East Coast Main Line
Principal railway route in Great Britain
The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a 393-mile-long (632 km) electrified railway between London King's Cross and Edinburgh Waverley, via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. It is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broadly parallel to the A1 road. The main line acts as a "spine" for several diverging branches, serving destinations such as Cambridge, Lincoln, Leeds, Hull and Sunderland, all with direct services to London. In addition, a few ECML services extend beyond Edinburgh to serve other Scottish destinations, such as Stirling, Inverness, Dundee and Aberdeen.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “East Coast Main Line” as principal railway route in Great Britain. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as principal railway route in Great Britain. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “East Coast Main Line”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow East Coast Main Line primary sources, East Coast Main Line archive and East research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “East Coast Main Line” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.