NATIONAL Express East Coast has announced refined details of its proposed December 2009 timetable, with 25 new or all-day direct services to London from cities such as Lincoln, Harrogate and Bradford.

There will also be enhanced services to Scotland and North East England.

The expansion would bring the biggest improvement to the East Coast timetable since the route was electrified in 1991, making the most efficient use of available track capacity while creating at least 7,000 extra seats a day.

A change from East Coast’s original thinking is that it now plans to run the services with Class 180 ‘Adelante’ 125mph diesel trains in addition to its existing fleets of refurbished diesel and electric trains. It originally suggested the use of Mark 3 coaches with electric or diesel locos.

The new direct services are part of the National Express commitment given when it took over the East Coast franchise last December.

The plans – which have been submitted to the Office of Rail Regulation for approval and which could face competition for paths from ‘open access’ operators – include a new service every two hours to and from Lincoln, with one train a day extending to Grimsby and Cleethorpes; a train every two hours between London, Leeds and Harrogate, and a London to Leeds service extension to Bradford Forster Square every hour.

There may also be extra services to the Aire Valley and Skipton if electrical supply issues can be overcome.

National Express East Coast managing director David Franks said: “We are proposing a new, even-interval time-table with a more balanced spread of fast and frequent services.

“Our proposals are unique in that they spread the benefit of additional services throughout the route.”

•    A £55 million investment is set to bring more reliable journeys through Lincolnshire as Network Rail begins the final phase of track and signalling renewal through the centre of Lincoln.

The line will be closed from Saturday 19 July until Monday 1 September to enable engineers to renew track and 22 switches and crossings, and to replace semaphore signals with state-of-the-art computer-controlled LED colour lights.

Also, the High Street level crossing will be converted to CCTV monitoring and the road decking replaced.

East Midlands Trains commercial director David Horne said that the Lincolnshire project was partly tied to the introduction of direct services between Lincoln and St Pancras International, which will be launched at the end of this year.