Prepped and Ready: The Unseen Railway Heroes Gearing Up for More Trains on Tracks this December
As the East Coast Main Line prepares to see its biggest uplift in rail services in more than decade, unseen heroes of the railway are working harder than ever to make sure trains are clean, maintained, and ready to carry millions of customers each year.
LNER’s Azuma fleet are maintained day and night behind the scenes by Hitachi Rail engineers at specialist train care depots at Craigentinny in Edinburgh, Doncaster, and Bounds Green & Ferme Park, north London, to make sure trains are available for customers to travel on.
From Sunday 14 December 2025, LNER will be running an extra 10,000 services per year and reducing journey times between London and Edinburgh to just over four hours, with 60,000 extra seats available across the East Coast Main Line (ECML) each week.
Thousands of extra services a year means more trains in use each day and those trains working harder. Depot teams have been busy supporting LNER and developing new ways of working so that, from the December change, fleet availability remains high, trains are clean and in good condition, and customer journeys are smooth, easy, and reliable.
At Bounds Green, working collaboratively with Hitachi to deliver the upgrade, LNER has funded an extension of the Wheel Lathe road. This now allows engineers to perform essential wheel maintenance on a 9-carriage Azuma train. Previously, the area was only long enough to work on the first seven carriages. This investment and upgrade helps Azuma trains receive maintenance more quickly and efficiently, keeping them on the tracks for customers.
Meanwhile, with LNER’s investment and Hitachi Rail’s installation of a new roof gantry at Craigentinny, engineers can now access train roofs without relocating units. This means that trains no longer need to be moved to a different area of the depot during a maintenance exam, shaving a full day off the time it is out of passenger service.
Colleagues at LNER and Hitachi Rail have worked together across all depots to optimise maintenance to make regular 30-day examinations more efficient to help train availability.
In addition to the Hitachi depots and third party depots, Clayhills depot at Aberdeen is operated by LNER. Here, engineers maintain their Azuma trains, alongside ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper rolling stock. Despite being close to the northernmost part of the LNER route, the depot has a crucial role to play in making sure trains are cleaned, maintained, and ready for customer service.
Linda Wain, Engineering Director at LNER, said: “Huge timetable changes like the one coming up in December don’t just happen. We have been working more closely than ever with our colleagues at Hitachi Rail to make sure that our fleet of Azuma trains are maintained and ready for operation, preparing to carry thousands of customers to destinations across our almost thousand-mile route each day.
“LNER and Hitachi Rail colleagues have been coming up with creative and innovative solutions to meet the extra services, committing additional funding for new equipment, and are continuing to develop new ways of working that will further enhance maintenance work and keep the availability of the fleet high.”
Mark Frost, Fleet Director at Hitachi Rail, said: “Throughout 2025, it has been a real team effort supporting LNER’s preparations for its timetable change. We have worked tirelessly and collaboratively to upgrade both depots and maintenance operational arrangements, while simultaneously preparing our workforce to meet LNER’s requirements for train availability.”
To find out more about the changes to the East Coast Main Line timetable, visit https://ecmltimetable.info/