London Northwestern Railway celebrates one year of new electric train fleet

Tuesday, 9 June 2026

Millions of passengers have travelled on one of Britain’s newest train fleets in their first year in service, operator London Northwestern Railway (LNR) has confirmed.

The Class 730/2 electric train fleet entered service exactly 12 months ago – on 9 June 2025 – and has been credited with revolutionising the travel experience to/from London Euston. The fleet, built in the UK by Alstom, is made up of 36 five-carriage trains – a total of 180 carriages – and has increased capacity on LNR routes to/from Euston by a fifth.

The fleet was gradually introduced to the route between Northampton and London Euston from June 2025 before entering service on the Trent Valley Line between Crewe and Euston in December 2025, serving destinations including Milton Keynes, Rugby and Lichfield.

One year on, the rollout is now complete and has led to a major 20% increase in customer satisfaction on LNR’s busy Trent Valley Line services as well as a 10% increase on the route towards Northampton, with passengers quick to praise the trains’ spacious interiors.

As part of the recent national timetable change in May, the continuing rollout of the new fleet meant LNR was able to introduce 42,000 extra seats on its services to and from Euston every week, significantly increasing capacity on busy commuter and leisure routes.

To celebrate the additional capacity, LNR is giving away thousands of half-price train tickets booked through its app before Monday 21 June for travel up to Friday 31 July.

Jonny Wiseman, customer experience director at LNR, said: “These modern electric trains have made a massive difference for the millions of commuter and leisure passengers who travel on our services to and from London Euston every year.

“It’s fantastic to see how our customer satisfaction scores have risen since their introduction 12 months ago and we look forward to building on the success of the fleet as we move towards an integrated publicly owned railway.”

The successful rollout of the Class 730/2 fleet was hailed at this year’s Rail Industry Planning Awards and played a major role in LNR being named Train Operator of the Year at the 2026 Rail Business Awards.

Other destinations served by the Class 730/2s include Birmingham New Street, Coventry, Watford Junction, Leighton Buzzard, Tamworth and Nuneaton.

To find out more about the fleet, visit: www.lnr.uk/newtrains

To learn more about the discounted tickets, visit: www.lnr.uk/more-seats

About London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway

For further information on this release, email [email protected]

• London Northwestern Railway services operate between Liverpool and Birmingham, and on the West Coast Main Line to and from London Euston.

• West Midlands Railway services operate to destinations across the West Midlands via Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Snow Hill.

For more information on these services visit westmidlandsrailway.co.uk or londonnorthwesternrailway.co.uk

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