Hull Trains 25th anniversary marks milestone on main line

Hull Trains 25th anniversary sees the operator looking back over a quarter of a century of services between East Yorkshire and London, a story the company also reflects on in its overview Hull Trains celebrates 25 years of pioneering services.

Hull Trains 25th anniversary and service growth

The city-based company, which forms part of transport group First Group, first moved onto the main line on 25 September 2000, using a three-carriage train borrowed from another operator to run its inaugural service.

This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

Since then, the business has evolved into a modern operation with a fleet of five-car, state-of-the-art 125mph electric and diesel trains.

Over the last year alone, Hull Trains carried 1.5 million passengers and now has the capacity to handle 40,000 customers every week, underscoring how its East Yorkshire to London services have expanded over time.

Further expansion is already on the way. Approval has been granted for an eighth service from London to Hull, running Mondays to Saturdays from December, a step also noted by Railway Supply. This extra path on the timetable is intended to give passengers more options and added resilience on the busy inter-city corridor.

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Hitachi bi-modal trains and East Yorkshire route

To back up this growth, a new fleet of bi-modal trains ordered from Hitachi is expected to lift capacity further once it comes into service. The company, which remains East Yorkshire’s only operator funded entirely through ticket sales, opened its anniversary year by calling at a different station: for one week in January, trains served Goole instead of Howden and Selby so that passengers could keep moving while there were works on the line. This reliance on ticket revenue connects with a wider industry discussion of ticket-funded operations explored in an analysis of such operations.

In that same month, Hull’s blue-coated volunteers — who first appeared in 2016 to support the city’s year as UK City of Culture — were thanked with Monday return trips to London.

As the Hull Trains 25th anniversary year continues, these gestures and service improvements highlight how the operator is celebrating its history while preparing for the next stage of its journey.

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