East Coast Main Line


The East Coast Main Line is a electrified railway between and, via,,,, and. It is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broadly parallel to the A1 road. The main line acts as a "spine" for several diverging branches, serving destinations such as,,, and, all with direct services to London. In addition, a few ECML services extend beyond Edinburgh to serve other Scottish destinations, such as,, and.
The line was built during the 1840s by three railway companies: the North British Railway, the North Eastern Railway and the Great Northern Railway. In 1923, the Railways Act 1921 led to their amalgamation to form the London and North Eastern Railway and the line became its primary route. The LNER competed with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway for long-distance passenger traffic between London and Scotland. The LNER's chief mechanical engineer, Nigel Gresley, designed iconic Pacific steam locomotives including Flying Scotsman and Mallard, the latter of which achieved a world record speed for a steam locomotive, on the Grantham-to-Peterborough section on 3 July 1938.
In 1948, the railways were nationalised and operated by British Railways. In the early 1960s, steam was replaced by diesel-electric traction, including the Deltics, and sections of the line were upgraded so that trains could run at speeds of up to. With the demand for higher speed, British Rail introduced InterCity 125 high-speed trains between 1976 and 1981. In 1973, a Class 41 achieved a top speed of in a test run. In the 1980s, the line was electrified and InterCity 225 trains introduced. These have in turn been largely replaced by Class 800 and Class 801 units. The November 2021 Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands stated that the linespeed would be upgraded to.
The line links London, South East England, East Anglia and the East Midlands, with Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland, and is important to their local economies. It carries commuter traffic in north London as well as cross-country, commuter and local passenger services, and freight. In 1997, operations were privatised. The primary long-distance operator is London North Eastern Railway, but open-access competition on services to Northern England and Scotland is provided by Hull Trains, Grand Central and Lumo.

Route definition and description

The ECML is part of Network Rail's Strategic Route G, which comprises five separate lines:
The core route is the main line between King's Cross and Edinburgh, the Hertford Loop is used for local and freight services, and the Northern City Line provides an inner-suburban service to the city. The line has engineers line references ECM1 to ECM9.

History

Origins and early operations

The ECML was constructed by three independent railway companies. During the 1830s and 1840s, each company built part of the route to serve its own area, but also intending to link with other railways to form the through route that would become the East Coast Main Line. From north to south, the companies were the:
  • North British Railway from Edinburgh to Berwick-upon-Tweed, completed in 1846
  • North Eastern Railway from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Shaftholme, just north of Doncaster
  • Great Northern Railway from Shaftholme to King's Cross, completed in 1850.

The GNR established an end-on connection with the NER at Askern, famously described by the GNR's chairman as in "a ploughed field four miles north of Doncaster." Askern was connected to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, a short section of which was used to reach the NER at Knottingley. In 1871, the line was shortened when the NER opened a direct line from an end-on junction, with the GNR, at Shaftholme, just south of Askern to Selby and over Selby Bridge on the Leeds-Hull line direct to York.
Through journeys were important and lucrative for the companies and in 1860 they built special rolling stock for the line. Services were operated using "East Coast Joint Stock" until 1922. The trains were hauled by GNR locomotives between King's Cross and York, which entailed utilisation of GNR running powers over the NER between Shaftholme Junction and York ; and by NER locomotives between York and Edinburgh, using NER running powers over the NBR between Berwick and Edinburgh.

LNER era

The entire ECML came under control of the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923, under the Railways Act 1921 which grouped many small railway companies into four large ones. The LNER was the second largest railway company in Britain, its routes were located to the north and east of London.
File:Flying Scotsman express, 2547, Doncaster.jpg|thumb|left|LNER Class A1 No. 2547 Doncaster hauls the daily Flying Scotsman in 1928.
The LNER appointed Nigel Gresley, who was knighted in 1937, as its Chief Mechanical Engineer. Under his tenure, Pacific steam locomotives were developed as the standard express locomotive to work the line, several of which became famous; these included the Class A3, including 4472 Flying Scotsman, and the later Class A4, including 4468 Mallard. During this time Mallard set a new world-record speed for a steam locomotive.

Races to the North

The East Coast Main Line was engaged in long running rivalry with the West Coast Main Line, the other main trunk route between London and Scotland. At various points in the late 19th century, highly publicised but unofficial races occurred between express trains on the two routes, most notably in 1888 and 1895. These races were ended over concerns over safety, but later the rivalry resumed in the 1920s and 1930s as both the LNER and its West Coast competitor, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, produced ever-more-powerful express locomotives. This reached its crescendo in the late 1930s, when the LNER introduced the famous streamlined Class A4 locomotives and the LMS countered with its own streamlined Coronation Classboth of which were capable of reaching speeds in excess of. The competition was curtailed soon thereafter by the coming of World War II.

British Rail era

In the aftermath of the war, Clement Attlee's Labour Government nationalised the LNER and the other three major railway companies in Great Britain with the passage of the Transport Act 1947. With effect from 1 January 1948, they were merged into British Railways. The ECML came under the control of three of BR's regions: the Eastern Region, the North Eastern Region and the Scottish Region.

Diesel era

In the early 1960s, steam locomotives were replaced by diesel-electrics, amongst them the Deltic, a powerful high-speed locomotive developed and built by English Electric. The prototype was successful and a fleet of 22 locomotives were built and put into BR service for express traffic. Designated, they were powered by a pair of Napier Deltic engines that had been developed for fast torpedo boats. The Class 55 Deltics were, for a time, the fastest and most powerful diesel locomotives in service in Britain, capable of reaching and providing up to. When introduced into service in 1961, the Class 55's ability to rapidly accelerate and maintain high speed with a heavy train over long distances immediately cut over one hour from the standard London to Edinburgh journey time, from seven hours to under six. Further improvements to the infrastructure meant that, by the mid-1970s, another half-hour had been cut from the journey time.
In the years following the introduction of the Deltics, sections of the ECML were upgraded for trains running at speeds of up to. On 15 June 1965, the first length of high-speed line, a stretch between Peterborough and Grantham, was completed. The next section was of line between Grantham and Newark and more sections were upgraded to enable high speeds along much of the line.
Continuing demand for reduced journey times led British Rail to introduce a successor to the Deltics, the InterCity 125 High Speed Train between 1978 and 1979. These could reach speeds up to on existing infrastructure, bringing the fastest London–Edinburgh timing down by another hour, to hours. They operated most express passenger services on the line until electrification was completed in 1991, after which they continued in use on services that run off the ECML and onto non-electrified lines. Generally popular with the public and considered by some to be iconic, they ran on the ECML for 41 years before being withdrawn in 2019.
In 1973, the prototype HST Class 41 recorded a top speed of in a test run on the line.

Electrification

There had been proposals to electrify all or parts of the ECML as far back as the early 1900s; no significant scheme was implemented until the 1970s and 1980s, with the entire line being electrified in two stages between 1976 and 1991.
Early proposed schemes included a 1904 proposal by the Great Northern Railway to electrify its suburban services from London. A short stretch of the ECML in the Newcastle area was electrified with a third rail in 1904, as part of the North Eastern Railway's suburban Tyneside Electrics scheme. Following the success of this scheme, in 1919 the North Eastern Railway, planned to electrify of the main line between York and Newcastle; the scheme progressed as far as a prototype locomotive; however, it was cancelled on financial grounds after 1923, when the NER was grouped into the LNER and the new management had no interest in pursuing the scheme. In the early-1930s, studies were conducted into electrifying sections or all of the ECML.
British Rail's 1955 modernisation plan placed equal importance on electrification of both the West Coast Main Line and ECML; a detailed plan drawn up in 1957 gave a completion date of 1970 for ECML electrification. However, the East Coast authorities decided that they could not wait over a decade for service improvements, and instead decided to invest in high-speed diesel traction, the Deltic and High Speed Train, as an interim measure to implement improved services, whilst West Coast electrification proceeded, and was largely complete by 1974. During the period when Richard Beeching was chairman of British Rail, WCML electrification including the spur from Carstairs to Edinburgh was seen as possible justification for the truncation of the ECML at Newcastle.
British Rail carried out electrification of the southern part of the ECML with overhead lines from London King's Cross to between 1976 and 1977. This was authorised in 1971 for the benefit of London suburban services as part of the Great Northern Suburban Electrification Project, using Mk.3A equipment. The scheme electrified, including the Hertford Loop Line, part of the Cambridge Line from Hitchin to, and incorporated the Northern City Line to.
In the late 1970s, a working group of British Rail and Department for Transport officials convened and determined that, of all options for further electrification, the ECML represented the best value by far. Its in-house forecasts determined that increases in revenue and considerable reductions in energy and maintenance costs would occur by electrifying the line. In 1984, the decision was made to commence the electrification of the rest of the ECML to Edinburgh and Leeds. The Secretary of State for Transport Nicholas Ridley and Minister for Railways David Mitchell played a large role in the decision to proceed.
Construction began on the second phase in 1985. In 1986, the section to Huntingdon was completed; Leeds was reached in 1988, then York in 1989 and Edinburgh in 1991. Electric services on the full length of the line began on 8 July 1991, eight weeks later than scheduled. Significant traffic increases occurred in the two years after completion; one station recorded a 58 per cent increase in passengers. The programme also electrified the Edinburgh-Carstairs branch of the WCML, to allow InterCity 225 sets to access, with the added benefit of creating an electrified path to/from Edinburgh on the WCML from the south.
In total the electrification programme covered roughly and required major infrastructure changes, including resignalling of the line from Temple Hirst Junction to the Scottish border; the construction of new signalling centres at Niddrie, York, and Newcastle; the commissioning of ten new connections to the national electricity grid; and structure clearance and electrical immunisation works along the length of the line. Included in the structure clearance works were the 127 overbridges that crossed the ECML. Where the existing bridge clearance was insufficient, project managers favoured wherever possible the rebuilding of the bridge rather than the lowering of the track, as the latter requires considerable civil works and can create long-term drainage problems.
Where listed buildings were to be affected by the programme, BR sought approval for its plans from the Royal Fine Art Commission. Through this process a special design of overhead wiring was developed for use on the visually-sensitive Royal Border Bridge, as well as the Croxdale and Durham City viaducts. Elsewhere the standard Mk.3B equipment was deployed.
The electrification was completed at a cost of £344.4million, a minor overrun against its authorised expenditure of £331.9million. Of the total cost, 60 per cent was for the electrification process itself, while the remaining 40 per cent covered rolling stock, including the new InterCity 225 trains procured specially for the route. These were introduced in 1989 to operate express services. They were developed by the General Electric Company, as the winners of a competitive tender process. The InterCity 225 sets were used alongside other rolling stock, including locomotives and electric multiple units. The displaced diesel trains were reallocated predominantly to the Midland Main Line.
The infrastructure supported speeds of up to 140mph, allowing a non-stop run of three hours and 29 minutes between London and Edinburgh on 26 September 1991. As part of testing done to support safe operation at the increased maximum speed, BR experimented in 1988 with using a fifth signalling aspectflashing greenon the fast lines between Peterborough and Stoke Tunnel. The flashing green aspect appeared at signals preceding one displaying an ordinary steady green aspect, and authorised running at up to 140mph. Upon encountering a steady green aspect the driver would reduce speed to no greater than 125mph, and thus be ready to react to subsequent signals in the same manner as when driving a lower-speed train. The testing found, however, that drivers couldn't be expected to consistently and accurately interpret and respond to lineside signals when driving at the higher speed; regulations were later changed throughout Britain to require the use of in-cab signalling whenever running service trains at speeds above 125mph. Nevertheless,, and the relevant track Sectional Appendix continued to list the capability to run special test trains in excess of 125mph as recently as 2008.