Sunderland Station/Services

[bobslack1982]

Hi,

I was just wondering what people thought about the plans at Sunderland station? I personally can't see how the improvements to the station will lead to improvements in the service.

At the minute, we have 1 direct service through to Carlisle each day, when it used to be hourly, and (I believe) only 2 direct services per hour to Newcastle - the rest of the journeys have to be taken via Metro which is a soul-sapping experience!

Is anyone able to shed any light on why the Northern Rail services were cut so dramatically or do they have a different opinion to mine?

 

[bluenoxid]

Sunderland has 1 tph Middlesborough - Hexham, it has an Intercity service to London and 5 Metro's an hour to Newcastle.

The services were cut from 2 tph to 1 tph to fit the Metro's in.

My opinion is that you are being PATHETIC and many on here will agree with me. Sunderland has been given the best service it has had since the railways arrived.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Hi,

I was just wondering what people thought about the plans at Sunderland station? I personally can't see how the improvements to the station will lead to improvements in the service.

At the minute, we have 1 direct service through to Carlisle each day, when it used to be hourly, and (I believe) only 2 direct services per hour to Newcastle - the rest of the journeys have to be taken via Metro which is a soul-sapping experience!

Is anyone able to shed any light on why the Northern Rail services were cut so dramatically or do they have a different opinion to mine?

Think the Northern cuts were to do with the fact that they're heavily subsidised by Nexus (the PTE) and when the Metro (run by Nexus) was introduced that's where the money was redirected. I believe it was seen as a replacement, with added value.

Also I'm not sure how more than 2 tph to express Newcastle could be accommodated within the timetable given the frequency and multiple stops of the Metros?

Aside from this I think the Metro, despite its drawbacks, has brought huge additional numbers to those using the rails. And the frequency and reach of service, and ability to reach the airport direct are also a bonus for a much wider portion of the city, e.g. 5 tph to Seaburn, Brockley Whins etc and new service to Pallion, South Hylton whihc just wasn't there before. I don't think many up there would say the service is worse now.

Edit: to the first part of the question, it won't affect the services as such, but the station does direly need renovation

 

[bobslack1982]

Its hardly being pathetic to have an opinion on something.

Many in Sunderland can't even access the Metro without having to catch a bus first - Nexus themselves have had to cut services to South Hylton because of a lack of demand. Massive areas such as Doxford Park, Ryhope, Farringdon and Thorney Close are no better off now than they were prior to the Metro being built. Therefore its hardly an improvement for a large section of the city, not to mention other areas of Wearside such as Castletown, Washington etc. I asked Nexus why they'd chosen the route they had when I was doing an Economics GCSE - the reason wasn't because it was good for Sunderland but because they wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. While this is obviously a typical business argument, surely even they could see that massive expansion at Doxford International, new housing developments in the Doxford area as well as places such as Waterview Park would, in the long run, bring the customers that they're not attracting at the stations they have now.

While I agree that the 5 trains an hour is an increase, the only new stations beyond Sunderland are at the Stadium of Light, Fellgate and St Peters on the Sunderland - Newcastle line so I can hardly see how its much better than before, while as I said before, the lack of patronage Sunderland - South Hylton is so poor the service has been cut back.

I do like a good debate

 

[bluenoxid]

Well I don't know why they chose it but you have to realise that you have to balance what is possible to engineer, build and deliver at a reasonable cost against the areas to be served and the demand from those areas

A Metro is not designed to stop at everyones doorstep that is why you get buses which are designed to do that. It is like expecting a plane to stop at every small town down to London. Its unreasonable to expect that mode of transport to do that.

The Metro is part of a comprehensive transport system. You are falling into the trap of taking it in isolation

Metro's forecasts haven't stood up. It could be due to anything. Either a development wasn't built, expected population growth arise or people behave as was expected. It is a hard decision to cut services on your newest routes but it is something that was done.

Washington was expected to be served by another extension that has sadly not materialised.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Agree the Park Lane-South Hylton section is underused and probably doesn't serve the best potential market - but there was also a long defunct trackbed there which I can imagine was cheaper to reinstate, I don't know if there was such a path to Washington?

The investment being made at that time was huge, even just electrifing and laying Pelaw-Sunderland let alone the new route. Any further extension would also need £££ for new trains (I gather well over 90% of trains are required for service at any one time now). All pretty big bucks for a small time PTE!

Unfortunately no mention of further extension in the £300m injection announced yesterday:

http://www.nexus.org.uk/wps/wcm/connect/Nexus/Nexus/News/News+archive/2008/Nexus+news+-+We+did+it.

Bluenoxid is right in the transport system being integrated, and there are transfare bus/metro/rail tickets to encourage this, as there have been for years. The bus services are pretty cheap and plentiful. In terms of area, Sunderland is huge, bigger than Newcastle, you can't cover all this with one system, realistically, certainly not a rail system. I don't think Nexus do a bad job in Sunderland, notwithstanding 25 years when the Tyne "and Wear" Metro was nothing of the sort, which is another debate!

 

[Sir_Clagalot]

If you keep going after South Hylton you will after a shor distance meet the Leamside line south of the impressive viaduct over the river Wear. IF Metro continued along to there, turned right onto the viaduct (would need brand new trackbed) then through Washington and back to Pelaw.

 

[Royston Vasey]

If you keep going after South Hylton you will after a shor distance meet the Leamside line south of the impressive viaduct over the river Wear. IF Metro continued along to there, turned right onto the viaduct (would need brand new trackbed) then through Washington and back to Pelaw.

Nexus published plans to interlink tram services with Metro called Project Orpheus to do a similar job back in 2002. And nothing has been heard of it since!!

More info and map http://www.lrta.org/tynewear.html

 

[djw1981]

Its hardly being pathetic to have an opinion on something.

Many in Sunderland can't even access the Metro without having to catch a bus first - Nexus themselves have had to cut services to South Hylton because of a lack of demand. Massive areas such as Doxford Park, Ryhope, Farringdon and Thorney Close are no better off now than they were prior to the Metro being built. Therefore its hardly an improvement for a large section of the city, not to mention other areas of Wearside such as Castletown, Washington etc. I asked Nexus why they'd chosen the route they had when I was doing an Economics GCSE - the reason wasn't because it was good for Sunderland but because they wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. While this is obviously a typical business argument, surely even they could see that massive expansion at Doxford International, new housing developments in the Doxford area as well as places such as Waterview Park would, in the long run, bring the customers that they're not attracting at the stations they have now.

While I agree that the 5 trains an hour is an increase, the only new stations beyond Sunderland are at the Stadium of Light, Fellgate and St Peters on the Sunderland - Newcastle line so I can hardly see how its much better than before, while as I said before, the lack of patronage Sunderland - South Hylton is so poor the service has been cut back.

I do like a good debate

But under Northern, the same people were the same distance, or more, from a station 9and there were fewer of them). The Metro extension brought with it more P&R, better connections to other parts of Tyneside (not just Heworth & central Newcastle). Metro extension was planned in the early 1990's, before Doxford park grew as much - in fact when it was still green fields...speculative transport projects tend to get aborted at the funding stages......
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Nexus published plans to interlink tram services with Metro called Project Orpheus to do a similar job back in 2002. And nothing has been heard of it since!!

More info and map http://www.lrta.org/tynewear.html

Massive funding issues! and project orpheus was the 2005-2030 plan.......so we are onlky 3 years in. but then the london government stopped funding trams to the same extent as they had been.