Sunderland station flooded; Northern calling at St Peter's metro station

[mm333]

The Northern website is reporting that due to heavy rain affecting the overhead wires in the station area, Northern services will call additionally at St Peters. This will continue until at least Friday 6th January (although after today, there are no Northern services on that line until Sunday 8th). I'm impressed that it's coming up as a calling point on nationalrail.co.uk and LNER.

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/service-updates

• Alterations to services at Sunderland​

  Last Updated02/01/2023 03:49
  Due to severe weather earlier at Sunderland all lines are disrupted.
  How does it affect your service:
  Train services running through this station will be suspended. Sunderland will not be served. Disruption is expected until 02:00 07/01.
  Our advice to our customers:
  Services are unable to call at Sunderland station due to heavy rain affecting the overhead wires in the station area.
  Network Rail engineers are onsite.
  Effect on service:
  Newcastle to Middlesbrough services, in both directions will not call at Sunderland station. Customers are advised to use St Peters Tyne & Wear Metro station as an alternative to Sunderland station. Northern services will call additionally at St Peters. This will continue until at least Friday 6th January.
  Other places to get more information:
  For live information, please visit northernrailway.co.uk/stations and select the station you are travelling from or Tweet us @northernassist
  To re-plan your journey please visit nationalrail.co.uk
  If you've been delayed by 15 minutes or more, hold on to your tickets and claim compensation by visiting www.northernrailway.co.uk/delayrepay

 

[APT618S]

Grand Central also using St Peters instead of Sunderland.

Realtime Trains | Departures from St Peters all day on 02/01/2023

Train information at St Peters all day on 02/01/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[swt_passenger]

The Northern website is reporting that due to heavy rain affecting the overhead wires in the station area, Northern services will call additionally at St Peters. This will continue until at least Friday 6th January (although after today, there are no Northern services on that line until Sunday 8th). I'm impressed that it's coming up as a calling point on nationalrail.co.uk and LNER.

IIRC from previous threads it’s already “in the system” for use when needed for football crowds. Someone local might know how often it gets used for that purpose.

 

[Anvil1984]

IIRC from previous threads it’s already “in the system” for use when needed for football crowds. Someone local might know how often it gets used for that purpose.

Only really used when Sunderland host Newcastle in the Tyne Wear derby but that hasn't been for a few years due to Sunderlands misfortunes

 

[43095john]

Grand Central only using St Peters for setting down from London. Heading south they are starting from Hartlepool

 

[800001]

The roof has been leaking for weeks, however it’s now brought some debris down on to the Overhead wires which are now isolated.
Trains can pass through in Diesel, but can not call there.

Grand Central only using St Peters for setting down from London. Heading south they are starting from Hartlepool

Out of curiosity why can they call at St Peter’s from London, but not for services to London?

 

[Gathursty]

Can you get a NR ticket to St Peters station?

 

[Megafuss]

The roof has been leaking for weeks, however it’s now brought some debris down on to the Overhead wires which are now isolated.
Trains can pass through in Diesel, but can not call there.


Out of curiosity why can they call at St Peter’s from London, but not for services to London?

Metro trains are using Platform 1 to terminate/start. They would be running to Park Lane, but due to the other Network Rail issue with the Pallion substation they are now needing to wait time at St Peters, which effectively blocks the southbound line for large periods.

 

[Kris28]

Can you get a NR ticket to St Peters station

You can't unfortunately. But Northern aren't offering tickets to Sunderland either even though St Peters Is around 300metres on foot and trains are calling there

 

[tsman]

Seems to have confused the Kings Cross departure boards... Destination SNDRMNK

 

[swt_passenger]

Only really used when Sunderland host Newcastle in the Tyne Wear derby but that hasn't been for a few years due to Sunderlands misfortunes

Is it more to do with separation of “opposing” passenger flows then, rather than overall capacity?

Seems to have confused the Kings Cross departure boards... Destination SNDRMNK

Will that possibly be short for “Sunderland Monkwearmouth”?

 

[Anvil1984]

Is it more to do with separation of “opposing” passenger flows then, rather than overall capacity?


Will that possibly be short for “Sunderland Monkwearmouth”?

It’s possibly to make the security arrangements easier with St Peters being a lot closer to the ground than Sunderland itself. It does require a lot more of a station presence though as it’s not long enough to fit a 4 car Northern unit (even though Northern services used it as a temporary station once upon a time as the line was being being converted for dual-use)

 

[pdeaves]

Will that possibly be short for “Sunderland Monkwearmouth”?

Yes (the site's former name).

 

[DanNCL]

Northern and GC are stopping at St Peters, what are LNER doing for their daily service? Presumably it's starting/terminating at Newcastle?

The roof has been leaking for weeks, however it’s now brought some debris down on to the Overhead wires which are now isolated.
Trains can pass through in Diesel, but can not call there.

The roof has leaked for years, but got considerably worse after heavy rain last Summer. The issue should have been dealt with a long time ago but it wasn't, which is why we're in the situation we're in now.
The inability to call trains there is only partially linked to this latest incident - the station requires two members of staff to open for evacuation requirements and Northern have frequently been unable to provide this in recent weeks.

Out of curiosity why can they call at St Peter’s from London, but not for services to London?

As far as I understand there's no dispatch procedure for 180s at St Peters with passengers onboard. Isn't an issue arriving from London as it departs ECS.

Can you get a NR ticket to St Peters station?

You can't unfortunately. But Northern aren't offering tickets to Sunderland either even though St Peters Is around 300metres on foot and trains are calling there

You can buy a ticket to 'Metro T&W All Zones' from National Rail stations which covers St Peters, but that's considerably more expensive than a regular ticket to Sunderland in most (if not all) cases. I'll attempt to get one of the local councillors to contact Northern about it.

The simple solution would be, for the purposes of ticketing and the public timetable, to temporarily treat St Peters and Sunderland as the same station.

Metro trains are using Platform 1 to terminate/start. They would be running to Park Lane, but due to the other Network Rail issue with the Pallion substation they are now needing to wait time at St Peters, which effectively blocks the southbound line for large periods.

The Pallion issue is beyond a joke now. I don't understimate how severe the damage is, but one can guarantee if this had happened just about anywhere else Network Rail would have got this dealt with much quicker. I also wonder if there's an element of Network Rail unfamiliarity with the 1500V DC electrical equipment too. Can't help thinking, as much as it pains me to say this knowing how incompetent they are, that Nexus would have got this sorted quicker if they maintained the line themselves.

Seems to have confused the Kings Cross departure boards... Destination SNDRMNK

No doubt ATOS Anne hasn't got a recorded announcement for St Peters either!

 

[Anvil1984]

At the minute the ticketing to St Peter’s MAY be a moot point. There’s no Northern services in the North East until Sunday in any case with the strikes (today included) and the station may or not reopen by then.

There are a few stations with tickets to St Peters but just not in the Northern area https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=YRK&dest=STZ Tickets to Sunderland are obviously being accepted to St Peters on the days there’s a service (like yesterday)

 

[DanNCL]

At the minute the ticketing to St Peter’s MAY be a moot point. There’s no Northern services in the North East until Sunday in any case with the strikes (today included) and the station may or not reopen by then.

Even if Sunderland station does reopen on Sunday it's still an issue that needs to be dealt with as the staffing issue that often shuts Sunderland station isn't going to be resolved any time soon.

 

[Anvil1984]

Even if Sunderland station does reopen on Sunday it's still an issue that needs to be dealt with as the staffing issue that often shuts Sunderland station isn't going to be resolved any time soon.

That often shuts down Sunderland? How many times has it ACTUALLY been closed due to staffing on non-strike days? It was threatened due before Christmas but was actually only closed for a day where Northern services were operating.

 

[DanNCL]

That often shuts down Sunderland? How many times has it ACTUALLY been closed due to staffing on non-strike days? It was threatened due before Christmas but was actually only closed for a day where Northern services were operating.

Not for a full day but the station often closes early because of it.

 

[Anvil1984]

Not for a full day but the station often closes early because of it.

I’ve worked trains through Sunderland for the last 10 years and the last couple of weeks (due to the RMT overtime ban which doesn’t happen often) are the first times I’ve heard of not to call orders at Sunderland for staff never mind stopping at St Peter’s. The evening LNER trains was often affected when it was delayed and due in after station closing time.

 

[DanNCL]

I’ve worked trains through Sunderland for the last 10 years and the last couple of weeks (due to the RMT overtime ban which doesn’t happen often) are the first times I’ve heard of not to call orders at Sunderland for staff never mind stopping at St Peter’s. The evening LNER trains was often affected when it was delayed and due in after station closing time.

I think we all know the overtime ban isn’t going to end any time soon, so this is set to continue for a while.

 

[Anvil1984]

I think we all know the overtime ban isn’t going to end any time soon, so this is set to continue for a r

“There will also be an overtime ban across the railways from 18 December until 2 January, meaning RMT be taking industrial action for 4 weeks.”

So it’s pretty much already over. I’m still waiting to hear when in the past the station has OFTEN closed early for Northern services

 

[DanNCL]

“There will also be an overtime ban across the railways from 18 December until 2 January, meaning RMT be taking industrial action for 4 weeks.”

My mistake, I got the RMT and ASLEF overtime bans muddled.

So it’s pretty much already over. I’m still waiting to hear when in the past the station has OFTEN closed early for Northern services

I can’t provide you with a full list of every time it’s happened as I haven’t kept one. But I’ve lost count of the number of times in recent weeks I’ve seen a post from Metro on Twitter saying that Sunderland station has shut early. So unless Metro are reporting the station as shut when it isn’t, it’s shut early several times recently.

Regardless of the reasons for any individual closure, we’ve seen that there is a need for an alternative provision to Sunderland station to be available. It’s beyond unacceptable that Northern are fobbing customers off by withholding tickets to/from Sunderland from sale whilst St Peters station is being used instead.

 

[Anvil1984]

Fobbing off is strong. So far St Peter’s has substituted for Sunderland for one operational day and that’s it (previously in the week the risk assessments were lost and trains were just going Seaham, next stop Heworth) The one dummy attempt I made at a booking after it was highlighted on here it allowed me to buy a ticket but did have cancelled next to the services (with a service alteration box explaining all).

Looking back I see nothing on Twitter after doing a search that has seen a station closure that has affected Northern until the current overtime ban. Once or twice the last Metro might to have had to either turn around at St Peter’s or miss Sunderland because it’s hit the midnight curfew but nothing on the heavy rail side. I’ve looked at Metros twitter and the only closures I’ve seen since September are industrial action (affecting the trains themselves also) or another incident in October where the overheads were isolated due to flooding) not quite the description of often I’m looking for especially in relation to Northern services

 

[ModernRailways]

My mistake, I got the RMT and ASLEF overtime bans muddled.

I can’t provide you with a full list of every time it’s happened as I haven’t kept one. But I’ve lost count of the number of times in recent weeks I’ve seen a post from Metro on Twitter saying that Sunderland station has shut early. So unless Metro are reporting the station as shut when it isn’t, it’s shut early several times recently.

Regardless of the reasons for any individual closure, we’ve seen that there is a need for an alternative provision to Sunderland station to be available. It’s beyond unacceptable that Northern are fobbing customers off by withholding tickets to/from Sunderland from sale whilst St Peters station is being used instead.

You’ve lost count because that doesn’t happen often at all. It has happened thrice I believe in the last few months, once due to the numerous power issues down there, then due to flooding/obstruction and a metro subsequently tripping the ohle, and then due to the strike action/overtime ban.

There is the ongoing issue at Pallion, which you previously mentioned, and whilst yes it is Network Rail owned infra, Nexus do now assist on the Sunderland extension. The substation was flooded, it would be the same amount of time for any other piece of railway, however, things do get prioritised and alternatives would be arranged if the line was a high priority.

Tickets can be bought to Sunderland but they have a warning attached, not that it matters because there’s no trains due to the strikes anyway. If they were previously removed from sale then this could simply be done to avoid confusion, tickets can be bought on the train or at a station where the issue can then be easily explained and the alternative given or people can rightly avoid Sunderland and just come to Newcastle

Back to the main topic, does anyone know if this has been caused by the rebuilding works that are going on there? I’m not sure what stage they’re at as I avoid going to Sunderland but these few issues do seem to have been caused by flooding/obstructions which I don’t recall ever being an issue (at least a significant issue) previously

 

[DanNCL]

Fobbing off is strong. So far St Peter’s has substituted for Sunderland for one operational day and that’s it (previously in the week the risk assessments were lost and trains were just going Seaham, next stop Heworth) The one dummy attempt I made at a booking after it was highlighted on here it allowed me to buy a ticket but did have cancelled next to the services (with a service alteration box explaining all).

The issue is the TVMs - the TVMs don’t sell tickets without an itinerary, they certainly never used to allow you to select a ‘cancelled’ itinerary to buy a ticket but it’s been a while since I used a Northern TVM so that could have changed.

There is the ongoing issue at Pallion, which you previously mentioned, and whilst yes it is Network Rail owned infra, Nexus do now assist on the Sunderland extension. The substation was flooded, it would be the same amount of time for any other piece of railway, however, things do get prioritised and alternatives would be arranged if the line was a high priority.

The bigger issue with the substation being out isn’t being unable to run trains to South Hylton, but the reduced frequency it requires to Sunderland. The 24 minute frequency trains have been mostly rammed when I’ve had to travel down there since the substation issue. If this had been just about anywhere else suffering the same consequences Network Rail would have given this a higher priority.

people can rightly avoid Sunderland and just come to Newcastle

I agree!

Back to the main topic, does anyone know if this has been caused by the rebuilding works that are going on there? I’m not sure what stage they’re at as I avoid going to Sunderland but these few issues do seem to have been caused by flooding/obstructions which I don’t recall ever being an issue (at least a significant issue) previously

Demolition of the old concourse is complete, but I’m not sure where they’re at with building the new concourse, if they’ve even started yet.

The roof has leaked for years, but I can’t recall it ever leading to any closures before last summer.

 

[800001]

On Thurs 05/01 plat 4 will be opened and OLE energised allowing Nexus to operate from plat 4 only. This will be from 08:00.

By Sunday platforms 1 and 4 will be opened at Sunderland with platform 4 electrified, allowing Nexus to operate from platform 4 only.

Further work overnight on Sunday will take place, leaving plat 1 and 4 open and electrified on both lines.