London to Edinburgh
The LNER East Coast Spine

King's Cross was completed in 1852 by Lewis Cubitt - a building of deliberate restraint in an age of Victorian railway excess. Two brick arches framing two train sheds: one for arrivals, one for departures. The 2012 restoration added the spectacular undulating steel canopy to the western forecourt, but the original facade remains exactly as Cubitt intended it. For many railway enthusiasts, it remains the finest station frontage in London.

The Azuma departs from platforms 1–8 at the northern end of the station. From the moment of departure the train accelerates hard - the East Coast Main Line was engineered for speed, and the Azuma takes full advantage. Through the North London suburbs, the track rises and falls through cuttings and over viaducts, the city thinning as the train pushes north towards Hertfordshire. Within 45 minutes, the train is crossing the flat fens of Cambridgeshire - the Great Ouse glinting below near Huntingdon - and London is firmly behind you.

King's Cross is the finest station frontage in London - and the gateway to Britain's flagship main line.

Two hours from London, the train enters York - one of Britain's best-preserved medieval cities and one of the most architecturally complete walled cities in Europe. York station itself is a Victorian masterpiece: a curved roof of iron and glass built in 1877 that arches over 11 platforms in a single graceful sweep. The city walls, the Minster's twin towers, and the Shambles are all within walking distance of the station entrance.

Most London–Edinburgh services call at York for two to four minutes - long enough to see passengers board and alight, and to appreciate the scale of the curved glass roof above the platform. North of York the landscape changes noticeably: the Vale of York gives way to the rolling hills of County Durham, and the sky feels wider. The East Coast has the open quality of East Anglia but with more dramatic topography - the hills of the North York Moors appearing to the east, the Pennines to the west.

York's station is a Victorian cathedral of glass - and outside its doors, eight centuries of English history are within walking distance.

Between York and Newcastle the line crosses the River Tees at Darlington - where the world's first passenger steam railway ran in 1825 - and runs close to the North Sea coast. Durham Cathedral appears briefly to the west at County Durham, perched on its river bluff: widely regarded as one of the finest Romanesque buildings in Europe, visible from the train for less than thirty seconds before the cutting closes around it. Then Newcastle, the Tyne Bridge, and the Scottish border ahead.

The approach to Edinburgh from the south passes Berwick-upon-Tweed - the last English town on the East Coast Main Line, with the North Sea visible to the right - and crosses into Scotland. The line follows the coast north before turning inland through the Scottish Borders and approaching Edinburgh from the east. The first sign of the city is Arthur's Seat: the ancient volcanic plug that dominates Edinburgh's eastern skyline, rising 251 metres from Holyrood Park.

Edinburgh Waverley occupies a unique position in European rail geography. The station was built in 1868 into the valley between the Old Town ridge and the New Town, directly below Edinburgh Castle. Few mainline stations in Britain can match Edinburgh Waverley's setting at the foot of Castle Rock, directly below Edinburgh Castle. The Princes Street Gardens run alongside the station; the Scott Monument is a two-minute walk.

The Old Town rises steeply from Waverley on both sides. The Royal Mile runs from the Castle to Holyrood Palace: a single straight street of closes, wynds, and medieval tenements that has changed relatively little since the 17th century. The New Town - Europe's finest surviving example of Georgian urban planning - spreads north from Princes Street in a grid of crescents and squares. Both are within 20 minutes' walk of the platform where your Azuma arrives.