My proposed meeting with LNER next Thursday has just been postponed. This really is not good enough. It’s 6 months now since I first emailed David Horne, and 2 months since, after repeated chasing, pointing out I was getting “read-receipts” so I knew the emails were being safely received, I was finally offerred a meeting – a meeting which has not yet taken place. The strange thing is the points we wish to raise with LNER are constructive, pointing out opportunities to grow passenger numbers and revenue within existing service patterns, and also alerting them to the frustration of first class passengers travelling on early southbound trains from Morpeth. Let’s hope the meeting is quickly re-scheduled. If not, LNER need to watch out: we have an open access operator starting in 2 years time, and much as LNER might like to cry “foul”, they can’t blame stakeholder groups for welcoming rival operators with open arms if LNER themselves won’t engage with us.
