East Coast Main Line

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a 393-mile (632 km) long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh. It is classed as a high-speed railway because most of it meets the speed criterion of 125 mph (200 km/h). The main franchise on the line is operated by state-owned East Coast Main Line Company Ltd.

The route forms a key artery on the eastern side of Great Britain and is broadly paralleled by the A1 trunk road. It links London, the South East and East Anglia with Yorkshire, the North East Regions and Scotland. It also carries key commuter flows for the north side of London. It is therefore important to the economic health of a number of areas of the country. It also handles cross-country, commuter and local passenger services, and carries heavy tonnages of freight traffic. The route has ELRs ECM1 - ECM9.

Read more about East Coast Main Line:  Route Definition and Description, History, Infrastructure, Operators, Accidents, Popular Culture

Famous quotes containing the words east, coast, main and/or line:

    “We might as easily reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Have we even so much as discovered and settled the shores? Let a man travel on foot along the coast ... and tell me if it looks like a discovered and settled country, and not rather, for the most part, like a desolate island, and No-Man’s Land.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.”
    —Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931)

    “The English never draw a line without blurring it.”
    —Winston Churchill (1874–1965)