Whilst at Morpeth station for the meeting with the Bus Manager mentioned below, some passengers asked me for assistance. The 14:50 XC service was showing as “cancelled”. Should they get a taxi direct to Edinburgh, or a train back to Newcastle in the hope of picking up an Edinburgh train from there? Then the CIS changed to show the train simultaneously cancelled and arriving 1 minute late. No further information, clarification or advice. Not being able to rouse Northern Rail’s control room (since Northern control the CIS), I got on to Pete Myers, our helpful Stakeholder Relations Manager, who immediately arranged for a specific announcement to be made. It turned out XC were running a special train, starting at Newcastle, at the same time as the cancelled one which was stuck south of Durham. So I was able to assure the 20 or so waiting passengers (some of whom were starting to leave the platform – partly because the CIS didn’t say what platform the train would be on) to stay where they were as a train was definitely arriving. But returning to the station around 16:45, I noticed the 17:16 Bristol train was showing as going to Newcastle only, again with no information as to what passengers should do. Would there be another train waiting at Newcastle, or should passengers abort their journey at Morpeth and go home?
