Detail

If you follow my facebook roundabout this upload https://www.facebook.com/robert.forsythe.39 in time, you will see Fiona and I spent a short break in the Netherlands (number 8 visit for me) in late October 2016. I revisited places like Arnhem and Zutphen I had only been to once before in July 1971. On another level we have through 2016 been referring to Devolution in the UK and how the North East having been on the verge of a seven authority deal spat the dummy out. Currently in October the news is that Newcastle probably with the support of North Tyneside and Northumberland will go it alone. They will have a brand the Great North City (playing on the Great North Run and the Great North Exhibition (to come for 2018)). Now I must tweak this. The North East is not going to be able to do better than Manchester or even Yorkshire. We should go for what is uniquely us and is a good a brand as any. The epithet should be The Great Northumbrian City. Northumbria has various interpretations as a good place but the Tourist Board for years stretched from the Cleveland Hills to the Tees and across to the Pennine Watershed. I am good with that. However that means not only the dissenting factions around the Wear but the Tees Valley needs to be the whole entity. And it does, to compete the whole natural geographical region of Tees, Wear and Tyne, we need to unite.

This does all tie back to the Dutch visit. The Randstad. There was a time not many generations ago when the Northumbria I speak of would have outshone the Randstad. There are many comparisons. The actual area involved is not much different, both are maritime facing regions, both contain numerous competing cities. However broadly since the 1950s, one has been in continual decline, the other has gone onto steroids. I might suggest each extreme is unpleasant. I can see why for many Dutch the ferry from Ijmuiden is to the promised land, we experienced the opposite a week ago. Our open Pennine landscapes fringing the cities, our rocky environment is magical to the outsider. As I did on Saturday to come into the Tyne, take the coach connection into the heart of Newcastle and then the train to Prudhoe is an inspirational ride and the Dutch can understand that.

A lot of the Netherlands is not in The Randstad. Our short break went well beyond it, only Monday and Friday crossed the Randstad and when we did we saw very impressive modern building, yes, but also a  nightmare vision of what development on steroids means. The mass motorways, the railway and metro building, you have to see it to believe it. It is awe inspiring.

I may not want the Randstad for Northumbria and I doubt Northumbrians would but where is there scope to pitch in the middle? I am convinced as plans currently afoot for a Great North Institute in Newcastle suggest, that part of the solution is to understand how the North East exercised genius in the past. A genius which with both the steam and the electric locomotive we exported to the Netherlands. But there is something we can and must learn from the Dutch and which currently the North East with its warring factions is hopeless about. It is understanding that design, detail and integration all matter.

The header photo from Zutphen was of a delicious example of public art on a quayside of a tributary of the Rhine. A simple hydraulic structure to be played with which captures the essence of Dutch genius, hydraulic engineering. Set in an appropriate context, the old quays of a Hanseatic town with a busy railway and barge carrying river behind. The Dutch still try to use all modes of transport appropriately. Who would imagine now that goods should be shipped from Blaydon? Even shipped from Blaydon to Tees-side. We have got right out the habit, even though it is good to say the new North Yorkshire Moors Potash mega mine will ship from the Tees. But we were as good at the transport habit as the Dutch remain, we have to recover it.

Time and again in my blog and on my Facebook, for years now, I have berated the lack of progress with North East public transport. So utterly different to the Randstad. I accept that the devolution plan has itemised many of the items I speak up for but until the devolution is delivered nothing happens. What has been done lately? The A1 Western Bypass upgrade. What a lash up! Destroy the hard shoulders, lanes that vary in width. Ignore every piece of common sense in fast road design when there was a hill through which a tunnel could be driven and through traffic sent through. Lobley Hill. Not difficult. Name the road tunnels of the North East? Three I think: Cradlewell and Tyne 1+2. The Dutch in their flat landscape build tunnels without blinking (TBH they spend vast amounts of money doing it and create much employment).

But leave the infrastructure. For years we have talked about an Oyster card for the North East. The Dutch have had one for years, the OV Chipkaart. We used it for all our travel. And at the smallest detail, in Arnhem, the litter bins wear welly boots. And a city of 70,000 people boasts a two year old library which leaves Newcastle standing. Newcastle's new library is nice, but go to Arnhem's and you will be awestruck. Now much of this difference is because between the Dutch and the Brits for 30 years there has been a pretty large gulph over public society. Our local authorities have been hammered. There have been business successes, Nissan and Port of Tyne prove this.

However unless public authorities can be trusted and given resource, unless the bus companies can be told when and where buses will run, how they will connect with trains (for which Prudhoe is the most laughable example (and so is a new councillor endorsed walking leaflet from Stocksfield station which makes no mention of the train service)), until we can get the North East connected up and given clout to argue its case, the divide and rule which the sceptic will assume is government policy or at least Mandarin think, will remain.

16-18 Travel in Northumberland: the Teenage Tax on 6th form & College students

Time to blog about about the Northumberland issue of the moment. 16-18 student travel costs and something I thought did not impact on me (yet), but I was wrong. I shall try for some history. Some way back under the last Liberal led admin, Northumberland enacted a new policy which said we will provide free travel to education for 16-18 year olds, both to locations in the county, and (subject to some constraints I suspect) without (that is important because Carlisle College, Newcastle College and others come into this). This presumably coupled into the idea that the norm that you go out to work at 16 has been well hammered:

Society has said
you stay in education
until you are eighteen.
Society then
had better help
pay for you
to get there!

Northumberland:
Large rural
underpopulated
county?
Shrugs them off.

The Labour party who with independent support now run Northumberland determined to undo this. They ran a consultation earlier in 2014 about making students pay up to £450 a head per year. When the finished proposals were published, this figure had become £600 p/a. Instant outrage because this was perceived as targetting rural parents. It being supposed that if you live in Guide Post and attend a high school in Ashington, the cost being nothing like four students from Berwick who want to go to the county's only agricultural college at Kirkley Hall. Somewhere into this was also injected the idea that no arrangements at all would be made if you chose 16-18 education outside the county. Additional to this is the idea that the county has conveyed that schools now have to arrange all of this through monies they have. The county in effect is totally ditching the organisation of 16-18 scholar travel.

I hope I have that right. Months of god almighty row have followed.  Try https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=740301396015406&set=o.526242160820688&type=3&theater and https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=google+northumberland+teenage+tax&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=2H_BU8PmN-HX8gfusIDYDA  .

After the July county council meeting was cancelled for lack of business which does seem pretty odd bearing in mind how much non Teenage stuff came first in the meeting when it did take place, the Tory group demanded a meeting. With very bad grace, the Labour/Indy admin allowed this and the meeting took place on Friday past. The Tory motion was defeated 30/34. Along the way the two Independent councillors for Ovingham and Stocksfield (both I sense to be rather Tory places) enabled this to happen by voting with the administration. The Stocksfield councillor argues, along with the administration, that the motion as tabled by the Tories was in fact unlawful.

You can sense the difficulties in all of this. Some would say Labour were trying to score a political point by saying look what happens when we have to make all the cuts the government forces on us. Others (and the parents seem central to this) feel the south east Northumberland centred administration was trying to penalise what they perceive as the Liberal and Tory voting fringes. If so I find that quite appalling. And as this example taken from the Parents against website shows I suspect it is totally counter productive: " I live in the South east of the county in Ellington and my children travel to Ashington high. The school are informing parents to go to the NCC website to find the guidelines. I can't afford the £25 a week that it will cost for my son to go to the sixth form and I don't want him going to Northumberland college so not sure what he is going to do".

I feel the whole issue shows the funding double whammy Northumberland faces. One of England's most rural counties gets one of the worst per head inputs from government. A rural county spends more to deliver a service, this transport being a case in point. When that rural county then focusses its attention onto its urban South East core, there is a double whammy.

We got dragged into all this when just over a week before the vote, we learnt very accidentally that our 416 bus our fourteen year old uses, was being cancelled. There was an outcry and the decision has been deferred for two terms. Along that way, this categorically showed me that whatever the policy rights and wrongs, the implementation was in chaos. Downloading the implementation to the educational establishment was leaving those ill prepared, lacking in personnel and briefing.

I very much suspect the county has not done the investigations into the application of the policy prior to applying it. Instead a sense of a proxy war between providers like Northumberland College and Newcastle College is suggested. The former has announced free travel for all 16-18 year olds including those in Tyne & Wear. That will be an interesting bill to sustain. At a meeting in Prudhoe last Tuesday, I heard Councillor Paul Kelly from Ovingham explicitly say that this was all about preventing students leaving the county in order to drive up provision in the county. That is virtually Stalinist and in relation to Northumberland's geography and resource profoundly unrealistic.

In Tynedale it is almost impossible for many students to reach the Ashington campus of Northumberland college. Scores travel in by train to Newcastle College. Look at this bus timetable for the Carlisle College service. How do you think the teenagers of Halton Lea Gate are going to feel about this abandonment by the county?

I think that come the autumn the issue will be far from silent. I also prophesy that many more than just the 16-18 years olds are affected. Where-ever a bus (like our 416) had younger children sharing a service with 16-18 there is likely to be a knock on effect. At the West Area Committee Meeting last Tuesday, I raised this question. I could see eyebrows raise as people pondered it. The county senior officer could do no more than promise me that an answer would be forthcoming. Not so far, although the question was minuted.

It is really really sad and divisive that it has come to this. Northumberland faces many challenges and a them/us urban/rural split is not helpful. I really do sense an aggression and a refusal to work to productive solutions from Grant Davey, the council leader. You can make your own judgements by studying his words. One of the examples the council cited as a bad result of the existing policy leaves me open handed. It is those students in Berwick wanting to get to Kirkley Hall in the same county. What are we to do? Don't we want farmers in Northumberland from Northumberland. Have we gone completely crazy?

If you read this and can tweak my details, correcting any blatant error of fact or providing some amplication, I shall be pleased to consider same and make alterations.

SCUTINY: In various places there has been debate about why the decision was not "called in". From my perspective I found this an interesting read  https://www.facebook.com/groups/526242160820688/permalink/545022835609287/?comment_id=545028108942093&offset=0&total_comments=17

This says "Hi Pamela - any one of the councillors could have called-in - not just the conservatives. There was a very good reason it was not called in though and I repeat why it was not here: Allison,

"Calling In" is when the relevant Scrutiny Committee formally ask the Policy Board to reconsider a decision. Some people have been given the misleading impression that had the decision been called in it would have been debated on and decided by Full Council this is not the case.

This decision went to the Scrutiny Committee before the Policy Board made the decision. The Conservatives voted against the Policy, Labour for and Anne Dale abstained.

We won that round and the Scrutiny advice was for them not to make the decision they did. Such a decision however is not binding upon the Policy Board and was therefore ignored.

We have lost faith with the current Scrutiny process as it is dominated by Labour (where in most councils as part of good practice the Chairmen of the Scrutiny Functions are usually opposition Councillors).

If we had called in the decision (something that can only be done by members from the Scrutiny committees) then it would have just gone back to the Policy Board and been ignored again.

It was always our intention to raise this at full Council at 2nd July as the only way to bring the opposition maximum publicity and publicly hold the Policy Board accountable for its decision.

One of the members of the Scrutiny Committee Councillor Dale could have called in the decision or voted against it at pre-scrutiny- she did neither.

Kind Regards

David Bawn County Councillor Morpeth North"

Better by far (than a Quality Bus Contract)

A new arrival in our library this week is Better by Far. Those who follow public transport in the North East will know a major topic by Nexus in 2012 is the investigation into whether a Quality Bus Contract should be developed in Tyne & Wear and beyond. Nexus have the powers to do this, if they do it, it will be pretty much a first. It has led to heated debate in the papers (work back through the blog). On Wednesday night I attended a presentation by Nexus about the idea made to the Prudhoe Community Partnership Transport Working Group. Everyone remained very polite and pleasant but the fault lines were evident. In addition to Nexus and local folk there was representation from Go North East, Northumberland County Council and in a private capacity as a resident, the Metrocentre's Sustainable Transport Manager.

Key points made from the Nexus side. The QBC will remove the free market within the Nexus boundaries, the Tyne & Wear ITA will receive fare revenue and reinvest it in the system, in January 2013 the Tyne & Wear councillors who make up the ITA are likely to decide whether to pursue a contract or a voluntary partnership with operators.

Currently some 90%+ of the Tyne and Wear bus network runs commercially. The rest is specified and tendered by the PTE. This means most of the network is not a burden on the tax payer (unlike the Metro and local rail). Operators can with six weeks notice vary the network and they do in response to changing markets and community requests.

This flexibility will be lost with a QBC and an additional layer of bureaucracy which somehow has to be paid for inserted. Will there be money to reinvest or will we outside Tyne & Wear be dragged into paying for the massively loss making Metro which is entirely inside Tyne & Wear? On these grounds alone I am far more persuaded of the value of Partnerships as this booklet develops. But there is more to it than that.

Tyne & Wear is unusual. Only a relatively limited amount of the network remains within its boundaries. Some 60% I think crosses outside into Northumberland, Durham, even to Tees-side and Cumbria. The current Nexus plan takes this all over and the legislation allows that. So in Prudhoe on the boundary with Gateshead, the 10 group, the 686 and 684, all our stage services would become Nexus ones. Maybe we would then get proper bus stops. Perhaps. That is a good thing but is it a price worth paying?

At present the QBC will be run by a new board and we heard tell that one member would represent Durham and Northumberland. Even if it is one each, it is no good. Northumberland and Durham cannot become bit actors to Tyne and Wear and billed for the result. I very much hope (and I think that I believe this) that wisdom will follow and that a major fracas between three authorities will be avoided.

Is there any good to this debate? Not much I feel; it has become a huge diversion from a much more important one: who runs the North-East's rail network after 2014? Perhaps the good that will come from all this is that Nexus and neighbouring authorities will accept that Nexus cannot avoid regional relationships but that the proper area to show leadership on this is with the rail services run out of Heaton depot in the centre of Nexus land.

Somewhere someone from Nexus has rather dismissively said of my comments that rail travel only represents 1% of public transport use in Tyne & Wear. Do I believe that? Even if it were true should it be true? Did that figure include or exclude the Metro? Do not Washington and Ashington deserve to be on the rail network? Any thoughts?

Nexus' Misguided Debate on Quality Bus Contracts

This is one of the most misguided debates around at present and politicians who fuel it should examine themselves, the vast majority of the Tyne Wear bus network operates profitably at no cost to the taxpaper, if Nexus' Quality Bus Contract materialises, I am sure it really will cost the taxpayer. there is a lot of mischief going on in Tyne and Wear, it effects us next door and meanwhile no one seems VERY INTERESTED in the real issue of who runs local rail from 2014. PAH is what I say. http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news//2012/08/02/mp-bridget-phillipson-weighs-in-over-bus-routes-row-61634-31529746/?campaign=Newcastle_email_journalliveemail:20120802

The future

This is my gaze into the future. It has occured to DfT mandarins that the North East is like the South West. A discrete local trains network. Handing us over to East Coast makes sense of Newcastle station and Heaton depot. Thereafter whether the North East gets a good deal or not is down to whether local forces come together to create the parallel body to Devon Cornwall Rail Partnership. ANEC is considering the issue but seems slow to organise a public debate so does anyone else. Meanwhile Nexus is in a full on bus war which is even on the front page of the Hexham Courant! However the East Coast option is even at bottom likely to be better than being part of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

More debate at https://www.facebook.com/groups/233873179962922/

 

This one I missed.......................

There is nothing which excites the creative thinker more than to set an idea up and watch other folk grab it. I missed this meeting. This today is the first time I have found any report. Was anyone there who reads this? Can anyone provide a report? http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/06/06/north-east-facing-big-decision-on-railway-system-61634-31119960/#ixzz1wzuoFXkC . I wonder how many of the folk at that meeting knew I had been blogging about the subject since September 2010. I am willing to lay out a pint one did.

I then went through the ANEC councils site today and any mention of this meeting and the topic has eluded me http://www.northeastcouncils.gov.uk/default.asp nor can I yet manage to find any mention of the subject in here http://www.nexus.org.uk/ . I had emailed an enquiry about this to ANEC on the 20th April and received no reply then. I am trying again today suggesting they lead a public seminar on the subject.

(see for this thread the comment I have made to the After the Curry entry below)

Come back the Blyth & Tyne

http://www.newspostleader.co.uk/news/business/latest-news/9bn-railway-boost-sparks-calls-to-get-line-back-on-track-1-4753250

Fascinating one this and it may work for immediate neighbours.

But as of now I don't think any Northumberland scheme is in the package.

"Although no funds have been allocated to Northumberland as yet, it is hoped that the investment package, including £240m of improvements to the East Coast main line, could see smaller lines such as the Blyth and Tyne track being reopened too. "

Lavery has spoken to Greening, Opperman has spoken to Greening. Can some North East focus bring together all our aspirations? Logically it should be Bernard Garner at Nexus but where is the evidence that it is?

(My photo shows a non-passenger carrying passenger train at Newsham in 2000)

East Coast Consultation Newcastle Today

I had to miss the East Coast Consultation today. Fortunately Dennis Peel from Tyne Valley Line Rail Users group could be there. I put in his summary highlights, his words:
" The change which may affect us is the suggestion that "feeder" services including N/C to Carlisle might be brought into the East Coast franchise. I asked and it was confirmed that if this were to occur it would be all lines in the North East, not picking and choosing.  If this were to happen it would have a big effect on the present Northern Franchise and the date might be later than Dec 2013. Much interest from the users groups present on this topic.

The East Coast Franchise would run for 15 years and with slippage etc would be renewed around 2032 to coincide with HS2 coming to N/C. (As I see it (which I probably wont') HS2 does not cut N/C to London time, but brings in N/C to Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Heath Row) There would still need to be an East Cost route. "

This is a fascinating report. It confirms what in recent weeks we have been able to deduce. There is probably a rail industry turf war going on really driven by Heaton depot! The one depot which services all North East local trains is also a jewel in the crown for East Coast and for Northern's servicing schedules with it specialising in Pacers. If I managed East Coast I would want it and I would take the local services too. But we who live in the North East need our priorities to be heard. It is clear we have not done this very well for the last 5-10 years. If we had, the drive on the Lancashire Yorkshire Corridor or in South Wales would have comparable results here. Are politicians in the North East and Nexus going to belatedly wake up to what is going on? Our own MP Guy Opperman excepted or will we become bit actors in another's franchise for 15 years?

After the curry and with the MP, a write up (see preceding entry)

The Valley 16^th July 2012

A dissemination of the discussion about Tyne Valley and North East Rail Services.

Notes by Robert Forsythe www.fionnconsultancy.co.uk

Immediate Concerns

On the whole there are significant levels of satisfaction at present over reliability and pleasure at investment, like the Ticket Machine at Prudhoe, and the three interchanges that have opened.

There are important immediate concerns and they largely focus on capacity at peak hours and on special events. The gap of over an hour inbound from Hexham during the morning peak was discussed and I believe Northern understand this could be solved.  The user side understands Northern is and has progressed the last train issue (the new Prudhoe stopper). As ever the inability to collect revenue when the train is full concerns. This impacts on the Newcastle barrier situation.

The new football season starting late summer, and the Northumberland Show next year, are opportunities for Northern to show they can rectify problems which have been mentioned over many years. The timetable is not the challenge at these events if it is operated correctly, it is the capacity. I concluded Northern were determined to review this. In particular Gaynor Shotton from the County Show was invited to form a strong working relationship with the Northern management team and the Community Rail Partnership/Rail users group.

The need is : sufficient carriages for the NorthumberlandShow and the marketing of travelling by train. If the Show and the Railway could offer an advance purchase discount ticket, the railway can manage demand and those who turn up on the day with no ticket have to accept what can be offered. Robert Forsythe can show Gaynor sales literature for parallel events.

I think Northern were happy that on the performance of peak hours train like the strengthened 0742, and the 2013 Show and the football day services, attitudes towards the company in the Tyne Valley could be influenced.

The cost of tickets from stations west of Hexham are perceived as being disproportionately high. Northern offered to look closely at the pricing models from stations such as Bardon Mill and Haltwhistle. There are also issues around commuters who may only use the line 3 or 4 days a week have no incentive to purchase a season ticket (too expensive for their needs), and no multi- journey discount exists. A carnet ticket like the Harrogate line is needed.

There are several large employers in Newcastle (eg Northumbria University) whose staff travel on Northern. Whereas Nexus offers a direct sale of season tickets (at a discount) to large organisations who then sell them to their staff (managed directly through payroll), it was not felt that Northern offered a similar package.

Medium Term Concerns

Northern Rail will certainly operate the services for at least another two years. They have a new management team and the Valley side made the point that a much stronger management presence for the North East based around Newcastle is most desirable. My reading suggests the Northern team appreciated this? There could be changes within the franchise period?

There is an inherent challenge in a stand still franchise (the present one) experiencing clear and considerable growth. In the medium term the Northern team indicated there are further initiatives they could contemplate progress with (does not equal full implementation within the period). Specifically: much improved services for Dunston and Blaydon could be examined (this was from the Northern side). Gilsland is a candidate for re-opening with its World Heritage Site and Long Distance Path hub capability. Guy Opperman is ready to liaise with several parish councils and Rory Stewart MP over this, also Hadrian’s Wall Heritage. Commissioned studies have already indicated its viability.

The role of the Class 142 four wheel Leyland bus based Pacers will always be discussed at a meeting like this. They are not popular with passengers especially when crowded or on the curves at Newcastle. The Northern side did throw open the possibility that for cost effectiveness, they might be rebodied. Robert Forsythe suspects the Rail User side will wish to see this discouraged mightily in the future, from now forwards.

Longer Term

From 2014, there will be a new local train franchise for our area. This was actively discussed by all the parties.  Before this discussion however, everyone noted the 16^th July 2012 Government  news about further  rail funding. Universal agreement that this is good for the country and for the rail industry. It for instance removes all Pacers from the South Wales Valleys making the Tyne Valley and other North East lines good candidates to use them last of all. There was also round table agreement that the investment news offers very little to the North East in terms of schemes. The Northern Hub concept  has spin off benefits, it might bring electric wires to Middlesbrough. But the North East has been marginal through the Northern Hub process and the further investment does not change this. All round the table agreed that the North East had not been good through the franchise period in progressing the several rail investment schemes possible in its area.

As a result, three probabilities post 2014 exist. Northern continue as our operator or another company on exactly the same patch. The Valley side articulated the view that could only work if there was a strong Newcastle management and a programme in the franchise for the North East. The present Northern franchise had started with a North East management team and it had been diluted.

The second option which current East Coast consultation allows for is that the new East Coast franchise takes Heaton depot including its local train work in North East England. Heaton is a jewel in the crown depot (Nick Brown MP), it is important to both local and mainline train operators out of Newcastle and it has a specialist maintenance record. The user side can see that within the industry there will be well hidden moves about the future of Heaton!

The third option is that the North East community organise themselves in advance of the DfT consultation and argue for a Northumbria  franchise for all the Heaton local train work. This is around 20 trains and even with expansion the probability is that no more than 35 trains are needed. It is not a large business but it is a natural geographic and business entity. It seemed that the Northern team could understand this thinking and that within their own business the powerhouse that is Lancashire and Yorkshire sets agendas?

There was considerable discussion about how successful first Manchester and then its neighbours had been in securing investment and in now adopting the Decentralisation philosophy. There was discussion about what the North East would need to follow this example. There are agencies who might lead: Nexus, North East Chamber of Commerce, Association of North East Local Authorities. So far no-one with authority had taken the lead role in a regional discussion. Guy Opperman is probably the most senior North Eastern politician leading a debate on it. It has to go further if it is to work with a local entity and soon.

The industry side suggested the community side needs to generate a “compact”, possibly through the vehicle of an LEP. A specific follow up to this Valley meeting could be a high level regional day conference on the future of local rail in the North East. Would the North East Chamber of Commerce lead? How would transport providers and politicians current react to that? This has to be scheduled before the DfT issue the consultation over the franchise and that is scheduled for later in 2012. MPs like David Milliband or Nick Brown who have so far not become involved may need to be.

THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH IS CRUCIAL

This discussion the lead into the blue sky of what the North East asks for in its next franchise. There is quite a long shopping list. Peterlee Station and Tees Valley Metro (James Cook station) are at implementation or very near so). Leamside (Washington) and Ashington re-openings have all been talked about and studied in detail for years. SENRUG has a massive and explored vision over what could come from the Ashington project. The Northern side threw open the blue sky idea that Trans Pennine Express could terminate at Ashington.

On the Tyne Valley, Gilsland and Blaydon have already been spoken off by the rail users as priority. A Northern team member said think bigger. Ask to be electrified as part of the fleet renewal. Remember the importance to East Coast of the line as a diversion. Then you think the future has to be an electric Tyne Valley and Coast and Saltburn Bishop lines to get a thoroughly 21^st century local rail network. All local trains would then be electric apart from Whitby. This opens the idea that part of what holds the Tyne Valley back is infrastructure. The present diesel trains have a speed in excess of most of the line speed. Improve the line speed limit and even with the present trains schedules could improve.

The evening ended then with three challenges: to Northern to deliver much closer and stronger local management connected to North East communities, to the User side to go out and get the North East community itself better connected to lobby for its own connectivity, the third challenge being to combine these two forces to create the next local train franchise on an expansive and not stand still basis.

Present

Guy Opperman MP (the inviter)

From Northern Rail

Alan Chaplin Chief Operating Officer

Richard Allan Area Director for Yorkshire and Humberside, Tyne Tees and Wear.

Both above from 30^th May 2012  http://www.northernrail.org/news/7044

Drew Halley Client and Stakeholder Manager Northern Rail

From Tyne Valley Rail Users Group/Community Partnership

Robert Forsythe  Prudhoe

Fiona Forsythe Prudhoe

John Gillott Heddon TVCRP partnership officer

Julie Gibbon Bardon Mill

Minnie Fraser Mickley

Alastair Fraser Mickley

Tony Geary Wylam

Tina Geary Wylam

From Northumberland Show (moving Corbridge>Bywell (Stocksfield Station)

Gaynor Shotton

From North East Chamber of Commerce

Mark Scandle

Facebook References Please ensure that you like these pages

Northumbria Rail Franchise Lobby Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/233873179962922/

Tyne Valley Line Rail Users Group

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tyne-Valley-Line-Rail-Users-Group-Tvlrug/189782941052088

Tyne Valley Line Community Rail Partnership

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tyne-Valley-Community-Rail-Partnership/287409391272008

For Northern in Northumbria should you read East Coast?

Regular followers will know that since autumn 2010 I have been exercised by who will run local trains in Northumbria from Heaton depot once the existing Northern franchise is re-let in 2014. There are now two related Government consultations going on and each pulls in a slightly different direction. One on Decentralisation of Local Rail, the other on a new East Coast franchise which specifically asks what further services East Coast should be given for which read connecting local services others don't want. At this link it is all being discussed with links given to the DfT documents.

Is the North Losing out on Transport?

Check out
http://www.transporttimesevents.co.uk/conferences.php/Is-the-North-
Losing-Out-on-Transport-Promoting-Balanced-Economic-Growth-through-
Transport-Investment-25/

This would seem relevant to the North-East. Pipe up please if you are going to this from north of Darlington. Make no mistake the choice of location backs up everything I have said about a Northumbria franchise. It will be quicker to go to a meeting in London for Tynesiders than one in Manchester.

Look at the speaker list, I can find one North Eastern speaker 15:45 - 16:05 How can LEPs bring forward transport investment to support growth? Jonathan Spruce, Senior Assistant Director, Tees Valley Unlimited and that is an interesting topic. How many in the audience will be from the North East despite Philip Hammond doing the keynote.

Trying to keep a town bus service

Regulars around Prudhoe will know what a struggle it has been to keep a town bus service since the 603 was culled in a review around 2003. Here is one instalment in a campaign to try to keep things positive. You need to understand that since 7.11.10 a brand new attempt at a town service called 111 is being run by regional company Go North East on a commercial basis for one year. The text is a letter to our two county councillors that this town has.

Dear Neil and Bill

You are the two councillors responsible for Prudhoe to the county. Today I had cause to be at the top of Prudhoe for some while (Drawback area). As opposed to my last visit when the timetable cases displayed the old inaccurate 604 route timetable, now they display nothing. So someone has been around and done something but whoever it was could not even get hold of the 111 timetable out of the 11 leaflets, cut it out and glue it in place. That would be something and Town Councillor Duncan Couchman has arranged for that to happen in the Prudhoe Town Council noticeboard on Castle Road.

The 111 service passes the new county installed real time displays at St Marys but does not show on them. Along Castle Road and Castlefields there is I think no information at all. There are a few STOPS which do display correct information like at Interchange.

Despite the difficulties of the weather, what was required from the county was not rocket science. Just sticking the printed timetable up would have done. And we are now at one month on from the change.

What is clear to me is that the weather and the state of the estate roads in the town has utterly vindicated the company in their decision to split the 11 and 111. As for the evening services, the county could apply to the Local Sustainable Transport Fund for funding and issue a tender.

Obviously we cannot control the weather and it is unfortunate that just when the 111 would be really useful its operation has become very erratic. I guess not many passengers would be on its tally currently and in the circumstance it would not surprise me that unless something is done, we will face a situation in which in a year's time Prudhoe's town bus service has once and for all been lost. Because unless a service carries passengers it is not worth operating.

Can I also suggest that people from the county look at this
http://www.dumgal.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2624

Every single route in that rural region has an up to date timetable easy to download as a PDF. Is this the situation with Northumberland?

I looked here
http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=1456#Timesandroutes

and no way does it match up.