2 meetings with Northern today. The first, with Mike Paterson, Regional Director, was to express SENRUG’s concern that Northern has not been able to run any services at all on recent strike days. Worse than that, the information Northern has published has been completely misleading – the absence of any “emergency” timetable has led customers into thinking that a full service was running when the reverse has been true. Neither has there been any information on the availability of rail tickets on Arriva busses. This has prompted SENRUG to complain to Northern MD David Brown. “Must try harder” is SENRUG’s verdict. The second meeting was with Northern’s Station Adoption team, who are keen for SENRUG to find groups willing to undertake art or gardening projects at the stations in SENRUG’s area, for which Northern have funding available. So please, any group interested in getting funding for work at Northern’s stations at Morpeth, Cramlington, Pegswood, Widdrington or Acklington please contact SENRUG in the first instance. At this meeting, we also had a robust discussion on why Morpeth’s CIS sometimes “misses” trains completely (see entry for 29th July 2018).
