(09 Dec 2015, 8:44 am)Andreos1 wrote Not a bad little monopoly for them or the German Government. The buses, Crosscountry, Grand Central, the Metro and now Northern.

They state services between Newcastle and Carlisle will be 12x faster.
I can only guess that some stations on the line will see a reduced frequency.

Perhaps stations being omitted by the train service could be picked up by the bus service which Arriva also operates between Newcastle and Carlisle? This would allow the train service to offer faster journeys, with the bus service stopping at all points?

The flip side of the coin would be to suggest that Arriva being awared with the Northern Rail franchise could have a detrimental impact on services such as the 685. Outside of peak times, the Newcastle - Hexham stretch on this route doesn't have an abundance of passengers following the introduction of a competing service by Go North East to start with...