A brand-new luxury rail route will soon link London with this underrated Scottish city destination

Getting to and from Scotland from London isn’t always the easiest task. If you’re looking to go anywhere other than Glasgow or Edinburgh, you’ll probably have to change several times, pay a lot of dosh, and accept a journey time of no less than nine hours.

That could be changing, however, as a brand new rail company has just received approval to run a service between Stirling and London. 

Grand Union Trains initially put in a bid to be allowed to run the route this time last year. And now, after a sufficient amount of bureaucratic umming-and-ahhing, they’ve finally been given the go ahead. The new route is a go… as of June 2025. 

So this kind of thing takes a long time. But Grand Union’s plans aren’t just to connect William Wallace’s old stomping ground with the rest of the world; they want to do it in style. 

Brand-new carriages have been designed by the company, where everyone gets to sit in first class. That means more space for your legs and a smoother journey. The proposed route will also call at Milton Keynes Central, Nuneaton, Crewe, Preston, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell, Whifflet, Greenfaulds and Larbert, so it will be of use to lots of people from small, oft forgotten towns and cities.

Details on pricing and exact times aren’t yet available (given that we’re still more than a year from launch) but it’s never too early to get excited about improved rail infrastructure, eh? 

Trains in the news

We at Time Out like to keep up to date on the latest in the world of UK railway news. For instance, did you see that Eurostar is currently having a sale? Maybe you missed that there’s a £1 billion project in the works to improve trainlines between Wales and England, or that Edinburgh’s getting a brand new £2 billion tram service. We also keep up to date with latest information about ongoing strikes with our national industrial action hub.

Did you see that the UK is officially the second most miserable country in the world?

Plus: These derelict historic railway arches in Manchester are getting a serious glow-up.

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