Report into extending passenger services into East Cleveland

[marsker]

A study commissioned by the Tees Valley Mayor into extending passenger services along the freight line to Loftus and Boulby has now been published. It shows the value for money as "Poor" but does concentrate on the need for regeneration of that area which could alter the parameters by which it should be judged.
An article in Rail Business Daily, which has a link to the actual report can be found at: https://news.railbusinessdaily.com/...assenger-services-in-east-cleveland-revealed/
and a BBC Tees report about it is at:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg97vpzw95o

 

[stevieinselby]

I'm not surprised it comes out as "poor" value for money – the very circuitous route around the hills means that it would not be competitive on journey time, and the fact that it branches off before Saltburn station means you would either need to duplicate existing services between Marske and Middlesbrough or moving Saltburn station to a less attractive location that is a long way from the town centre.

What would help those communities would be if the Arriva 5 to Brotton and Loftus (via Guisborough) and the Arriva X4 to Brotton and Loftus (via Redcar), both half-hourly services taking a similar-ish amount of time, didn't leave Middlesbrough at exactly the same time, and didn't leave Brotton for Middlesbrough just 1 minute apart. Just crass bad planning to have those buses running at the same times and not shifting one of them by ~15 minutes to give passengers a more regular service.