UK: FirstGroup has made initial submissions of three separate applications to the Office of Rail & Road for new and extended open access passenger train services which would be operated under its Lumo brand.
The ORR will now carry out a consultation exercise and discuss the applications with Network Rail.
Lumo plans Cardiff – York route
A new open access service between Cardiff, Birmingham, Derby, Sheffield and York is proposed from December 2028.
The application proposes six return services on weekdays and five on Saturdays, with four northbound trains on Sundays and three southbound.
FirstGroup said bringing Lumo’s low-cost model pioneered on the London – Edinburgh route to this corridor would improve access to jobs and services, support wider investment and development plans for the places served, and ‘join up the entire Great British Railway network, connecting all four main lines from the Great Western Main Line to the East Coast Main Line’.
Rochdale revival
FirstGroup is also making another attempt to obtain access rights go to launch Rochdale to London Euston services, which it envisages would start in December 2028.
FirstGroup said the latest application had been revised to address ORR’s concerns about network capacity set out in its July 2025 letter rejecting the original application, along with other applications from Virgin and the Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway joint venture of Alstom and SLC Rail.
ORR had said there was insufficient capacity on the southern section of the West Coast Main Line, and ‘to introduce any of these proposals would be detrimental to performance on the WCML and therefore all passengers and freight customers’.
FirstGroup said that through extensive modelling it has now identified sufficient space on the network to accommodate the proposed services. The services would also make use of recent government investment in the power supply.
There would be three return services on weekdays and Sundays, and four return services on Saturdays, and calling at Manchester Victoria, Eccles, Newton-le-Willows and Warrington Bank Quay. FirstGroup said this would ‘provide 1·6 million people in the northwest with a convenient and competitively priced direct rail service to London, encouraging people to switch from cars to train as well as providing additional rail capacity’.
Stirling access rights extension
FirstGroup is seeking to extend its existing Stirling to London Euston track access agreement, to enable it to operate services beyond May 2030.
Under the existing agreement FirstGroup plans to launch four return services on weekdays and Saturdays, and three on Sundays, ‘early in the company’s 2027 financial year’.
It said Stirling has a wide catchment area, with an estimated three million people living within an hour’s drive and extending the agreement would support a shift from car to rail and investment in the areas served.
Rolling stock
In December 2024 FirstGroup announced an agreement to lease 14 Hitachi trainsets which will be built at Newton Aycliffe for use on its London - Edinburgh Lumo service and future Carmarthen – London service. The agreement contains an option for FirstGroup to lease up to an additional 13 trainsets on the same terms.
If the latest applications are successful, FirstGroup would use the option to order five battery-electric trainsets for the Stirling route and three battery-electric trains for Rochdale services.
The Cardiff – York service would use refurbished Bombardier Transportation Class 222 inter-city diesel multiple-units previously used on the Midland Main Line.
‘Extensive experience’
Announcing the latest plans on October 28, FirstGroup CEO Graham Sutherland said ‘we have extensive experience of running open access rail operations in the UK, and passengers consistently rate our services highly.
’Our new services will allow us to bring the substantial benefits of open access to even more communities, at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Lumo also pays more towards infrastructure investment than other long-distance operators, delivering growth on the railway and connectivity to local communities, so the whole system gains.’
