Virgin Trains is introducing four new weekend services for Edinburgh in the latest shake-up of its east coast timetable.

Three new departures connecting Edinburgh to Newcastle and London are being introduced on Sunday to coincide with one of the busiest days for demand.

And a late Friday night service from Edinburgh to Newcastle at 22.01 will allow for a later night out in the Scottish capital. This will call at Dunbar, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Alnmouth and Morpeth.

The new timetable takes effect from December 11 and will add 19 new services, 13,000 additional seats per week and dozens of extra stops to the network. It comes as Virgin Trains nears completion of a total overhaul of its entire train fleet.

The development follows on from the launch of 42 additional services linking Edinburgh to Newcastle and London in May and ahead of the introduction of the state-of-the-art fleet of Azuma trains in 2018, which will transform journeys on the east coast route. New services to Stirling and Sunderland were launched in 2015 after Virgin Trains took over the east coast route.

David Horne, Managing Director for Virgin Trains on the east coast said: “This is a great boost to our customers travelling along the east coast and especially to and from Edinburgh, Leeds and London.

“Having invested heavily into the customer experience, upgrading our train interiors and launching a new on board streaming service, the two journeys will fly by.”

Virgin Trains is investing £140m into its east coast route as part of its commitment to the eight year franchise. It has already invested £20m in refurbished carriages and provided a Netflix-style steaming service as part of its customer service improvements.