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Budget rail service will offer £15 tickets from London to Edinburgh

Published 10:21 7 Sept 2021 BST

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Train journeys could become a more standard mode of travelling across the UK

A budget rail service will offer fares from London to Edinburgh for less than £15, with return tickets priced at around £29.80 from next month. Lumo trains will call at Stevenage, Newcastle and Morpeth, compared with London North Eastern Railway’s four stops, starting in York. There will be two services a day each way to start with, increasing to a maximum of ten by early next year. There are of course various caveats to these prices. The ultra-low fares have to be booked in advance but will be available up until a day before travel. https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone/status/1435136410525306880 For the luxury travellers out there, Lumo will not offer first-class carriages, nor will there be buffet cars. Instead, passengers can order food and drink via a smartphone app that is delivered straight to their seats. But of course, there will also be the trolly to roll past your booth. Despite Lumo’s incredibly low prices, the journey will take four-and-a-half hours, only about ten minutes more than LNER. Helen Wylde, managing director of Lumo, said it was a "new rail travel experience that is kinder to the planet and better value, while never compromising on service". https://twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1435157921545994246 Lumo is also keen to get people travelling via train across the country and not by plane. In June this year, 74,764 passengers flew to Edinburgh while 82,002 went by rail, reports the MailOnline. So not only will the service compete with LNER, but also planes as well. Though trains are technically public transport, their extortionate pricing for inter-city travel makes them inaccessible to much of the British public.