The ''Northern Lights'' is a named British passenger train operated by

London North Eastern Railway London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a British train operating company which operates most services on the East Coast Main Line. It is owned by DfT Operator for the Department for Transport (DfT). The company's name echoes that of the Londo ...

. It runs daily in each direction between

London King's Cross King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London. It is in the London station group, one of the List of busiest railway stations in ...

and

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

via the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

and

Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. The northbound service departs London King's Cross at 10:00am, and the southbound service departs Aberdeen at 09:52am. The route is one of the longest in Britain at and the train takes just over seven hours to cover the journey. London North Eastern Railway operates another two services in each direction between London and Aberdeen as well as one each day to and from

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

Operation

Presently both of the services are operated by a Class 800 ''Azuma''. This is a bi-modal train due to the line being diesel only beyond Haymarket, with the train being on electric power to and from the latter. Until December 2019, the Northern Lights service was operated by an InterCity 125 HST for a number of years until the whole fleet of HSTs were replaced by the ''Azuma'' fleet.

References

{{Reflist East Coast Main Line Named passenger trains of the United Kingdom