Renaissance Trains is a company formed in 1997 with the purpose of promoting and investing in "open access" passenger and freight rail businesses in the United Kingdom, as well as promoting and investing in rail industry innovation. Its shareholders are John Nelson, Peter Wilkinson, Mike Jones and Mary Bonar. It is based in York.[1]
Two shareholders of Renaissance — Mike Jones and John Nelson — formed Hull Trains with GB Railways, and took a 10% stake each, which they continued to hold when FirstGroup took over GB Railways.
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This service ceased operations on 28 January 2011 as it was not financially viable.[4]
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The success of Hull Trains and its services from London to Hull led Renaissance Trains to develop a proposal to run trains from Lincolnshire to London, with stops at Grimsby, Lincoln, Peterborough and Cambridge. To avoid increasing congestion on the East Coast Main Line, Humber & City would use the Nottingham-Grimsby route as far as Lincoln Central, then the Peterborough to Lincoln Line to Peterborough, then to Cambridge via Ely before joining the West Anglia Main Line and terminating at Stratford.
As of 2007, Humber & City is no more than a proposal. Renaissance Trains has had discussions with Network Rail with regard to the structure and form of the track access agreement. Humber & City has proposed using 100 mph diesel multiple-unit trains with both First Class and Standard Class accommodation.
This service has been shown to take more than 3 hours from Lincoln to London, whereas by changing at Newark North Gate the journey would usually take no more than 2 hours. In addition, Lincoln is already served by a daily service to London St Pancras via Nottingham and Bedford (East Midlands Trains), and East Coast now runs a daily direct train between Lincoln and London King's Cross. Both St Pancras and King's Cross are more central than Stratford and provide links to Eurostar at St Pancras International, but the Stratford City development will open in 2010 and Stratford is nearer to Docklands. In addition, in 2010 it was announced that, as a money saving option, East Coast will only run one service a day in each direction between London and Lincoln.[5]