Operator: LNER
Headcode: 1E26
Route: PBO-EDB
Class: 1st Class
Seat: ??
Date: Sunday 14th April 2024
Following an enjoyable and relaxing few days in Glasgow and Corrour, it was time to head home and after making our way back to Glasgow and across to Edinburgh with ScotRail, the final leg of our Scottish adventure awaited. LNER were taking us back south along the East Coast Mainline (ECML) to Peterborough and, as with the trip north, we’d managed to get 1st Class upgrades with Seatfrog. If you fancy reading about the other parts of this trip, you can check out those posts here and here.
Having booked the cheaper but more restrictive advanced tickets, I had allowed an hour and a half or so’s buffer time between when we would arrive back at Edinburgh and the departure of our LNER service south. This was one of the reasons we decided to bid for an upgrade via Seatfrog because, as great as extra time is for peace of mind, when everything runs to time it does leave 90 minutes sitting at Edinburgh. With our upgrades, we were able to access LNER’s 1st Class lounge at Edinburgh, located on the first floor and accessed via platform 5.
The lounge at Edinburgh is reasonably large, although not as large as the one at Kings Cross, and has the usual offering of hot drinks, water, and a limited range of snacks. Unfortunately, food offerings in 1st Class lounges have diminished over the last 10-15 years or so as operators try to cut costs, and so gone are the days of a wide range of soft drinks and decent snacks such as muffins. Despite this the lounge still is a great place to wait for a train, being much quieter and more comfortable than the concourse.
Heading down to board the train with about 20 minutes to go before departure, I was please to see that our train was going to be operated by 801226 ‘Together’ which is LNER’s Pride liveried unit. This nine car Azuma has a design which covers the length of the train, and “showcases all the vibrant LGBTQIA+ flags which blur together when travelling at speed”. This was actually my first time travelling on one of LNER’s named units, so it was nice to finally tick one off!
Unfortunately, from this point on, my memory of the journey is a bit fuzzy, partially (or entirely) because I seemingly wrote no notes about the journey! However, everything I remember was that it was another pleasant journey south with LNER. The food offering in weekend 1st is LNER’s ‘Deli’ menu which to put it bluntly is the most lacking of their various menus, essentially offering a choice of sandwiches and accompanying snacks.
I opted for the New York Deli sandwich, which was pretty tasty, accompanied by some crisps and a ‘raspberry pot’ desert. Alongside this I opted for a glass of wine and ended up being given around 1/3 of a bottle as the host looked at what was left and asked if I’d get through it by Peterborough. With a journey time of almost 4 hours, I was pretty confident I’d have a couple more glasses and so the bottle was mine!
Our journey south was a little quicker than the journey north as we passed through Moreth non-stop, whilst still having seven intermediate stops at Alnmouth, Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, York, Doncaster and Newark Northgate. All in all we had a journey time of 3 hours and 47 minutes which was nicely broken up with food and drink, some writing and some reading. We pulled into Peterborough’s platform 3 at 2147, just 1 minute late.
Once again this was a relaxing and enjoyable with LNER in 1st Class, although as with other inter-city operators (read about GWR here), their weekend 1st Class doesn’t have the same offering as Monday to Friday. The staff, as always, were absolutely great and are what really makes the journey enjoyable, and arriving home pretty much on time after a long travel day is always a bonus. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more LNER reviews on the blog in future, but until next time LNER, thanks for the great journey!
Lounge 4*
Seat/Facilities 4*
Food 3*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 18/25 (read about my rating system here!)
Flights & Times 