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I live in a village. When Go North East has issues with broken down buses or staff absences etc., the bus from ours to Chester le Street is one of the first to be cancelled. It cuts people off and hinders them going to work, school, shopping, medical appointments and so on.

We had bother during the last academic year as they kept cancelling the bus at short notice, so I had to keep driving my daughter and her friend down to Chester le Street or picking them up on an afternoon so they could attend school. The bus from Chester to Durham was a bit more reliable but still had some delays and cancellations. During her A-Level exams, either me or another Mam drove them all the way to school as they were terrified of being delayed and being late for their exams.
 
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C Montgomery Burns said:
Public Transport in the north east is a joke and has been for years. The private bus companies are only interested in making money, so have cut services in some areas but overloaded services in others. The fact that the 10, 11 and 20 now all run up Hylton road to the hospital is ridiculous as it's only to exploit the students living in Clanny House, but it's also cut off people living in the bottom part of Millfield (Cirencester Street and the new houses built on Pyrex).

The metro has never been great but has got worse. Less and less reliable, the new trains look smart but don't have many seats and aren't that comfortable. The fact that if there's any problems with a metro train between Sunderland and pelaw and it effectively shuts down the whole line. The same applies in reverse with heavy rail trains breaking down. The new extended metro plans are no more than pie in the sky and won't bare any resemblance of the real outcome in my opinion.

Heavy rail has been effectively starved of investment for years. The trains are old and rail companies have cut or reduced services in the name of improving profitably, pushing more people onto less services. Network rail are hopeless, dragging their feet on redevelopment with no medium or long-term thinking about how to improve the service.it feels like something serious has to happen before they get their arses in gear.

A proper, well thought out, integrated transport policy is vital for the future of the north east.
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You're 100% right about the local railway mate. The number of times a Metro breaks down between Pelaw and Sunderland, putting delays on other journeys is very bad. Their is also no scope to add additional running lines so the problem will always remain, and knowing Network Rail, they wouldn't spend the money anyway.

And the problem with Northern is the fact the NE gets given the oldest traction of the fleet and gets told to get on with it while the newer fleet goes to Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester etc. Yet Newcastle is the best performing station in the network, thanks in no small part to Heaton who work wonders to keep the 156's and 158's running. However, due to the age of the rolling stock problems will always arise and delays and cancellations are inevitable.

Their is a tender in for new MMU trains but no one has been awarded that yet and these are supposedly being allocated to Newcastle. Again though, probably the pessimist in me, believes they will end up down south and the older units pushed up North!
 
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D-K said:
You're 100% right about the local railway mate. The number of times a Metro breaks down between Pelaw and Sunderland, putting delays on other journeys is very bad. Their is also no scope to add additional running lines so the problem will always remain, and knowing Network Rail, they wouldn't spend the money anyway.

And the problem with Northern is the fact the NE gets given the oldest traction of the fleet and gets told to get on with it while the newer fleet goes to Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester etc. Yet Newcastle is the best performing station in the network, thanks in no small part to Heaton who work wonders to keep the 156's and 158's running. However, due to the age of the rolling stock problems will always arise and delays and cancellations are inevitable.

Their is a tender in for new MMU trains but no one has been awarded that yet and these are supposedly being allocated to Newcastle. Again though, probably the pessimist in me, believes they will end up down south and the older units pushed up North!
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As a bloke who worked on it at the time said to me years ago, they brought the metro through to Sunderland on the cheapest way they could using existing lines, instead of the more logical route via Washington and north Sunderland into the city centre. Anyone could see there's be problems at times but rather than pay for more tracks or sidings they went ahead with the cheap option. You could do more tracks, but it meant raisings costs as you'd have to widen cuttings, which might mean buying up housing or paying massive compensation to people, not to mention more engineering for retaining walls etc before you get to laying tracks. The bloke said to me at the time it was coming through that all that's happened is the line between Sunderland and Newcastle has been tarted up a bit with some new stations added and that within 20 years people would criticise it and want more heavy rail services. He's been proved right in my opinion.

What you need are people to look at other areas, how they do it, take the best ideas from them and look at the big picture and see how you can integrate it all fully. It might mean some original or blue sky thinking or adapting things that might be a bit unusual or controversial at first. My worry is that it'll end up being either a piecemeal approach of "we'll do this bit first then later this bit then after that this other bit" but later never comes or it'll end up being focussed on one area above others, the typical Newcastle centric approach we've had for the last 50 odd years and everyone else getting crumbs off the table.
 
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C Montgomery Burns said:
As a bloke who worked on it at the time said to me years ago, they brought the metro through to Sunderland on the cheapest way they could using existing lines, instead of the more logical route via Washington and north Sunderland into the city centre. Anyone could see there's be problems at times but rather than pay for more tracks or sidings they went ahead with the cheap option. You could do more tracks, but it meant raisings costs as you'd have to widen cuttings, which might mean buying up housing or paying massive compensation to people, not to mention more engineering for retaining walls etc before you get to laying tracks. The bloke said to me at the time it was coming through that all that's happened is the line between Sunderland and Newcastle has been tarted up a bit with some new stations added and that within 20 years people would criticise it and want more heavy rail services. He's been proved right in my opinion.

What you need are people to look at other areas, how they do it, take the best ideas from them and look at the big picture and see how you can integrate it all fully. It might mean some original or blue sky thinking or adapting things that might be a bit unusual or controversial at first. My worry is that it'll end up being either a piecemeal approach of "we'll do this bit first then later this bit then after that this other bit" but later never comes or it'll end up being focussed on one area above others, the typical Newcastle centric approach we've had for the last 50 odd years and everyone else getting crumbs off the table.
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I would not trust Nexus to run a bath never mind a Metro system.
 
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C Montgomery Burns said:
Public Transport in the north east is a joke and has been for years. The private bus companies are only interested in making money, so have cut services in some areas but overloaded services in others. The fact that the 10, 11 and 20 now all run up Hylton road to the hospital is ridiculous as it's only to exploit the students living in Clanny House, but it's also cut off people living in the bottom part of Millfield (Cirencester Street and the new houses built on Pyrex).

The metro has never been great but has got worse. Less and less reliable, the new trains look smart but don't have many seats and aren't that comfortable. The fact that if there's any problems with a metro train between Sunderland and pelaw and it effectively shuts down the whole line. The same applies in reverse with heavy rail trains breaking down. The new extended metro plans are no more than pie in the sky and won't bare any resemblance of the real outcome in my opinion.

Heavy rail has been effectively starved of investment for years. The trains are old and rail companies have cut or reduced services in the name of improving profitably, pushing more people onto less services. Network rail are hopeless, dragging their feet on redevelopment with no medium or long-term thinking about how to improve the service.it feels like something serious has to happen before they get their arses in gear.

A proper, well thought out, integrated transport policy is vital for the future of the north east.
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What a true post... absolutely 100% spot on assessment.
 
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Robertson said:
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Superb that.

I have always liked Arsenal. For us older fans I can remember in 1991 in a televised game at Roker Park, there was a lot of mutual respect when they were going for the title as nd we were battling to stay up. I think they won the title snd obviously we didn’t stay up.
 
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Northumberland Rocks said:
Superb that.

I have always liked Arsenal. For us older fans I can remember in 1991 in a televised game at Roker Park, there was a lot of mutual respect when they were going for the title as nd we were battling to stay up. I think they won the title snd obviously we didn’t stay up.
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I was there that day. Always remember them more fondly because of it. We were singing champions to them, they were singing staying up to us. Naturally they became champions and we failed to stay up <laugh>
 
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TeamOfTalents said:
I was there that day. Always remember them more fondly because of it. We were singing champions to them, they were singing staying up to us. Naturally they became champions and we failed to stay up <laugh>
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That’s what I remember - I think it was a draw then we headed to Man City.

Always had a soft spot for Arsenal after that.
 
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