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Hull Trains keen to open up new markets

Part two of Andy Comfort's focus on Hull Trains looks at the company’s recovery from the pandemic, and at its ambitions to run more services.

In this article:

  • Hull Trains faced severe financial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, suspending services three times without government support.
  • Refocused on leisure travel and returned to recovery, running longer trains and increasing weekly services.
  • The company is planning future expansions, including a potential new route between Sheffield and London by 2025.

Whereas East Midlands Railway is a franchised operator - and therefore continued to run with government support through COVID lockdowns - open access company Hull Trains’ services were suspended for a period. In this post-pandemic view, EMR 158865 and Hull Trains 802303 meet in Grantham on June 8 2022. PAUL CLARK.

“You must stay at home.”

The words of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, announcing the first national lockdown on March 23 2020 due to COVID-19, would have a profound effect on the entire rail industry - not least of all on an open access operator such as Hull Trains.

The company had begun the new decade in buoyant mood, with the first of its new bi-mode Class 802 Paragon trains having entered passenger service in December 2019.

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