East Coast will carry your bags in the guard’s van

Modern trains with old fashioned service!

As the train operator of the main line service between Edinburgh and London, East Coast come in for a fair amount of flack, so we want to share with you some news about a great service which they are offering right now during August, and which we benefitted from over last weekend.

When you get to King’s Cross station, they will take your bags in the guard’s van (which is situated at the very back of the train) thus saving you all the bother and harassment of carrying and stowing your cases at either end of the carriage. It is old style service and it is free. They give you a ticket for your case and you simply pick it up from the back of the train at Waverley.

The Reporter spoke to the East Coast Media Office and their spokesman explained that they know when a train is going to be busy from the online bookings. So they have taken on about 100 temporary staff and about 100 volunteers who are working in all stations but especially at King’s Cross this August. ” The travel patterns are a lot different because of the Olympic Games and we have extra staff to try and help customers with their luggage. We help with that where we have the means and the people to do it. We have organised this service in previous years for the Edinburgh Festival when the trains are particularly busy. It really helps the trains to run on time.”

They have guidelines on their website as to how much luggage you can take on a train with you, and that is also mostly free of charge, except for really large items. Sadly the luggage service may only be available during the Olympics and the Edinburgh Festival which is one of their busiest times, unless of course we like the service and tell them so!

East Coast operates on routes totalling 920 miles, from Inverness and Aberdeen to London with 43 trains; 30 electric trains, called Mallards, and 13 diesel trains, known as HSTs (High Speed Trains). They run 136 services per weekday and around 90 services on Saturdays and Sundays.