PHILIP SHERRATT talks to the team at Lumo about the company’s unique traincrew setup – and the opportunity of creating a culture in a brand new company
Setting anything up from scratch can be a daunting task – let alone launching anew train operator. But one of the benefits is the chance to start from a blank sheet of paper and devise a product or service which can do things a bit differently.
Lumo launched its open access service on the East Coast main line in October 2021. While open access is not new to the ECML or to owner FirstGroup, the model and the approach to customer service Lumo employs is different. An obvious headline feature is that there is just a single class of travel, a novel approach for a long-distance inter-city operator. But the traincrew setup and approach to customer service are also distinctly different.
All Lumo’s traincrew are based in Newcastle, and the company’s head office here is where crew book on and off for their duties. ‘We only have one depot, and everyone books on at the same place, so everyone sees each other regularly’ says Lumo’s Service Delivery Director Jen Clare. ‘We have a blend of experience – we have some recruits with railway experience and some from o…
