newcastle to London will be capped at £59. No OffPeak or Return discounted fares (return between Edinburgh and London would be £138, and £118 for Newcastle to London and return).

And from Edinburgh to Newcastle it looks like £24.50 (same price to Morpeth) anytime day single, or £49.80 (£49 to Morpeth) for an "anytime open return", I assume that's just a normal "5 days out 1 month return" ticket

 

[Hadders]

Reservations are encouraged, but not compulsory. There will be an unreserved carriage on all trains.

This is good to know.

 

[WestRiding]

This is kind of irrelevant though isn't it, LNER will still sell tickets for these services?

Not got a clue.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Upon googleing east coast trains, LNER comes up as the first result. Brilliant.

“Upon googling the internal-use, not public-facing company name for a service that has not publicly launched yet, the operator that has been running in one guise or another for 150+ years is the top result. This clearly means the new operator, which is not actually targeting the incumbent at all but rather the airlines, is doomed to failure. ???!!!wtftocbbq”

 

[WestRiding]

“Upon googling the internal-use, not public-facing company name for a service that has not publicly launched yet, the operator that has been running in one guise or another for 150+ years is the top result. This clearly means the new operator, which is not actually targeting the incumbent at all but rather the airlines, is doomed to failure. ???!!!wtftocbbq”

You're wibbling on too much. Who on earth said they would fail. Starting in October, I would have thought they would have a proactive marketing campaign. So stop getting your knickers in a twist. Thanks.

 

[Lemmy99uk]

Can we use our PRIV on these trains?

Hasn't yet been confirmed but given their job advertisements suggested their own employees would get PRIV and that it's available on Hull Trains I would suspect the answer will be yes.

l don’t use BrFares as a rule so I’m not that familiar with how it works. However, I have just looked for tickets from Newcastle to Kings Cross using a priv staff travel card and it is coming up with a range of priv advances starting at £1.95!
Does that indicate that those fares will actually exist? I tried a control query using Crewe to Euston and could find nothing similar.

 

[WestRiding]

£1.95, cant knock that. Cheers for going out of your way to look! Didn't know there was a 'tool' to do such things.

 

[AlterEgo]

l don’t use BrFares as a rule so I’m not that familiar with how it works. However, I have just looked for tickets from Newcastle to Kings Cross using a priv staff travel card and it is coming up with a range of priv advances starting at £1.95!
Does that indicate that those fares will actually exist? I tried a control query using Crewe to Euston and could find nothing similar.

It could well be an error, and those fares never sold. Lots of fares exist in the database which are zero-quota’d.