a weekday service of six trains was provided; trains departed St Pancras at midnight, 5:15 am, 8:30 am, 10:30 am, 11:30 am and 9:15 pm. Two services were expresses, two were semi-fasts and two which linked smaller intermediate stations with larger ones. However, services were beset by delays and poor timekeeping. During July 1880, the three daily St Pancras-Edinburgh expresses lost between them 2,345 minutes, of which 835 were the fault of the NBR; in the opposite direction, 2,565 minutes were lost with 1,099 on the NBR. The late running of trains led to complaints from passengers and traders would not use the line as the journey time was too long. As early as 1902, the Midland's services via the Waverley Route were poorly patronised north of Leeds, so much so that the NBR requested compensatory payments; between 1903 and 1907 the Midland's board approved payments totalling more than £5,000 in respect of the Edinburgh portion of the 1:30 pm St Pancras train. By July 1914, the first departure from Edinburgh was a through service to Carlisle at 6:15 am. The service called at all of the line's 31 stations, including , and Portobello, and took 275 minutes to traverse the , with 16 minutes spent waiting at Galashiels, St Boswells and Hawick. The first arrival of the day in Carlisle via the Waverley Route was however a 6:00 am service from Hawick which arrived at 8:18 am after a 15-minute stand at Riccarton Junction to connect with the 6:40am service to Newcastle. Three daily corridor restaurant car expresses ran to St Pancras, of which one had through coaches for Bristol. Carlisle was reached after a non-stop 131-minute run at an average speed of . A fast arrival in Carlisle was essential as the corridor coaches were allowed a maximum of 8¼ hours for the next to St Pancras. In total, there were nine through trains to Carlisle on weekdays (ten on Saturdays) including a 10:00 pm sleeper to St Pancras and a 10:15 pm night train to Euston; during the high summer season, an additional sleeper ran non-stop to Carlisle. A very similar service was provided in the opposite direction from Carlisle, with the fastest service being the 12:45 pm express from Carlisle which had departed St Pancras at 4:50 am and took 135 minutes for its non-stop run to Edinburgh. The sleepers ran on Sundays, a day on