A lot of people on here are saying, oh its just a simple change at Edinburgh onto frequent Scotrail services to Glasgow, but as other posters have already mentioned this proposed change will make certain journeys, for example Goole or Lincoln to Glasgow to 2 changes from the present 1. And once a journey starts getting above 1 change it starts being quite unattractive, not least with the worry of delays and missed connections. Not all travellers are quite so well informed as us forumites.
Furtherthemore the value of direct services should not be underestimated. The ECML carries a lot of leisure traffic, that means families with small kids, ppl with disabilities, ppl travelling with bikes. Getting a bike or buggy on and off a train, particularly intercity units like the IETs is not easy for many ppl. And we are talking about direct services from the Northeast and east of England to Sotlands biggest city. This not like the obsession with direct London to Lowestoft/Yarmouth services. Is it perhaps operationally less convenient than simply terminating at Edinburgh, certainly, but the railway is a social necessity and should be run for the benefit of passengers.
Now in the case of the Glasgow services, to say there is limited demand based off the present service provision, or loadings is shortsighted. Likely it is the case the current services fail to meet current travel habits and rather than being scrapped ought to be retimed. By the looks of it would be possible to retime the Glasgow services as follows, subject to pathing constraints:
SOUTHBOUND WEEKDAYS:
1E09 - 0930 Edinburgh to Kings Cross is formed off of a unit from Craigentinny. This could possibly extend back to start from Glasgow at around 0820 ish which might be of more use than the present 1E06 which departs Glasgow C at 0648. Would require a corresponding positioning service from Edinburgh at around 0650 which could run in service
NORTHBOUND WEEKDAYS:
1S19 - 1330 Kings Cross to Edinburgh (arr. 1816)
1S21 - 1430 Kings Cross to Edinburgh
(arr. 1909)
Both of these services upon arrival at Edinburgh run ECS back to Newcastle and Heaton Depot as 5N19 and 5N21 respectively, so you could theoretically extend one or both of these from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and then being diagrammed to end at Heaton, you could then run them in service back to Newcastle as evening Glasgow to Newcastle services.
1S19 would be particularly useful to extend as it arrives into Edinburgh at 1816 so could form a useful capacity buster for Scotrail services during the evening peak.
There may however be reasons for why this would not be workable in practice, but if there are such issues then perhaps an LNER insider could enlighten us on those.