The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has given the go-ahead for a service between London King's Cross station and Glasgow Queen Street station in Scotland from 14 December. A subsidiary of transport operator FirstGroup, the low-cost rail company Lumo will offer fares on its website from £33.90 (around €38.50) one way. Created five years ago and already present on the London-Edinburgh route (via Newcastle), Lumo will once again be competing on this London-Glasgow route with Avanti West Coast, which offers a more traditional rail service with a first class cabin. In fact, it will be an extension of the current Edinburgh to Glasgow route, with two daily weekday services compared to one for London, and one daily rotation on Sundays. Adjacent to St. Pancras International, London King's Cross station provides easy connections for travellers from theEurostar wishing to travel to Scotland. It's certainly a more environmentally-friendly journey in terms of carbon emissions than by air, but it's a particularly long one, taking around 9 hours by train from Paris.
London-Stirling in spring 2026
Lumo does not intend to stop there, as the company has already obtained authorisations to add a daily service to Newcastle-Upon-Tyre and to operate services from London to Hull, two cities located on the north-east coast of England. Here too, the airline will launch on 14 December, when the winter timetable is introduced. In spring 2026, it then plans to open a service between London Euston station and Stirling, another Scottish city located to the north of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
In the longer term, FirstGroup has already submitted applications to the ORR to operate routes from London to Rochdale (via Manchester), Cardiff and York (via Birmingham and Derby) by December 2028. This ambitious growth plan could prompt Lumo to find new trainsets. In the meantime, Lumo has announced a makeover for 5 of its Hitachi trains to enhance the comfort offered to its customers on nearly 2,000 seats. While the seats will be upholstered in the company's signature blue, passengers will also benefit from extra legroom and a large table equipped with an individual lamp.
