GNER memories: The White Rose
by JFC AdminThe White Rose was originally a GNER service between London Kings Cross and York stations operated with trains leased from Eurostar. The leaflet GNER produced promoting this service said that they planned to eventually run these services north of York. This never happened, perhaps it was because of the sharp bend on the approach to Newcastle may have been awkward for such a long train.
Instead of heading northwards these trains were switched to Leeds, this provided a much needed capacity increase on the increasingly successful London – Leeds route. The White Rose trains were Eurostar sets that were shorter than those used on the international services from Waterloo (now St Pancras) but were significantly longer than the nine carriage 225 trains GNER usually operate. These trains were originally intended for the ‘Regional Eurostar’ service which was never launched, the trains had never been used for passenger service so GNER seen an opportunity to lease them.
The layout is the same as a regular Eurostar, first class is in the centre of the train with two standard class sections at either end. There’s two Cafe Bar areas on the train located between standard and first class, each one occupies its own carriage and has a number of tables where you can enjoy a beer or a quick snack. A nice advantage of having two bar areas was that if one side had run out of guest ales you could always go to the other one!
The food in first class on Eurostar is similar to airline business class food in that it is already prepared and is just heated up on the train so originally the kitchens on the White Rose trains could not be used to provide the regular GNER restaurant service. Bistro dining* was originally offered on this route but GNER modified the kitchens to support a regular restaurant operation in time for the launch of their GO EAT brand.
The White Rose services were withdrawn once GNER’s lease with Eurostar had expired. At the time it was not known if Eurostar were going to need these trains to increase capacity once they moved to St Pancras so GNER decided to take a different approach and lease more HSTs and further increase the frequency of services to Leeds. In the end it looks like Eurostar didn’t need these trains as they’re currently in use with French operator SNCF.
One of the franchise commitments of National Express is to introduce additional services between London and York, it’d be great to see a return to the original White Rose services if Eurostar have any spare sets to lease but I don’t see it happening (it would be good marketing for Eurostar though – they could advertise Eurostar comfort all the way from York to Paris).
* Bistro dining used to be operated on selected GNER services instead of a regular restaurant. The food was already prepared and so just needed heating up, this made the bistro a much cheaper option than the regular restaurant. It was offered on services where there was little demand for the restaurant and on all White Rose services until the kitchens had been upgraded. Bistro dining was scrapped with the introduction of GO EAT and restaurant services were increased.
December 6th, 2007 at 11:12 am
This was, and remains, my favourite train for comfort. The seats in standard class have head support which is useful for those early morning trips when still tired, the ride is smoother and more comfortable. I still use these regularly to and from Paris. Of course eurostar sets are all reserved but when they operated as a GNER white rose service the length of these trains meant finding a seat was much easier.