Today I travelled to Hexham on the 09:52 from Morpeth. Following the May 2018 timetable changes there is no longer a through service to MetroCentre; passengers must change at Newcastle. There was considerable grumbling about this as passengers (including a young lady in a wheelchair) got off the train at Newcastle, consulted the CIS for the MetroCentre train, only to find it was the very same train they had just got off. “But,” said the staff, “You must get off the train, let us close the doors, wait on the platform and then in 10 minutes time a different crew will re-open the doors”. Northern are losing Customer goodwill on this one; let’s hope they can re-instate the through trains soon, even if there is a crew change at Newcastle. Incidentally, passing through MetroCentre, I noticed the CIS on the westbound platform is still faulty, as it has been every time I have passed through in the last 12 months. Is there a target for getting CIS faults repaired? Whilst on the subject of CIS, we travelled on 4 of the newer trains today, each with on-board CIS, but none of which were programmed to advise us of the next station – surely the whole point of having an on-board CIS?
