Increased Northern Services between Newcastle and Middlesborough.

GrandCentral · 8 Feb 2019

When Arriva secured the Northern franchise part of their plans included half hourly services down the Durham Coast Line between Newcastle and Middlesborough. These were due to begin in December 2018.

As far as I'm aware these are yet to begin and it's all gone a bit quiet.

Do we have any news on when/if these services will ever materialise or is Northern in too much chaos at the moment?

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Anvil1984 · 8 Feb 2019

There’s never been any plans for half hourly services between Newcastle and Middlesbrough via Durham Coast just an additional service on the morning and a couple of later evening ones.

The second service was intended to be a Northern Connect service with a Start Date of December 2019 with the intentions of running it via Ferryhill / Stillington between Stockton and Durham

swt_passenger · 8 Feb 2019

Anvil1984 said:
There’s never been any plans for half hourly services between Newcastle and Middlesbrough via Durham Coast just an additional service on the morning and a couple of later evening ones.

The second service was intended to be a Northern Connect service with a Start Date of December 2019 with the intentions of running it via Ferryhill / Stillington between Stockton and Durham

IIRC much of the discussion at the time of the franchise announcement was about how the “Connect” route wasn’t clearly shown on the service diagrams, and I still don't remember it being satisfactorily explained. Have I missed it being stated since then as definitely running via Ferryhill?

Anvil1984 · 8 Feb 2019

swt_passenger said:
IIRC much of the discussion at the time of the franchise announcement was about how the “Connect” route wasn’t clearly shown on the service diagrams, and I still don't remember it being satisfactorily explained. Have I missed it being stated since then as definitely running via Ferryhill?

Managers at our place have said it’s most likely to be going that way. The writing next to the map stated it would be going via Durham which would discount the Coast route and it was in one of the franchise agreement documents they had to at least do a feasibility study of sending trains that direction

swt_passenger · 8 Feb 2019

Anvil1984 said:
Managers at our place have said it’s most likely to be going that way. The writing next to the map stated it would be going via Durham which would discount the Coast route and it was in one of the franchise agreement documents they had to at least do a feasibility study of sending trains that direction

Thanks for the explanation. I reckon this was the interactive map I’m thinking of, it seems to only show Newcastle to Middlesbrough improvements as being along the coast, when you select Newcastle in the drop-down: http://maps.dft.gov.uk/northern/index.html

30907 · 8 Feb 2019

swt_passenger said:
Thanks for the explanation. I reckon this was the interactive map I’m thinking of, it seems to only show Newcastle to Middlesbrough improvements as being along the coast, when you select Newcastle in the drop-down: http://maps.dft.gov.uk/northern/index.html

Half-hourly Middlesborough-Stockton-Newcastle is what it says, which is a big clue that Hartlepool and Sunderland MIGHT miss out.

Glenn1969 · 8 Feb 2019

That set of maps shows enhancements for several routes. But how many of them will actually happen?

Anvil1984 · 8 Feb 2019

On the Northern Connect part of the Northern site it states “Middlesbrough-Durham-Newcastle-Carlisle” which is a further hint the trains won’t be going down the coast

darloscott · 9 Feb 2019

There was also a suggestion that these trains will operate as 4-car 158s... with 18 units transferring to Heaton. Current journey times between Carlisle and Middlesbrough are around 3 hours, so assuming you could save some time on the Connect routing, that would suggest 12 units on a 6 hour circuit. That would give 6 spare units, so presumably scope for using 3 or 4 elsewhere - maybe Heaton will also take some S&C diagrams?

cuccir · 10 Feb 2019

Back in May 2018, the three morning Saltburn/Middleborough - Darlington - Durham - Newcastle services were extended to Carlisle. I think that this is further support for the idea that the Northern Connect service (presuming it does actually happen) will run via Durham; I know they won't serve Darlington, but I can see these fitting in as a morning peak variation of the main route.

VT 390 · 11 Feb 2019

Could northern not run the new Connect service via Durham and then have a Half-Hourly local service running Middlesborough to Newcastle via Hartlepool and Sunderland.

sprinterguy · 12 Feb 2019

VT 390 said:
Could northern not run the new Connect service via Durham and then have a Half-Hourly local service running Middlesborough to Newcastle via Hartlepool and Sunderland.

If they had sufficient stock then they probably could, but there are no plans for the latter during the course of the current franchise.

darloscott said:
maybe Heaton will also take some S&C diagrams?

That doesn't seem likely, given that Neville Hill depot is conveniently sited at one end of the route and will continue to operate 158s. More likely that a handful of 158s will find themselves on non-Connect services, in the same way that they used to find themselves on non-TPE services in the north east back in the day.

Increased Northern Services between Newcastle and Middlesborough.

GrandCentral

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Anvil1984

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30907

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