(25 Jan 2021, 12:50 pm)Storx wrote Yeah definitely agreed with Cramlington mind, I always think the station there is an unused asset and it's really in the wrong place. I don't believe they could put additional services though without it compromising the long distance trains since the platforms are directly on the ECML, in the same sense there's no service to Pegswood etc barely.

Agreed with the comments about Newbiggin but ngl I'd be tempted to change if I lived up there, I can't imagine there's too many people travelling the journey anyway as 90 minutes for a 30 minute car journey is unacceptable really. Not to mention the timings are crap aswell (buses being 33 and 53 minutes the hour) so someone starting at 9am would have get a bus 7am in the morning. I think it's where the Bebside P&R will come in place and they'll be hoping for passengers from the likes of there to drive down and change rather than drive all the way. 

Seghill will definitely be a bus only place though, tbh I can't see the X7 being impacted too much especially with all the new housing around Gosforth Park and New Hartley being built to top it up.

It'll definitely be an interesting in a few years time to see if we get proper integration like other cities like Leeds where you can get rail and bus tickets or we'll keep our trend of buses are buses, metro is metro, train is train and you're not meant to use more than one disconnected approach like up here.

Or operators adapt their services and service the P&R in a timely, effective and efficient manner which not only doesn't inconvenience passengers or add time to journeys - but allows for connections to and from the train.

ANE could have the best of both worlds here. Maintain a core network to/from Newcastle, adapt the network to suit the new rail line and potentially see massive growth in the latter from areas like Bebside.
They haven't done as much as they could around Alnmouth, but hopefully this leads to a step change in improvements across SE Northumberland