This year has been an exciting one for Lumo and the communities we serve along the East Coast between Edinburgh and London with lots to look forward to in 2025.
Pioneering partnerships
Lumo has proudly launched several new partnerships in Scotland during the past year with the Holyrood Distillery being helping customers along our route enjoy a true taste of Scotland. Lumo’s popular single malt scotch whisky, distilled by the Holyrood Distillery, is now being served exclusively onboard Lumo services operating between Edinburgh, Newcastle and London King’s Cross.
Customers can now choose between our special whisky, wine, beer and soft drinks, all served in recyclable containers as Lumo was the first train company in Britain to eradicate plastic bottles onboard.
As part of Edinburgh Cocktail Week Lumo hosted a gathering of guests from across Scotland to showcase our sustainable ‘wonky’ drinks by serving-up sustainable cocktails using our onboard soft-drink supplier, Flawsome. Our continued partnership with Edinburgh’s Gravity Beer festival also helped welcome more people to the city to promote local brewers and the vibrant visitor economy.
Supporting arts & culture
Our services offered a platform for new and emerging talent in Scotland during the Edinburgh Fringe as we hosted a number of onboard performances from Stageworks East West who wowed customers to numbers from a Bay City Rollers tribute show ‘I Ran With The Gang’ which performed in Edinburgh and London during the summer months.
Championing sustainability
Lumo proudly continued our partnership with the Edinburgh Science Festival and Co-Labs. We joined Transform Scotland on Earth Day 2024 to help better promote rail as the low-carbon, fully electric and sustainable alternative to flying or driving.
We achieved an industry-leading 96% customer satisfaction score. Our services continue to prove popular, partly thanks to lead-in fares on some Lumo services between Edinburgh and London starting from £24.90.
Innovative approach
Lumo was named ‘Green Innovation Business of the Year’ at the recent North East Chamber of Commerce awards and last month was named ‘Best Business at Reducing Carbon Emissions’ at the Institute of Supply Chain Management Awards. Local supply chains are a key part of our DNA at Lumo. From our onboard beer originally brewed in Leith to our trains being maintained at Hitachi’s Craigentinny dept and onboard products including Edinburgh Gin, Walkers shortbread and Irn Bru, we champion Scotland the length of the East Coast Main Line.
Looking forward
As plans are underway for Railway 200 celebrations, Lumo is proud to be Headline Partner for the Community Rail Network Awards in 2025. The awards will be the 20th anniversary year for the awards which celebrate the thriving grassroots movement in community rail across the UK.
Lumo has also announced plans to even better connect Scotland. We are working alongside industry partners, Transport Scotland and Network Rail to agree final route options and timings for rights to extend some daily Lumo services to and from Glasgow. After achieving more than three million customer journeys since lunching in October 2021, we are excited for Lumo continuing to support, celebrate and champion Scotland in the years ahead.
