Excellent meeting tonight with Graham Jellet, who is remarkably well informed on French Light Rail systems, leaving us to lament the slow rate of progress here in the UK. Before Graham’s talk, I briefly updated those present on Northern’s May 2018 timetable, sadly not delivering everything we had originally been promised due to delays in a far away Network Rail electrification project, meaning Northern’s North East area has not been given the hand-me-down diesels it expected to have for its extra services. Our evening services will however start as promised, but through journeys to MetroCentre during off-peaks are lost, and passengers for stations beyond Hexham will now face a 59 minute wait at Newcastle as the Morpeth service arrives a minute after the Carlisle one leaves (oh – why couldn’t they have joined it up and made it a through train?). On a more positive note, the meeting was pleased to note 22 months after busses once again started serving Morpeth’s station bus turning circle, a bus stop has now appeared.
