Throughout the summer, I traveled between London King’s Cross and Edinburgh Waverley, photographing both stations and trains across the route. This projected noted some interesting changes in both station infrastructure, the railway in general and the quality of other services the further north I traveled.
I started my Journey in London King’s Cross, and worked my way northbound. The above photograph was taken in Kings Cross station, overlooking the new station roof. From here I boarded a LNER service heading north.
The next stop on my journey was Peterborough, a busy station with regular LNER trains to the capital. Here I photographed a busy commuter train loading passengers.
Grantham was my next stop, once again on an LNER service. This photograph shows a southbound view from the southern end its platform. Trains run through this station at around 100mph.
I arrived at my next station stop on the train that can be seen in the distance, a 1970’s designed ‘Intercity 125’ set. This photograph, taken from platform 1 looking northbound shows commuters waiting for a service to Edinburgh, which will be our final destination.
Doncaster is a regional hub on the East Coast route, and the point in which around half of all LNER trains leave the mainline here in order to head off to Leeds. Doncaster is home to the works, which can be seen to the left of this image. Local services can also be seen in this image, for Leeds and Hull respectively.
York is affectionally known as the epicentre of the nations railway, being the home of the National Railway Museum and the ROC. LNER is changing, with its current fleet of trains being replaced by the ‘AZUMA”. One of the new trains can be seen here in York, alongside its predecessor.
We eventually reach Darlington, where a stop is made for a hot chocolate at the cafe on the station. The photograph above shows an LNER service (albeit still carrying its predecessors branding) leaving the station towards Newcastle, a stop further along the route.
Durham station was my next call, the photo above taken looking south shows another operator on the East Coast line, Transpennine Express, with a service to Manchester and Leeds.
I spent time in Newcastle next, and took this simple image of a departure board. despite its simplicity I feel it to be effective and that it captures the mood of the station well.
Edinburgh was my final stop on this trip, and the final stop for many other LNER passengers. At Edinburgh, Virgin Trains also operate a service to their London terminal, which is Euston, just down the road from King’s Cross.
This project, which was for my Level 3 BTEC course has been enjoyable to work on, was loosely inspired by that of Paul Graham’s A1 work. The traveling aspect of this project made it further enjoyable and it is certainly something I would look to re-create in a future project. Thanks for reading, I do hope you’ve enjoyed this and my other content.
