More details of Grand Central's Newcastle-Brighton plan as they want to "run in parallel" with CrossCountry services

A new cross-country open access service between Newcastle and Brighton via Gatwick would “offer a transformational benefit” to customers by allowing them to avoid London.

That’s the claim made by Grand Central (GC), as it prepares to submit its application to the Office of Rail and Road.

The Arriva-owned operator announced plans on April 25 for a cross-country service, beginning in December 2026, that would call at Durham, Darlington, Northallerton, York and Doncaster on the East Coast Main Line.

From there trains would head south-east to Sheffield, Derby, Burton on Trent and Birmingham New Street, before stopping at Warwick Parkway, Banbury, Oxford and Reading.

After Reading it’s planned to use the North Downs Line, calling at Wokingham, Guildford and Redhill, and reversing at the latter to serve Gatwick Airport, Haywards Heath and Brighton.

End-to-end journey times are forecast to take up to seven hours, with four full-length services planned. An additional round trip is planned for between both Newcastle and Birmingham and Brighton and Birmingham.

The proposed route traces the one used by CrossCountry (XC) between Newcastle and Reading.

In its application form, Grand Central said that in 2023 XC “reduced access rights to align with services which were operating following the COVID-19 pandemic”.

While there is an intent to increase service levels as part of the May 2025 and December 2025 timetables, “it does not appear to be proposed that service levels will return to pre-COVID levels,” GC said.

“GC is therefore proposing to invest in complementing the existing and proposed service offering between Newcastle and Reading, but with beneficial connections to Gatwick Airport and Brighton, returning service levels to pre-pandemic levels.”

CrossCountry currently runs four southbound services between Newcastle and Reading and three northbound Monday-Saturday following the same route, along with two northbound services to York and a southbound service from York on Saturdays. It also has three Reading-Newcastle Sunday services in its timetable, and plans to increase its Newcastle-Reading services from May.

Before the pandemic, 12 operated each way Monday-Saturday (including one weekday train to and from Guildford until 2019), along with five on Sundays.

In its draft P Form for industry consultation, Grand Central said: “Where the proposed GC service runs in parallel with existing CrossCountry services, new station stops add to the passenger offering, providing new connectivity and to bring passengers the benefits of excellent customer service and value for money associated with existing GC services.”

It also said services would “allow for new direct rail connectivity between the South Coast, in particular London Gatwick and the Midlands and North East of England”, by removing the need to go through London.

At present all northbound trains from Gatwick go into or through London, apart from Great Western Railway’s service to Reading. Gatwick Airport has publicly welcomed the application.

Despite not using the full length of the ECML, services would traverse the section between Newcastle King Edward Bridge South and Northallerton Longlands Junction, which Network Rail has said will meet its formal Congested Infrastructure declaration from December 2025.

NR has issued concerns about the performance of the ECML once the new timetable is introduced in December. It is thought that the upcoming increase in trains using the route will make it a challenge to include the Grand Central cross-country services.

Arriva wants a seven-year access contract using Class 180 Adelante or ‘22x’ diesel multiple units. It currently operates ten ‘180s’ and two Class 221s on the East Cost Main Line. Four more Adelantes are currently off-lease, while East Midlands Railway-operated Class 222s are set to start coming off-lease later this year.

Class 22x units are also in demand from several other applicants, including FirstGroup, Virgin and SLC Rail/Alstom.

Further south, the North Downs Line currently has a two trains per hour service. A recent strategy document featured a potential future timetable which included one Reading-Gatwick service potentially continuing to Brighton.

Brighton was last served by a cross-country service in 2008. It ran from Manchester via Reading, Kensington Olympia and Clapham Junction.