Today I met David Jones from Arriva Trains, a company who will be bidding for the Northern franchise, so David’s on a mission to meet Rail User Groups such as us and find out what we think. We met at Morpeth Station, went and looked at the Ashington Blyth & Tyne line, then finished up at Cramlington, where I “showed” David the non existent station facilities. Whilst at Cramlington some passengers turned up. David noted their concern at the scary notice saying that boarding the train without a ticket (if there is an opportunity to buy one) is an offence, and watched them hunt round in panic for a ticket machine – which of course doesn’t exist. We both observed these notices are inappropriate for stations which have neither ticket office or ticket machine.
Generally, it is most encouraging that Arriva are putting the time in going round the network, seeing issues first hand, before submitting their bid. But I gave David a hard time on bus / rail integration. He confirmed Arriva UK’s board is committed to this, but the board don’t seem to have communicated their commitment to Arriva Bus Northumberland, whose buses do not serve the station turning circles at either Morpeth or Cramlington, and who didn’t answer my letter to them of 20 Aug 2012 on this subject (see Document’s We’ve Issued).
