(08 Feb 2017, 5:18 pm)markydh wrote Currently the Man Airport - Newcastle services (which operate every 2 hours off-peak at the moment), have very limited calls north of York. I *think* northbound ones only call at Durham and southbound ones only at Darlington. This is due to pathing issues. Increasing to hourly is dependent on the new class 5 rolling stock being built and made available for usage. Eventually, the Newcastle services will all be operated by class 803s.
In terms of Newcastle - Carlisle, the northern connect Middlesbrough - Newcastle isn't due to start until December 2019. It was hoped to extend the Hexham terminators to Carlisle in December 2018 but this is all dependent on rolling stock being released from electrification in the North West (which is running behind schedule), the South West (which is also massively behind schedule) and Scotrail (they are expecting HSTs from GWR which will likely be delayed by the electrification issues down there).
Is this the service which will stop at Sunderland too?
I don't really know the new routes, i don't really follow trains.