[Voice off camera] Lights, camera, action!
Thank you, ha ha ... morning!
He's excited.
Yeah, as am I.
Hello, good morning.
I'm at King's Cross, it is Monday the 25th of October, 2021
and there is a brand new train operator in town.
Here is the logo,
that o though, we could do is just,
(car hoots)
raising that up.
There we go.
That's the Lumo logo.
Lumo, really cheap way to get from London here
up to Edinburgh, Scotland, like this.
Today's trip on the Monday is the first passenger service
but I'd also been invited in the press event
which took place four days prior on the Thursday
in the previous week.
Back then, it was all speeches and flashing lights
and press photos.
Today though, it's with an actual passenger train
carrying actual passengers.
And those passengers are either going to just Newcastle,
Morpeth or Edinburgh Waverley,
as those are the only stations
that this train is calling at.
Although in future,
when the service has expanded from two return services a day
up to five,
some of them will also be stopping at Stephen Edge as well.
Check their timetable to see which ones.
But what is the journey like?
Lets go in.
So it's a bright blue train,
it's a Hitachi, it's class 803 001.
It's five car, it's diesel only,
it's not a bi-mode.
I beg your pardon, but I said diesel only.
It's electric only.
It's not diesel.
Thank you.
There's a little bit of battery power, we'll discuss that.
And I've got to get on 'cause it's 10:40
and it leaves in five minutes at 10:45.
So let's talk about their cheap fares then,
because straightaway I need someone on board
who's also got themselves an incredibly cheap ticket.
This is Chelsea.
Hello!
Hello, thanks for being in my video.
No worries at all.
What's your website?
Cheapholidayexpert.com
Now, we're talking to you
because you bought your ticket
for a ridiculously cheap price
when this was first announced.
So how much did you pay and buy and when?
It was £13.10, but that was with a 26 to 30 rail car
which I'm desperately clinging onto as a 31 year old
It will come to an end
but I'm making the most of it whilst I can.
That's it here.
You wanna see the price?
I do a bit.
There we go, 13 pounds and 10 pence.
Well, that's the one as one way.
That is.
And you're coming back tomorrow.
I have booked tomorrow's--
So essentially it's £26 return to Edinburgh.
It's ridiculous, isn't it?
But this is only like an introductory offer,
is that right?
That is Correct.
So it's, well, after the five week initial period
go up to £30 I believe, for the cheapest ticket
but with a rail car, that would be £20 as well.
And in general, that's gonna be for 60% of the tickets.
So are Lumo trying to take on the other train operators?
Well, no, says their customer experience director,
whom I got to speak to in the previous week,
whilst on the press trip.
We're really keen on making sure
we remove barriers to travel and ticket pricing,
and complexity is one of those key items.
60% of our tickets will be priced at £30.
We're obviously accepting rail cards as well,
which will discount that figure for customers.
And we're really offering a very, very competitive price.
Our target market
are people who flew between London and Edinburgh.
So prior to COVID,
74,000 people were flying between the two cities.
We're really trying to target that market
to take the greener option, take the cheaper option,
sit back, relax, enjoy our service
and meet our team.
Time to head to the vestibule,
to explain the amenities and see where the toilets are.
So I'm in carriage D, carriage C is that way.
The thing you must know, in case you don't know,
this whole thing about the cheap ticket
is because there's only one class.
Now they're not even calling it standard class,
they're just saying it's one class, it's just one class.
The point is, there's no first class on this train.
It's only a five car train,
it's the Hitachi AO3.
It's five cars.
And there's a toilet in every carriage.
So there's these, the regular toilets inside the carriages,
and there's the accessible toilet at each end
and there's also the bike racks too
which are being used here, as luggage storage.
And I wanna go and see where the accessible area is.
The accessible area is in carriage A
and is exactly the same as on other Hitachi trains.
I spoke to this wheelchair user passenger
who said that they'd have no problem with booking assistance
and getting on board.
(train engine roars)
[Automated Machine] The door is now locked.
Just to know it's the standard Hitachi toilet.
Nothing else to say,
oh, except there's my reflection.
It's the standard Hitachi toilet
as you get on the other client 800s.
Good morning, we will shortly commence
our seat trolley service offering quote-unquote
refreshments in a variety of snaps.
All details items available can be found in our Lumo App.
This is Nick.
Hello.
You're excited.
I am
Because of the York thing?
Yes, very much.
What happened to york Nick?
York, so most trains go through York,
but this Lumo train avoids it on the bypass avoiding line.
It's our first opportunity and my first opportunity
and we're all very excited.
Do you have one of those maps which you colour in,
do you colour in the map?
Well, I better do one for this particular journey.
Yeah, I wanna see you colour in a map Nick.
I'll do something on Twitter,
I'm really looking forward to it.
This was actually the moment
from the press trip last week,
when we went up the avoiding lines,
and I got a shot out at the window.
And is it me or is that a,
yep, altogether now, it's an allotment.
(train engine roaring)
Back in under the vestibules,
I'm picking on Danielle, a member of the staff here,
because what happens is that,
there's no guard on this train.
There's no train managers.
On a Lumo train they call them ambassadors,
ambassadors, wearing their very blue
Star fleet command Star Trekkie star uniforms.
What happens is that at the moment
there is a catering service coming down
they bring down a trolley,
but Danielle, you can also, I gather,
you can order food in advance by the app,
how does that work?
You can, yes.
So on our App you can order, what's called a LUMOEATS
so you pre-order,
and basically that will come up the train
and we delivered that first
so any pre-order you make,
we will deliver that to your seat straight away
and then the app seat trolley service will commence.
Like, in my seat I checked out some of the basics.
There's one three pin plug socket, the right way up.
And two USB As share between the two seats.
There's a fold down table with a light too,
which if you press the button for a second time,
actually dims its light, which is nice.
And then I realised that the tray table
actually extends out and it almost,
also almost meant
that I could open my laptop screen the whole way.
Something which I don't think I've ever been able to do
on any other train.
The red and green lights for the reservation system
didn't seem to be working at this time,
but it was enabled later.
Most people put their luggage in the space above,
but as you'd expect, for London to Edinburgh service,
there was a lot of luggage and it was quite tricky
to squeeze it all in.
So there's the socket, tray table and light,
but this is the biggest thing
which people will be asking a question about
and that is, how comfortable are the seats?
Well, there's two things to test here.
By the way you've got the sliding down on the window
so you've got these great elbow test,
it's, can you get your elbow in there
and rest your elbow in?
And normally I would just rest my elbow
and then put my head on my wrist.
But the great thing about these trains
is that they've got these side head rests, so right here,
which means you can totally just like lean in,
and no need to rest your elbow
'cause you can just rest your head.
And my eyes are asleep.
I'm gonna have a nap.
So I'm gonna have a nap.
So people say, is it comfortable?
I would say, can you fall asleep?
And I can tell you that on the press trip last Thursday,
for about half an hour, I completely fell asleep.
And you'll note there that I fell asleep
in the windowless seat.
Let's discuss that for a moment
So I don't know what to call this.
This is like, it's the corner seat
on every train, on either end
there's a seat here,
(platform knocks)
which has got no window.
Now, I've put this out on Twitter last week.
And this caused great divide,
'cause some people were saying,
"That's terrible,
why would you have a train with no windows?
Surely you could use this space for luggage space."
Interestingly, there was a reverse,
there was a counter argument
and some people were saying, "No, it's perfect.
If you want to sort of, if you're hung over,
if you want to sleep, you can tuck yourself away."
Or more interestingly, people were saying,
"If you've got a laptop,
and you really have to do some work,
it's a great place to sit to guarantee no glare
coming in from the sunlight through the window
and onto your laptop."
So some people enjoy this little cubby hole seat.
So be aware here.
Here it's 91, 92, 93, 94 over there,
and there's some at the other end as well.
So there are some seats which don't have windows.
Walking down the carriage, I saw my friend, Roger.
He told me he'd spotted
some interesting movement in the pathing arrangements
that trains were taking up the East Coast of Mainland today,
all arriving within minutes of each other at Edinburgh.
Have a read of his blog for his thoughts on the matter.
And just then, we got to Newcastle.
It's 01:39 I believe.
We've got in a little bit early,
'cause we're not due out to 01:47,
so eight minutes of stand time at Newcastle.
(train engine roaring)
You coming up too?
I can try to get a cup of tea
from the cup of tea place down there.
Yeah we got eight minutes.
The joke we were making on the press trip last week
is that the uniforms
that the lovely Lumo staff were wearing,
it's a little bit Star Trekkie, right?
But then today, I'm thinking their slogan,
Travel Well Beyond Expectations,
just makes me think of,
I wanna say Buzz Lightyear,
To Infinity and Beyond Expectations.
There's really light by the way, look at that.
(door alarm beeps)
We stopped at Morpeth as per the schedule on time.
And I remembered to get a shot of this dog
for the obligatory Pet Wins in Internet Video moment.
And then the silhouetted pantograph also reminded me
that last week, I'd asked about the electric train
and the limited battery power that it does have.
It was always gonna be the Hitachi because it was,
it's always better to buy a second generation of trains.
We knew the trains were cleared for the routes,
we knew the trains could work on the route
so we did a deal with Hitachi.
There is extra batteries on the train,
where they took the engines on
they needed to put the weight to balance it out
so they used the weight balance in battery technologies,
so there's batteries on.
The batteries won't provide any traction
and move the train from A to B,
but if we get stranded for some reason,
touch wood, we never get stranded.
But if we lost overhead wire power
they can last up to four hours
and give you slowly load shedding together,
auxiliary power to get the lights on,
the heating, on the air con on.
And then, I spoke to managing director Helen Wylde,
who explained that whilst the train is very blue,
it's actually also very green.
It six times greener.
Okay, and what we basically did was we designed the service
to try and reduce reasons why you would,
first of all, train's too expensive,
not if your travel with us.
60% of our fares will be under 30 quid, tick.
It's not very comfortable.
Well, we spent a lot of money on time,
on design, holistic design in terms of the seats,
the lighting, the tray tables, et cetera,
the customer experience in terms of booking.
But also on the service that the ambassadors give,
so that it's very much more service led,
looking at what you need, et cetera,
menu, entertainment, WiFi, and so on.
So another tick in the box.
No first class, we're inclusive,
everybody gets treated the same, which is how it should be.
And I'm saying to you,
well, why wouldn't you?
We have all of those things are in place,
there's no reason
and we can get you there in four and a half hours,
which actually, if you went door to door on a plane
by the time you unpack your stuff,
sat in the bar for a half an hour,
parked the car, et cetera,
it's probably on a par.
And then you haven't had to move around
and go for the agony while you're doing it.
So, why not?
And try and give people the opportunity to test it out.
Oh and, one final press trip flashback,
was that Lumo had got singer songwriter, Tom Walker on board
to help celebrate the launches.
He performed several of his hit songs.
Now I'd love to include them in this video,
but YouTube will demonetize me faster than you can say,
leave a light on.
which is why there's a secret, hidden link down below
to take you to an unlisted video
where you can watch the performance.
And with all that,
our train was rapidly approaching Edinburgh.
(train engine roars)
And hello Edinburgh, made it to Waverly.
I'm on platform 10.
How was your cheap ticket?
It was amazing.
Would you recommend?
Absolutely, what's not to love?
13 quid for a bargain.
(train engine roaring)
That is the new,
and very blue way of getting from London to Edinburgh,
and both ways.
Lumo website, very cheap tickets,
and remember the £20 pound tickets,
were just up to the end of November,
it's £30 pounds in advance, prices do go up more than that
if you are getting slightly later
but they're taking on the airlines,
not necessarily LNER,
but it's a really cheap way
to get between London and Edinburgh.
(door beeps)
(indistinct)