How to take the rail journey from London to Newcasle

Final Destination:

Newcastle, Edinburgh: Traevlling on Azuma and a few Intercity 225 trains
Aberdeen, Inverness or Stirling: all Azuma trains

All trains also call at: York and Darlington

On the usual timetable, the departures at 00 minutes past the hour are faster than the trains, which leave at 30 minutes past the hour, because they make fewer station calls.

Some trains also call at: Durham

The London to Newcastle service by LNER trains has been transformed, because after 41 years of service, the InterCity 125 trains have ceased operating on the East Coast main line!

They have been replaced by the brand new Azuma trains on the majority of departures to Newcastle' when you look up a journey on the LNER website it shows whether an Azuma or an InterCity 225 train will be used on a departure.

LNER is undertaking a trial for a new approach for long-distance rail tickets on the London to Newcastle route - instead of Advance, Off Peak and Anytime tickets, travellers can choose between.

1: Fixed Tickets - like Advance tickets they can only be used on the specific departure selected when booking, hence the new name.
This type of ticket can't be refunded from two hours after booking, if you subsequently change your travel plans, or miss the train in circumstances not to do with a connecting train.
A £10 admin fee will be payable if you want to exchange your ticket to a different departure to the same destination, to that which you selected when making your booking PLUS you will ALSO be charged any price difference with the new ticket you'll then have to purchase.

2: Semi Flexible aka 'the 70 Min Flex tickets:
When booking you will choose a specific departure, but can then swap the ticket to an alternative departure leaving 70mins before or after the chosen train, without incurring additional charges.
If you instead want to choose a different departure outside of those 70 min windows, you will need to pay the £10 admin fee and the price difference if the alternative train you select is more expensive.
This type of ticket can't be refunded from two hours after booking.

3: Fully Flexible aka Advance tickets
When booking you will choose a specific departure, but can then swap the ticket to an alternative departure leaving at anytime on your travel date, or on the day before, or after.
The tickets are refundable up to 28 days from your ticket’s expiry date, but if you don't choose another journey you will be charged a £10 admin fee.

Travelling on Monday - Friday:

Tickets are usually available 12 weeks ahead of the travel date.

However, when you look up a journey you may see dates further ahead on the calendar, but you'll be informed that tickets aren't yet available for those dates.
On the LNER website you'll be prompted to sign up to a Ticket Alert service - if you will be using a PC, over on the right on the screen you'll be taken to, you'll see the furthest date ahead that tickets can be booked for.

Travelling on Saturday-Sunday

Tickets are usually available 12 weeks ahead of the travel date, but maintenance work on the route is periodically undertaken at weekends and if it is scheduled on your travel date, it can affect when tickets will be released for sale.

If you're looking up a journey less than 12 weeks ahead and tickets aren't available, it can be a good indication that works will be impacting on your travel date.
It can be worth checking this on the National Rail website - enter LNER as the operator.

Making an end-to-end journey will still be possible, so it can be worth signing up to LNER's ticket alert service, though you MAY ultimately have to take a substitution bus service for part of the trip.
It's the confirmation of these alternative travel arrangements which can hold up the release of the tickets for sale.

Reservations:

When you book an Advance ticket for a London to Newcastle journey on an LNER train, you will be automatically assigned a seat(s), but if you book the other types of ticket ahead, you can request a complimentary reservation - more info on this

Seat reservations aren't automatically included when booking Off Peak or Anytime tickets online, but you can add the complimentary reservation, once you've made choice of departure, either when booking or afterwards.
When booking walk-up tickets at a station ticket counter, if the Advance tickets aren't available for the next departure, confirm whether a seat reservation has been added to the booking of an Anytime or Off Peak ticket, in theory reservations will be available until around 5 mins pre-departure.

If you will be using a rail pass, including a Britrail or Eurail pass, you should be able to obtain a reservation, at no charge, from a ticket counter up until 5 mins before the departure; keep this in mind as it is not the norm when using rail passes in Britain.

Receiving Your Ticket(s) booked with LNER

The four options for receiving your ticket(s) are:

(1) You will receive a booking reference number on your order confirmation email and you can use this reference number to collect ticket(s) from a ticket machine.
Some stations will have dedicated ticket collection machines, but standard ticket machines will also have an option for collecting pre-booked tickets.

You will need to enter your reference number into the machine, so make sure you'll have easy access to it when you are using the machine.
You will also need to insert the specific credit or debit card you used when making the booking, so have that with you too.

Showing the email you have received to staff at the ticket gates won't get you on to the train, nor will this be valid if you can only show the email to the conductor when you are on the train.

If you forget to bring your ticket(s) with you to the station, but do have the card with you that you used when booking, you can use the machines to collect your ticket(s).

Take your time and take care that you have picked up all your ticket(s) and seat reservations.

(2) Print off the tickets you receive before heading to the station - the instructions for doing this are available here.

(3) Opt to pay an additional charge to have your tickets posted to you; not available when booking tickets from outside the UK.

(4) Mobile tickets - if you select this option when making a booking you will need to download the LNER Travel Buddy app so that you can 'Activate' your ticket.

The LNER website states that 'Advance' tickets will be automatically activated, but there's no suggestion on the LNER website that it will be OK to save the ticket(s) you will receive as a PDF to your mobile device.
So download the app to be sure that you can use a mobile ticket.

The potential to save by splitting tickets on Trainline

It can be worth looking up this journey on Trainline.

It can be possible to save money by using split ticketing, with the booking process being no more complicated than booking conventional tickets - find out more.

Lumo is a relatively new rail operator which offers a more-basic alternative to travelling on LNER's trains.
If you want to travel in Standard Class and...

• are happy to take your own food/drink on board with you
• want access to WiFi during the journey
• won't be travelling with more than one medium suitcase per person
• won't be taking a bike
• and aren't that bothered by seeing the view from the windows (comparatively few of the seats on Lumo trains line up well with the windows)
  ...then travelling with Lumo seems to compare well with travelling with LNER.

The core differences between the Lumo trains and the Azuma trains used by LNER are:

First Class:
LNER = available
Lumo = not available

Bar/bistro car:
LNER = available
Lumo = not available

At seat catering:
LNER = available
Lumo = available, but more substantial items such as sandwiches need to be pre-ordered up to 10 hours prior to departure

Large suitcases:
LNER = yes
Lumo = no

Non-folding bicycles:
LNER = yes, spaces can be reserved
Lumo = no

Book early and save: Yes

Online bookings usually open 24 weeks ahead of the travel date.

Lumo only offers two types of tickets for sale: Anytime and Lumo Fixed, which are its equivalent of discounted Advance tickets.
The prices of Lumo Fixed tickets will be cheaper the further ahead that they are booked and in common with Advance tickets they are departure specific, so include complimentary seat reservations.
They can be changed right up to the time of departure for any future without any admin fees, though any price difference to travel by the different departure will be payable.

Something to look out for is that the cheapest price of Lumo Fixed tickets are lower than cheapest prices of Advance tickets sold by LNER for London to Newcastle journeys, but these cheapest prices will sell out at different rates on each operator.
So it's worth comparing prices on your travel date(s), particularly if you won't be booking months ahead, you may find cheaper prices available on some LNER departures.