I was surprised by a report in today’s Chronicle saying that The Secretary of State for Transport wants to give the Ashington Line to Nexus and is waiting for a proposal from them to take over the track and start running services. SENRUG doesn’t mind who owns the tracks or runs the trains but the key point is the route between Northumberland Park and Central station must, in our opinion, be via the direct Network Rail route via Benton Junction, and not via the much longer Metro route with its additional 10 stops. Otherwise the train journey time won’t beat the bus, and the business case will collapse. And what’s more, just the week before, I and other SENRUG committee members attended an Institute of Mechanical Engineers presentation at which Nexus speaker Neil Blagburn confirmed the new Metro rolling stock will not have diesel capability and their battery power will not be sufficient to reach Ashington. So something somewhere doesn’t add up. Let’s hope this issue doesn’t cause yet more delay to our 14-year campaign, just as it finally appears to be coming to fruition.
