CrossCountry launches Cardiff-Edinburgh service - operator explains how it's boosted capacity

CrossCountry has launched its new Cardiff-Edinburgh service, reconnecting the two capital cities by rail for the first time this century.

A Welsh male voice choir serenaded the 0945 departure from Cardiff Central on December 16, as the four-car Class 220 began the 455-mile journey to Scotland. Four hours later, a bagpiper played before the southbound service left Edinburgh Waverley.

One train each weekday now links the two cities, with the northbound service joining the 0628 from Penzance at Birmingham New Street, and arriving at Edinburgh at 1708. The southbound 1307 to Cardiff and Plymouth service splits at Gloucester, arriving at 2007 and 2151 respectively.

Bethan Jelfs, CrossCountry’s Regional Director for West & Wales, said it had been an aspiration for the operator for some time to connect Wales, England and Scotland.

Speaking at the launch in Cardiff, she said the connectivity was about “bringing people, our communities and our businesses closer together. It’s about creating opportunities, and it’s about offering more sustainable travel.”

Expanding on the creativity aims, Richard Gibson, Stakeholder Manager at CrossCountry, told RAIL: “It’s going to be similar to Aberdeen-Penzance. Occasionally, people do the whole journey, most do it for part of the way.

“It’s about creating journey opportunities,” he added, citing Cardiff-York or Newcastle as one example.

“We are putting in opportunities for people to take the train to other places. The whole network - you are one change away.”

The Cardiff-Edinburgh service has replaced one of CrossCountry’s morning departures for Nottingham. For several years this route, operated by Class 170 diesel multiple units, has been the only regular XC service into Cardiff.

CrossCountry Head of Industry Projects Nathan Thompson explained that the South East Wales Transport Commission, chaired by Lord Burns, had highlighted “a lot of good access going to London, but apart from Nottingham there was nothing in a northbound direction”.

He said the commission had also recommended improvements to the on-board experience, following staff feedback which had reported that the 0945 service - XC’s first off-peak departure towards Nottingham, operated by a two-car Class 170 - was often “full and standing” from the start.

“We didn’t have any other three-car ‘170s’,” said Thompson. “Putting this [Voyager] on addresses overcrowding issues we had.”

On the first day, nearly all seats on the four-car Class 220 were filled by the time it reached Birmingham.

The new diagram means that two other services - the 0649 from Derby and 2103 to Birmingham New Street - also switch from Turbostar to Voyager operation, as the units on the route don’t start or finish their diagrams in Cardiff.

Thompson also explained how CrossCountry had rearranged the coupling process when the two Voyagers meet in Birmingham.

Passengers can disembark and board the Cardiff service for around ten minutes at New Street before doors are locked, when the Penzance train follows it in. The Voyagers are then coupled together before doors on the rear unit are unlocked for passengers to get on and off, before the service departs.

The new route is set to remain a weekday-only service for at least a year, while CrossCountry studies the data from the first months of operation to understand if there is demand for a weekend journey, and if such a diagram would be possible around engineering works that could significantly extend journey times.

CrossCountry has also recently accepted three Class 221s previously used by Avanti West Coast (the last of which ran on December 14), with another nine due to join in 2025.

The first refurbishment of a Class 170 has begun. The first of 70 Voyager units enter the workshop in 2025, with the Avanti ‘221s’ set to be towards the end of the queue.

The £60 million deal with Alstom was announced in August 2024. Units will be overhauled at Alstom’s Derby Litchurch Lane site, with new seats, tables, carpets and lighting promised, as well as a new livery.

Work should be completed by the end of 2027.