ModernRailways
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East Coast Trains Ltd Launch and branding
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capitalconnect
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Where is this information from? I can not find anything online other than the trademark registration for "Lumo" that East Coast Trains Limited made? Where are the details of the cheap walk up fares available?
ModernRailways
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This has been passed to me from a colleague who moved over to join them. It's not announced anywhere yet and is meant to be under wraps.
Western Sunset
Established Member
Who thinks these names up?
Lumo or Slomo...
Lumo or Slomo...
capitalconnect
Member
Ah i see. Personally i would have preferred to if they just called it "East Coast Trains" instead. What is it with so many TOCs coming up with all these ridiculous names during the past few years. It certainly seems to be the latest trend to gives silly meaningless names to trains. Arterio, Aurora, Azuma, Citybeam, Lumo, Paragon, etc.
I would be interested to know how they came up with the name "Lumo" for these services! A quick Google search tells me that "Lumo" is a Video Game and also a major Electricity and Gas supplier in Australia so who knows how they came up with this name!
Any news yet on how the ticketing will operate? Will they be part of the normal ticketing system? Will tickets be available to purchase from Guards onboard trains just like FHT and GC do? Will you be able to buy their tickets from TVMs and Ticket Offices at stations? Or is all this still being decided?
I’d have hoped there’d be a website by now 
omnicity4659
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But GBR branding won't extend to open access?
I know. But at least it'll reduce the marketing fluff of the rest.
Yep. Let's hear it for fewer services and more expensive fares, then.
"Lumos" (the spell for light from Harry Potter springs to mind).
It's *almost* as if they're trying to appeal to the general public than a bunch of trainspotters. Crazy.
centro-323
Member
Davester50
Member
Cheapo, if the rumoured fares are anything to go by would be more appropriate!
Not sure where to find a source, but I believe the idea the whole way through has been to focus on advance fares, they won't offer any "lumo only" walk up tickets, although "any permitted" will be valid. There's no reason TVMs and Ticket Offices would't offer their fares - they appear to be in BRFares now - KGX-NCL starting at £7.90 with no railcard
I suspect anyone on board will be sold a ticket as they won't have a Penalty Fares scheme, but remains to be seen the policy on offering discounted fares on board.
Not sure where to find a source, but I believe the idea the whole way through has been to focus on advance fares, they won't offer any "lumo only" walk up tickets, although "any permitted" will be valid. There's no reason TVMs and Ticket Offices wiuldn't offer their fares - they appear to be in BRFares now - KGX-NCL starting at £7.90 with no railcard
I suspect anyone on board will be sold a ticket as they won't have a Penalty Fares scheme, but remains to be seen the policy on offering discounted fares on board.
I'm guessing the "Advance" tickets will be available up to departure, provided there is still availability.
Not sure where to find a source, but I believe the idea the whole way through has been to focus on advance fares, they won't offer any "lumo only" walk up tickets, although "any permitted" will be valid. There's no reason TVMs and Ticket Offices would't offer their fares - they appear to be in BRFares now - KGX-NCL starting at £7.90 with no railcard
I suspect anyone on board will be sold a ticket as they won't have a Penalty Fares scheme, but remains to be seen the policy on offering discounted fares on board.
Even the most expensive single King's Cross-Edinburgh is only £21.90. That's insane.
bramling
Veteran Member
I don’t know, it sounds more like some kind of toilet cleaner to me.
If their fares are genuinely as cheap as it appears, they could call themselves Turd on a Stick and it wouldn't make much difference.
I just noticed that. I suspect they may be very low for the launch period. The original pitch was an average fare of £25, I believe, currently everything in is below that!
py_megapixel
Established Member
I'm surprised they even bothered coming up with a new brand. "Avanti East Coast" would have been fine.
Especially considering it's heavily rumoured that the trains will be more comfortable than the LNER equivalents!! It would be insane for people not to use them if there was a departure at an appropriate time.
Thiugh it needs to be clear they are not a "normal" operator, accepting walk up tickets etc. Hence totally different name.
bramling
Veteran Member
Time will of course tell if such fares can be sustained going forward. Even if they manage to fill every single seat I can’t see that being viable.
py_megapixel
Established Member
That would make sense, though if they are participating in the RDG's ticketing system (which they seem to be, if their fares are in the data) then will they not have to accept 'any permitted' walk up tickets anyway?
Sprinter156
Member
To be fair, Azuma is Japanese for "east" (London North Eastern Railway), and Paragon is most likely based on Hull Paragon interchange (where these units operate). The others do sound random though
They will. But it doesn't mean it makes sense for their promotional material/marketing to fit with the others.
Remember this is an operation to mostly go against airlines, and to a smaller extent against LNER and coaches. They need a brand to get known, and likely very low initial fares. See services like "ouigo" in France with similarly odd names.
Western Sunset
Established Member
Perhaps it means "Mobile lavatory". Oh hang on, that's a Voyager...
Mainline421
Member
By all accounts they will accept walk-up tickets. It would be foolish not to participate in ORCATS, even if it makes up a small percentage of their passengers. Although I agree the branding should differentiate the product from the 'full service' offering of Avanti.
They may accept them, but not take revenue from them, or something? I thought they couldn't so as not to be primarily abstractive
Edit: Just reviewing the 2016 ECML Track Access Decision letter, I think ECT successfully proved that enough new revenue could be generated from their low cost model (and abstraction from airlines) to be Not Primarily Abstractive from (then) VTEC etc Which suggests they will take some revenue from existing walk up tickets.
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Previous indications have shown they will take some ORCATS revenue from them but given their very limited service (and longer journey time) compared to the incumbent operator LNER they will take a relatively small amount, and still passed a "not primarily abstractive" test overall. GC, XC, HT, TPE etc all get something from a KGX-EDB ticket due to the potential for a customer to use those trains and change or otherwise break journey
What they did do to reduce their ORCATS raid is not include any 1st class, so they won't get any revenue from those tickets. That's always been an imblanced one as GC get 1st class ORCATS revenue on their services despite the significantly worse on board offering than LNER.
Just noticed advance fares appear to have been put in to offer a PRIV discount so start at £1.95 KGX-NCL. I suspect an error but I can dream!
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