(07 May 2024, 4:51 pm)Storx wrote No Regent Centre link for me because of where I live, the state of the Arriva buses, that's the last place I'd like to be standing for 40 minutes while two buses are cancelled. 5 minutes is too long at the Regent Centre and that's something that needs sorting out asap regardless to anything tbh.
If there was bloody reasonable train service to Chester Le Street in the future I'd do Train -> Train -> Bus and travel backwards, if there was a decent service it would only be roughly 40 minutes or so with perfect connections. Obviously not an option as the train is 1 TP2H now.
The thing is though car users don't want to use buses full stop as they're seen as peasant travel. Trains are a total different kettle of fish as they're a much better standard and will beat the bus every time pretty much. Bus to bus hubs never work as it doesn't make sense at all hence GNE network's doesn't work.
Not to mention you can do local Park and Ride for someone to drive to, park up and get the train to Newcastle in 10 minutes, it's better than sitting on the 25 or 28 for 40 minutes going around the world.
There's already plans for a Metro line down that track, it's 4 track from CLS to Newcastle give or take so capacity wise some improvements shouldn't be too much of an issue, it's South of CLS where the problems start.
It isn’t four track from Chester le Street to Newcastle. It’s double track from Northallerton to Newcastle with a few passing places here and there. If you’re talking about the lines around Tyne Yard, well they aren’t of any use because there’s no direct route from Tyne Yard to Newcastle via the Tyne Valley line, so they’d still have to squeeze into the double track section between Tyne Yard and
King Edward VII Bridge. The infrastructure just isn’t there. And to be honest even if you reinstate the north east chord to provide a through route from the freight only line passed Royal Mail to the Tyne Valley line, you’d still have the issue of limited capacity at Newcastle Central. You’d need the long talked about and never funded new platform on the south side opposite platform 7.
As for Leamside, the metro line would only extend as far as just west of Penshaw Monument, which is where the line from South Hylton used to connect with the Leamside line. For it to be of any use for freight, the Leamside line would need to continue southwards to where it connected with the ECML at Tursdale. Besides which, funding has not been approved for any metro extensions. Right now the only thing that has received funding is to put together a business case. That alone can take anything up to 2 or 3 years.