GNER White Rose train at King's Cross railway station
Great North Eastern Railways (GNER) is a British train operating company (TOC) owned by Sea Containers Ltd. It was awarded a 7 year franchise to operate high speed train services on the East Coast Main Line in April 1996. GNER were awarded a 2 year extension which allows them to operate trains until 2005.
The East Coast Main Line runs from London (Kings Cross station) through to Inverness and Aberdeen in Scotland. The East Coast mainline services major towns and cities in England and Scotland, including:
The initials GNER were almost certainly chosen for their similarity to LNER, the company that operated the route before British Railways was formed.
GNER rolling stock comprises a number of 225 Electric Sets and 125 Diesel Sets. This fleet is supplemented by three trains leased from Eurostar, painted in GNER livery, which comprises the "White Rose" service between London and Leeds.
GNER is expected to announce plans to shed 10% of the 3,000 jobs in its York-based train operating business over the next few weeks, with catering staff being hardest hit.
GNER is said to be planning to shed up to 110 jobs at its York-based rail operation early next year, affecting 20 clerical, 50 managerial and 40 other staff.
GNER is to refurbish Peterborough railway station at a cost of £1m, as part of a £10m investment in the modernisation of facilities at key stations on the East Coast Main Line.
GNER were the second-to-last British train company to allow smoking in designated areas on their trains, but banned it completely on August 29, 2005.
GNER had made its application partly on the basis that 'open access' train operators (like Hull Trains) are not required to meet the same fixed costs for accessing Network Rail's infrastructure as those train operating companies running services under a contract or 'franchise' with the UK Department for Transport.
GNER purchased and for some years used the unique Class 89 Co-Co prototype electric locomotive 89001 Avocet that had previously been briefly used by BR (in the end, the simpler Class 90 was adopted as a successor to classes 81-87).
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