My own view is that the North East section of Northern really should be a standalone operation, one that works with (but isn’t controlled by) the North East and Tees Valley combined authorities and has the freedom to develop what is already an operationally isolated network into a bespoke operation to suit the specific needs of the specific routes for fleet replacement and service enhancements, as opposed to the one size fits all approach that’s being proposed for the whole of Northern at present.
With Great British Railways coming soon*, isn't it ending up with Nexus at some point around as likely as it going to TPE? (All non-short-workings of CrossCountry services serve Birmingham and LNER, unlike GWR, doesn't have any local services at the London end, so I'd say TPE's the most natural fit of those three).
What benefit would that bring? Could drivers or rolling stock be moved around more effectively if need be?
The only benefit of a merger with either TPE or LNER is that it would allow 5 car 80xs to be used on local services when there’s exceptionally high demand, for example Tall Ships in Hartlepool. Not enough of a benefit on its own to make it worthwhile.
If the North East part of Northern were to be grouped in with LNER operations under GBR, the logical thing to do would be to also group the GN part of GTR with it too to create a GWR style operation on the ECML.
Finally, does anyone know why the ‘Chathill Flyer’ is always a Class 156? It does get full and standing coming back from Chathill to Newcastle in the morning with a fair few getting on at Morpeth and Cramlington and I don’t think I’ve seen a Class 158 on it. I may just be unlucky.
The evening working seems to get 158s quite often.
156s and 158s have set diagrams in the North East however with the exception of diagrams that interwork at Carlisle either with the Cumbrian Coast (must be 156s) or the S&C (must be 158s), both types are generally interchangeable. An inter working diagram may not be immediately obvious - a diagram might keep the unit on the Tyne Valley one day but then leave the unit stabled in such a position at Carlisle overnight that it has to work either an S&C or Cumbrian Coast diagram the next day.
I don’t think transfer to Nexus would be particularly popular. They aren’t really well regarded in Tyne & Wear, and there would be issues over a Tyne & Wear authority having having influence over the wider north-east.
Unlike TFL who, by and large were regarded as competently running LU, the metro is something of a shambles. How much of that is down to Nexus is debatable, but it isn’t a great advertisement for taking over more.
All of the issues with Metro are down to Nexus. Even the unreliability of the fleet - if Nexus hadn’t wasted so much of the 2000s on the unrealistic Project Orpheus then they’d have been able to get the Metro fleet replaced a decade ago and we wouldn’t have been in the mess we’re in now. They’re incompetent and shouldn’t be handed control of anything else of any kind until they get their act together and begin to properly run what they’re already responsible for.
A reasonable case can be made that Northern should be split up into TOCs/Business Units of similar geographical size to the other regional TOCs especially if we want to increase local control over the railways.
The North of Tyne Combined Authority and North East Combined Authority were merged into the North East Mayoral Combined Authority in May 2024 and between 2018 and 2024 the North East Joint Transport Committee was the governing body of Nexus. I don't think it is likely that the Nexus will be expanded to cover the whole of the North East, it is more likely that if the transport powers relating to the North East as a whole are transferred from the Combined Authority they would be transferred to a separate municipally owned corporation similar to the West Midlands Rail Executive.
Nexus is now part of the North East Combined Authority, unfortunately with previous management remaining in place. Whilst at present their jurisdiction remains Tyne & Wear, the Mayor has the power to expand that to include Northumberland and Durham without consultation should she wish.
What’s more worrying than the prospect of Nexus getting control of the Tyne Valley and Durham Coast is the prospect of Nexus gaining control of all buses in the full North East Combined Authority area as part of Kim McGuinness’s ‘Angel Network’ and putting every single route on yearly contracts predominantly to operators who don’t have the resources to operate them, which is what already happens with the secured routes in Tyne & Wear. At least Nexus are unlikely get control of the local rail network, as the Tees Valley Combined Authority would almost certainly object to it.
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