Why is the service on the Durham Coast Line so poor?

[najaB]

...it wouldn't do any harm to get the linespeed up a bit either.

I use Grand Central quite a bit and, thinking things were a bit slow one day, worked out that the average speed between Northallerton and Sunderland (47 miles) was barely 45mph...

...no extra trains added in the past couple of years, meaning that most morning services to Newcastle on Weekdays and Weekends (dont even mention Sunderland & Newcastle match day overcrowding) are full an standing....

Hmm, a line that is largely self-contained, has relatively low line speeds and is in desperate need of rolling stock, preferably without spending the Earth. Now if only there was a solution out there...

 

[Tetchytyke]

Stockton to Darlington has no direct service, and the journey time has "improved" from 23 minutes (direct) to about 54 minutes (including 21 minutes wait at Thornaby) - hardly surprising if patronage is lower than might be expected.

Focusing on Stockton undermines the argument. Stockton and Thornaby stations are roughly the same distance away from Stockton High Street, and Thornaby is better suited for most of the businesses in Stockton, which are now all on Teesdale business park.

For those who can't or don't want to walk the ten minutes down to Thornaby, there's always the Arriva X66 every 20 minutes, which has just been upgraded to MAX.

The lack of a direct train between Hartlepool and Darlington is more of an issue, because the bus service between the two towns is rubbish.

 

[glbotu]

Focusing on Stockton undermines the argument. Stockton and Thornaby stations are roughly the same distance away from Stockton High Street, and Thornaby is better suited for most of the businesses in Stockton, which are now all on Teesdale business park.

For those who can't or don't want to walk the ten minutes down to Thornaby, there's always the Arriva X66 every 20 minutes, which has just been upgraded to MAX.

The lack of a direct train between Hartlepool and Darlington is more of an issue, because the bus service between the two towns is rubbish.

I assume the lack of a regular Hartlepool - Darlington service is due to pathing issues at Darlington, where you have to cross the Down ECML to terminate. There's already 2tph down the Tees Valley and those trains are already pretty well loaded, so I don't think sacrificing them would be of great benefit. With infrastructure improvements (ie: the planned then scrapped extra platforms at Darlington), that could have worked quite well. The ITT response posted earlier did suggest that the combined authority is looking at a second train per hour along the Durham Coast line. Would that a) provide a better connection at Thornaby for Darlington - Hartlepool and b) be able to fit amongst the 5tph Metro, North of Sunderland.