(16 Dec 2024, 10:45 am)Adrian wrote It looks like the 156s appeared on there after 158860/158843 got taken off at Newcastle just after 1pm. 

I did that service up to Ashington and back, and they were looking at the leading unit before it even left Newcastle. It apparently didn't power on the way back to Newcastle, so an engineer was overheard saying, but it sounded like it was? 

Quick solution to turn around with no fuss, but I wonder how much of that was to not have something go belly up on day one.

That would make sense, was wondering why it came on.

Mind must say I'd be a miffed if I was after one of the Sunderland or Hexham trains where supposedly they don't have any trains to double them up and there's suddenly a 4 car train appearing from nowhere...

Talking about the line today, seen it all appears to be running fine as there was loads of fears that it was going to be disaster because of tight timings etc. There doesn't appear to be any bother with the ECML merge, so far at least, since todays the first real test as yesterday all the trains had 15 minute+ layovers.