For a railway operator, connecting places is the day job. But for Lumo, being part of the North East means making connections that go well beyond the railway.
Since launching services on the East Coast Main Line, Lumo has sought to establish itself not simply as a business operating trains through the region, but as an active partner in the communities it serves.
Headquartered in Newcastle, that commitment has seen Lumo build relationships across sport, charity, culture and community organisations – working with partners that share its ambition to make a positive difference.
One of its longest-standing relationships is with Daft as a Brush Cancer Patient Care, the North East charity which provides free transport for cancer patients travelling to and from hospital appointments.
The partnership has helped raise awareness of the charity’s work while supporting its mission to ensure patients can access vital treatment. It is an example of the kind of relationship Lumo wants to build: long-term, rooted in the region and capable of creating a tangible benefit for local people.
Sport has provided another important platform.
Lumo’s relationship with Newcastle Eagles has brought together two organisations with strong North East identities, while providing opportunities to support the club’s wider community activity. The Eagles’ reach extends far beyond professional basketball, with its foundation using sport to engage young people and communities across the region.
Inclusivity is also central to Lumo’s partnership with Newcastle Frontrunners, the North East’s inclusive LGBTQ+ running club. Supporting organisations such as Frontrunners reflects a wider ambition to make both the railway and the communities it serves welcoming and accessible to everyone.
The region’s cultural institutions are another important part of that story.
Through its relationship with North East Museums, Lumo has supported efforts to celebrate the North East’s history, innovation and identity. That includes involvement with Newcastle’s Discovery Museum, where transport and engineering form an important part of the story of a region that helped shape the modern railway.
The relationship is particularly fitting for a rail company with its headquarters in Newcastle. The North East gave birth to the passenger railway and remains at the forefront of the industry today, from train manufacturing and engineering to the people operating services across Britain’s network.
Lumo has also worked alongside Durham Business Club, strengthening its links with businesses and entrepreneurs across the region and helping connect the railway with the wider economic life of the North East.
Alongside established regional organisations, the company has increasingly looked for opportunities where relatively simple interventions can have a meaningful impact.
That philosophy underpins Lumo’s approach to community partnership. It is not simply about putting a logo on an event or organisation. The strongest partnerships are those where both sides can use their respective strengths – whether that is Lumo providing travel, profile and connectivity, or partners providing expertise, community networks and opportunities to reach people the railway might otherwise struggle to engage.
Those relationships also reflect the unusual position Lumo occupies.
As an open access operator, it receives no government operating subsidy and depends on persuading passengers to choose its services. That creates a particularly strong incentive to understand the places it serves and to build a brand which passengers feel belongs to their region.
For Lumo, the North East is especially important. Newcastle is not simply another destination on its route map: it is the company’s home and a central part of its identity.
That is why partnership working is becoming an increasingly important part of how the business thinks about its wider impact.
Running reliable, affordable trains will always come first. But a railway can contribute much more to a region than the service that arrives at the platform.
It can help people access opportunities, bring visitors into communities, support charities and cultural institutions, champion inclusion and give regional organisations a national platform.
For Lumo, being a North East business therefore comes with a responsibility to play an active role in the region.
From Daft as a Brush and Newcastle Eagles to Newcastle Frontrunners, North East Museums, Discovery Museum and Durham Business Club, each partnership is different. Together, however, they represent something bigger: a growing network of organisations working to make the North East an even better place to live, work and visit.
Lumo’s ambition is simple – to keep that network growing and ensure that, as its railway connects communities across the country, the business remains firmly connected to the community it calls home.
www.lumo.co.uk