Lumo - new Open Access operator on the East Coast Main Line

[johncrossley]

Should other ticket websites be offering the same prices? I had a look on the Cross Country app and they are only offering the £69 single on Lumo trains.

 

[Darandio]

Not a great first attempt. I can't be the only person who would go to the website and in the first instance look for a timetable, it's a pretty integral bit of info.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not a great first attempt. I can't be the only person who would go to the website and in the first instance look for a timetable, it's a pretty integral bit of info.

I kept looking for their trains in the planner on a range of dates and could only find LNER!

 

[CyrusWuff]

Definite retail issues.

Having checked a few sites, Advances are only available on their own site, Trainline and Worldline WebTIS.

LNER, Chiltern and Thameslink are only offering the £69 walk up fares.

c2c and Trainsplit are denying the existence of Lumo services entirely!

As an aside, branding the catering offer as LumoEats is just asking for trouble, given the existence of UberEats.

 

[43096]

Whoever wrote the text for that website has been on the full corporate BS training course.

It’s vomit-inducing beyond belief:
“Lumo as a brand conceptualises our commitment to our customers individual wellbeing combining all elements of physical, spiritual, corporal, emotional and social being to ensure that any journey with us leaves you positively ready.”

“Lumo isn’t about profits - Lumo is great value“

“Lumo is modern lifestyle travel brand.” [there’s presumably an ‘a’ missing from that sentence]

In reality, it’s none of that: it’s a low-cost train service run by a naff, failing bus company.

First shareholders would rather hope it is about profits: otherwise why start the service.

 

[JonathanH]

Having checked a few sites, Advances are only available on their own site, Trainline and Worldline WebTIS

The website seems to be Worldline WebTIS, with the familiar payment screen, if not the earlier bit.

Weekday timetable is
1045 and 1436 from Kings Cross
0911 and 1612 from Edinburgh.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

That purple is manky on-screen on a Windows machine. Same horrid colour the Scout Association use, which apparently looks fine on a Mac...oops!

Edit: though it's a very comprehensive site which is quite simple, clear and well put together, and I've not noticed any misinformation, yet at least! Interesting that they specifically mention they have changed the colour temperature of the interior lighting over the standard 80x, which is yet another one in the eye for RUK "naysayers" if true!

I find the general text very hard to read in the faint spidery font (common to many sites/journals these days - even Modern Railways mag).
One misprint: apparently you can relax at your favourite "win bar".
The luggage handling options are clearly aimed at airline-type passenger with heavy luggage, something the DfT TOCs largely ignore.

The text suggests Morpeth-Newcastle local journeys are allowed.
SWR and TPE joint tickets are with First Group-controlled TOCs of course (but no sign of GWR).
I wonder if Avanti will be part of that in the future, plugging the frequency gap Edinburgh-London.

 

[b2311e]

"Contrary to popular belief, our passengers are not prisoners" (from the 'Reimagining rail' page)

Seems a bit of an own goal!

 

[CyrusWuff]

The website seems to be Worldline WebTIS, with the familiar payment screen, if not the earlier bit.

Weekday timetable is
1045 and 1436 from Kings Cross
0911 and 1612 from Edinburgh.

Mea culpa. So it is. Visiting tickets.lumo.co.uk takes you to the normal Mixing Deck interface.

 

[skyhigh]

Attempting to book a ticket, and next to the ticket type you get this warning - "We are receiving no details for this ticket type. Click to what's this to view ticket description". Doesn't give a great impression if they don't have the ticket details for their own tickets (and the error makes no sense!)

Edit - ah I see it's referring to the 'What's this' next to LumoFixed. Still looks a bit amateurish.

 

[NorthOxonian]

"Contrary to popular belief, our passengers are not prisoners" (from the 'Reimagining rail' page)

Seems a bit of an own goal!

That whole page is just bizarre. I've never once felt like I was a prisoner on a train, just because there are "guards" on board!

 

[Watershed]

Buying tickets onboard is officially endorsed:

If you forgot to pre-book your ticket, you can still buy one onboard without penalty. When travelling from a station with ticket gates, you can ask the gateline colleague to let you through. When they pass through the train our Customer Experience Ambassadors will sell you the most appropriate ticket for your journey, to offer you the best value and/or flexibility according to your needs, including most Railcard discounts. We will sell you a ticket for your entire journey, whether you are travelling solely on our trains or using other train services as part of your trip. We do not, however, sell Advance tickets on board.

I think that will make it the first DOO 'paytrain'!

 

[ainsworth74]

So looking at the launch week initial timetable appears to be on Monday to Friday:

Kings Cross 1045 arriving Edinburgh 1517
Kings Cross 1436 arriving Edinburgh 1915

Edinburgh 0911 arriving Kings Cross 1348
Edinburgh 1612 arriving Kings Cross 2047

Saturday:

Kings Cross 1025 arriving Edinburgh 1457

Edinburgh 0849 arriving Kings Cross 1315

Sunday:

Kings Cross 1023 arriving Edinburgh 1440
Kings Cross 1624 arriving Edinburgh 2054

Edinburgh 1053 arriving Kings Cross 1456
Edinburgh 1545 arriving Kings Cross 2021

Interesting that Saturday is only one return journey.

Also they desperately need to work on getting better paths out of Network Rail. Whilst they are mostly going after the budget market which is often more price than time conscious it's a fairly terrible state of affairs that they're running non-stop from Newcastle to Stevenage and yet are sometimes slower than LNER services calling at York and Darlington!

 

[Bletchleyite]

You can make changes to your Advance ticket by contacting us on {enter telephone number}, where one of our team will be able to help change your ticket. We can help you change the time and date for the best available ticket for your needs.

1. How amateurish.
2. A telephone? How quaint.

This is aimed at young people who will not want to use the telephone.

 

[swt_passenger]

One of the key things they seemed to be suggesting they would do is full "low cost airline" style pricing removed entirely from ORCATS, i.e. compulsory reservation, only Advance tickets…

Are you sure that wasn’t just wishful thinking by certain forum members who wanted that to happen?
(Mainly so they could complain about not being able to use their any permitted walk up fare?)

 

[dk1]

So looking at the launch week initial timetable appears to be on Monday to Friday:

Kings Cross 1045 arriving Edinburgh 1517
Kings Cross 1436 arriving Edinburgh 1915

Edinburgh 0911 arriving Kings Cross 1348
Edinburgh 1612 arriving Kings Cross 2047

Saturday:

Kings Cross 1025 arriving Edinburgh 1457

Edinburgh 0849 arriving Kings Cross 1315

Sunday:

Kings Cross 1023 arriving Edinburgh 1440
Kings Cross 1624 arriving Edinburgh 2054

Edinburgh 1053 arriving Kings Cross 1456
Edinburgh 1545 arriving Kings Cross 2021

Interesting that Saturday is only one return journey.

Also they desperately need to work on getting better paths out of Network Rail. Whilst they are mostly going after the budget market which is often more price than time conscious it's a fairly terrible state of affairs that they're running non-stop from Newcastle to Stevenage and yet are sometimes slower than LNER services calling at York and Darlington!

I would expect Friday & Sunday to be the busiest days. Will be interesting to see Monday to Thursday loadings.

 

[Fuzzytop]

Having re-read the whole thing this morning, it's clear they're trying to attract young, progressive, environmentally-conscious folks. Would those people usually take a domestic flight? And is Edinburgh your typical destination for these people outside August?

If this service were stopping at eg. Durham, or taking in lots of cities considered 'hip', then I think some of the marketing guff might have legs.

As it stands, their claims to be operating these services as some sort of altruistic enterprise seem really slimy, when in fact the owning company is responsible for some of the more old school TOCs on the network! I am really interested to see what happens - to both passenger numbers and revenue acquisition - once higher prices come in and FirstGroup have to make this pay.

 

[Killingworth]

Some of the "destination guides" are a little odd. I can understand describing Morpeth's "town vibe", but Stevenage's vibes are probably less appealing. I'll also have to make sure to visit "London King Cross", which they claim is accessible from Stevenage!

On a more serious point, a lot of the Stevenage page seems to be talking about airports. I doubt many people from round here would consider using Luton or Stansted, and even fewer would consider getting the train and changing at Stevenage, but it's an interesting thing to emphasise.

4 services so far but Stevenage can only be accessed from one going south, stopping to drop passengers off at 20.21. How many is that likely to be?

I suspect no travellers on the trains will be bothered about the Stevenage pages. Nitpickers on Web forums, social media, and probably the Stevenage local press are different. All publicity can be good publicity!

 

[Ianno87]

4 services so far but Stevenage can only be accessed from one going south, stopping to drop passengers off at 20.21. How many is that likely to be?

I suspect no travellers on the trains will be bothered about the Stevenage pages. Nitpickers on Web forums, social media, and probably the Stevenage local press are different. All publicity can be good publicity!

Hull Trains also make a point of having "Stevenage" painted on the side of their trains, for a couple of calls on a Sunday.

 

[trebor79]

By contrast I'm genuinely disappointed that this is basically a very conventional TOC (albeit with only one price level of walk-up fares) and nothing really innovative is being tried at all. It does look decent, but it's basically Hull Trains to Edinburgh, not a real attempt at copying e.g. Ouigo.

Always had the impression that FirstGroup were incapable of being genuinely innovative, and I think that impression is confirmed here.

The LumoEats thing could be quite innovative. Suggests you will be able to pre-order hot food from M&S and other partners to be delivered to your seat, as well as a traditional trolley service. I've long thought that TOC should try to team up with outfits like Leon to serve tasty meals instead of soggy microwaved bacon rolls etc.

 

[HBP]

The Lumo app is now live. I purchased at 9am today NCL-EDB single to try it out and cheapest ticket was £7.90. Checking just now the ticket is £4.90. Not going to worry about £3 but it’s an odd way to do it.

 

[Peter C]

Whoever wrote the text for that website has been on the full corporate BS training course.

It’s vomit-inducing beyond belief:
“Lumo as a brand conceptualises our commitment to our customers individual wellbeing combining all elements of physical, spiritual, corporal, emotional and social being to ensure that any journey with us leaves you positively ready.”

“Lumo isn’t about profits - Lumo is great value“

“Lumo is modern lifestyle travel brand.” [there’s presumably an ‘a’ missing from that sentence]

In reality, it’s none of that: it’s a low-cost train service run by a naff, failing bus company.

First shareholders would rather hope it is about profits: otherwise why start the service.

I thought I'd gone mad when reading this bit:

Lumo isn’t food is fuel - Lumo is foodies​

A modern service needs to cater for a modern appetite, so we’ve made sure that at least 50% of our menu is plant based. It’s good for you and the planet.

Some quotation marks might help - i.e. Lumo isn't "food is fuel" - Lumo is foodies - but that's not amazing either.

-Peter

 

[norbitonflyer]

Very clunky. As others have said, there is no timetable on the website. On the ticket page, use the "Lumo" filter and it will only show trains close to the time you chose, with no option (as there is without the filter) to look for later or earlier ones. Thus if you find a train it will appear that it is the only one of the day and, unless you hit the wrong time frame, you may get the impression there are none at all.

"Whiskey" indeed.

 

[Taunton]

“Lumo isn’t about profits - Lumo is great value“

For a public quoted company like First, this statement appears to need a formal Disclosure to Investors on the Stock Exchange that there is no profit motive in this very substantial capital investment they are making.

 

[j_walker1804]

I can’t seem to find their app on the App Store at all - unless it’s just me! When you click the link on their website it just takes you around in a circle to the same page.

On a plus, just paid £26.20 for 2 of us in November end to end so can’t complain!

 

[Taunton]

Very clunky. As others have said, there is no timetable on the website. On the ticket page, use the "Lumo" filter and it will only show trains close to the time you chose, with no option (as there is without the filter) to look for later or earlier ones. Thus if you find a train it will appear that it is the only one of the day and, unless you hit the wrong time frame, you may get the impression there are none at all.

This is the new style, coming from websites allowed to be designed principally by the sales team, that giving a "menu" of the offerings is not required, and you are here TO BOOK. It can be seen elsewhere, such as some airlines.

It seems to come from Woke-style system designers who find reading a timetable too difficult - so they presume everyone else finds it too difficult as well.

 

[BlockBackBobby]

Are we 100% sure this is a real company and not just a website task from The Apprentice?

 

[43096]

For a public quoted company like First, this statement appears to need a formal Disclosure to Investors on the Stock Exchange that there is no profit motive in this very substantial capital investment they are making.

You might argue that that’s nothing new with First! Failing business for the last decade.

 

[Kite159]

I will probably give them a try for a weekend trip to Edinburgh at some point. Just to see what it's like compared to the speed & comfort of easyJet

 

[306024]

It would be interesting to understand the crew diagrams and roster for this service.