East Coast Main Line Trains at Stevenage on July 30th 2021

2nd visit to Stevenage on the East Coast Main Line featuring services from LNER, Great Northern, Thameslink, Grand Central and Hull Trains plus a bit of freight as well as some very wet conditions and this would be my last video filmed on the iPhone 11 because from next video onwards all spotting videos will be filmed on iPhone 12 Pro.

Stevenage station opened on July 23rd 1973 eventhough its located slightly away from the town itself.

Before Stevenage opened the 1st intermediate stop for intercity services between London Kings Cross and Peterborough was Hitchin.

The station today served by Thameslink and Great Northern under Govia Thameslink Railway services from Cambridge and Peterborough as well as LNER services from York, Harrogate, Lincoln Central and Hourly Leeds services

Hull Trains mostly run non stop here however the only occasional stop they make is mostly Sundays with 1st stop for their services to Hull or Beverley is Grantham which since November 2019 now operated by 5 car Class 802 Paragons with the name Paragon comes from the terminus in Hull of Hull Paragon Interchange.

Thameslink Class 700s nowadays operate services to and from Peterborough to Horsham, Cambridge to Brighton via St Pancras International and a semi fast service from London Kings Cross to Cambridge.

Class 717s built for Great Northern are nearly similar to the Class 700s on Thameslink although with a few differences with the front cab door being fitted for use in emergency especially underground between Drayton Park and Moorgate.

These replaced the Class 313s which were withdrawn on the line in October 2019 having been in service since 1976 with the only surviving 313s nowadays on there West and East Coastway Lines out of Brighton on Southern although their days in service are numbered.

Today all services to and from Moorgate via Hertford North terminate exclusively via Platform 5 which opened in August 2020 which was built to free a critical bottleneck for stopping services.

The other Great Northern services to Ely and Kings Lynn via Cambridge nowadays operated by Class 387s run non stop through here

LNER services nowadays been mostly taken over by Class 800 and 801 Azumas although their differences is the 801s are electric only with the furthest north it can go is Stirling

The Class 800s operate in electric and diesel which includes non electrified routes including Aberdeen, Inverness, Harrogate, Hull and Lincoln Central and soon from December 2021 Middlesbrough.

The Class 91s been on the East Coast Main Line since 1988 are on borrowed time although nowadays only operate services to Leeds or York.

At the time of filming another open access operator East Coast Trains was preparing to launch their 5 return services a day to and from Edinburgh with only calling points at Stevenage, Newcastle and Morpeth.

Since filming on September 7th East Coast Trains was rebranded as Lumo which was due to launch in October using 5 car Class 803s however unlike the 800s, 801s and 802s the 803s are standard class only although the basis of the design is similar to the 801s being electric only however will be fitted with onboard batteries in case of failure to supply power although for a limited amount of time.

Music used:
JJD - Adventure
Music provided by NCS

Video link:
NoCopyrightSounds
   • JJD - Adventure | Glitch Hop | NCS - Copyr...  

Filmed on Friday July 30th 2021 on iPhone 11 and edited on iMovie

#lner #stevenage #hitachi #azuma #class800 #class801 #class802 #grandcentral #class700 #class91