Major East Coast Main Line disruptions: Yorkshire passengers warned as King's Cross shuts on January and February weekends

Passengers traveling through Yorkshire stations on the East Coast Main Line are being urged to plan ahead due to significant disruptions caused by planned engineering work over consecutive weekends.

Services will be impacted on January 25 and 26and February 1 and 2, with London King’s Cross station completely closed during these periods.

There will be no direct trains to and from London King’s Cross, affecting major services. LNER will operate a reduced service to Peterborough, where passengers will transfer to rail replacement coaches to Bedford, connecting to Thameslink services for travel to London St Pancras.

Hull Trains will run only two trains per day in each direction, rerouted to St Pancras instead of King’s Cross.

Lumo's service will also be reduced, providing a non-stop rail replacement coach between King’s Cross and Peterborough. Grand Central will operate a limited service from Sunderland to Peterborough, with coach connections to London.

Notably, there will be no services to and from Bradford, and EMR services to and from London St Pancras are expected to be extremely busy.

Passengers are advised to use Thameslink services and interchange at Bedford for rail replacement services to Peterborough.

Additionally, there will be no Thameslink or Great Northern services between London and Peterborough, Royston, and Stevenage via Hertford North.

These disruptions are due to essential improvements to track, drainage, and overhead lines, as well as preparatory work for the East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP), aimed at introducing more reliable and greener journeys through in-cab digital signalling.

Simon Pumphrey, Network Rail infrastructure director, explained, “The work our teams will be carrying out over both these weekends goes well beyond regular maintenance tasks.

“This work is carefully planned to maximize the time when there are track closures, allowing us to undertake several projects at once and avoid more frequent track closures.

“We’re sorry to passengers affected by the disruption and thank them for their patience as we make improvements that will help make the railway more reliable.”

A spokesperson for LNER, Hull Trains, Lumo, and Grand Central advised passengers, “Customers are advised to plan ahead and check before they travel, with the latest journey details available on our websites and social media feeds.

“Our colleagues will be on hand to help people’s journeys run as smoothly as possible through both weekends while this work takes place.”

The engineering work includes renewing the line north of Stevenage, investing in bridge timbers south of Finsbury Park, upgrading switch and crossing equipment at Welwyn Garden City, tunnel drainage work at Hadley Wood, and improving overhead line equipment at Biggleswade and Bounds Green.

Under-track cables will also be installed between Biggleswade and Peterborough as part of the £1.4 billion ECDP project, following testing of the new signalling system between Welwyn and Hitchin during the Christmas shutdown.