Today I travelled up to Alnmouth on the 18:15 Northern service from Morpeth, where my daughter was due to pick me up from the station for a dinner with friends in Lesbury. I thought I’d use the opportunity, whilst travelling on the evening Chathill train, to give out some of the SENRUG leaflets campaigning for a regular, hourly local service north of Morpeth.
I arrived at Morpeth station at 18:00, to find the CIS (now thankfully working) was showing the train was delayed by 7 minutes, leaving at 18:23. But a minute later the revised departure time changed to 18:24. And a minute after that it changed again, to 18:25. And so on, for the next 20 minutes. This made me think the train was stuck somewhere and hadn’t actually left Newcastle. So, I looked at the Northern Information Poster and phoned their “Customer Experience” line to see if they could tell me what was going on – though the call was answered by National Rail Enquiries.
The guy at National Rail Enquiries Rail simply told me what the CIS said, giving me the currently expected departure time, which was still going back minute by minute. But I wanted to know if the train had actually left Newcastle. My gut instinct was that it was stuck somewhere, and not moving at all.
To be fair he went off line to check, and by the time he came back on the line and told me the train was now heading towards Cramlington, the tannoy announcements had sprung into life saying the train was delayed awaiting further units to be attached! Were we going to get a 4-coach train? Impressive though this would be – did it justify a 20 minute delay? But the CIS was clearly showing the train would be formed of just our usual 2 cars only. Which made me wonder what it had been before the extra units were attached – just 1 car? When the train finally arrived – standard 2 car formation – 20 minutes late at 18:35, I asked the Conductor about this. He told me the extra units had been attached at Carlisle, but then detached again at Newcastle (no doubt adding yet further to the delay).
No other passengers for the Chathill train joined at Morpeth – but by this time passengers had started to arrive for the 18:49 CrossCountry service to Dundee, which the CIS was showing as cancelled, but not warning them they would then have a 75 minute wait for the next LNER train, or over 2 hours to wait for the next CrossCountry service. However, if either the CIS or a more useful tannoy announcements had told passengers to join the late running Northern service with me and change at Alnmouth, they could have taken the 19:12 LNER service from Alnmouth and arrived at Edinburgh at 20:13, just 4 minutes after the scheduled time. Train cancellations really do need better management, especially at stations which are unstaffed, and particular when a late running alternative service can be used to rectify the situation – at least for some passengers. Information as to whether LNER would accept CrossCountry tickets would also have been useful – 2 hours would be a long time to wait for those hapless passengers with “booked train only” tickets for the cancelled CrossCountry service.
On board the Northern train, I gave out the SENRUG leaflets for our “North Sea Coast Local Rail Service” campaign, encouraging those passengers who want Pegswood, Widdrington, Acklington and Chathill to have an hourly service to support our campaign and join SENRUG. Our campaign was well received by many of the people I spoke to. I eventually arrived into Alnmouth at 18:59, just in time for our 19:00 table reservation at the Coach Inn at Lesbury.
