The next Open Meeting of the Coastliners Rail User Group will take place on Thursday 17 October 2019 at 7.15pm in the Reading Room of The Athenaeum Club Church Street, Hartlepool   We will be welcome to use the bar until it closes soon after 10.30pm.  This will be an important discussion meeting and will be used to formulate our response to the Draft Tees Valley Combined Authority Strategic Transport Plan.  Responses must be submitted by 20 November 2019. Visitors welcome.

The full Draft Plan and its summaries including the Draft Rail Implementation Plan may be found here . though you don’t need to have read these. You can still come to the meeting to react to what others have to say.

Just a reminder that because of Kings Cross engineering work there are no Grand Central services at all on Saturday 24th nor Sunday 25th August and some changes to services on both Friday 23rd and Monday 26th August. More details here.  TransPennine services between Middlesbrough & York are expected to be exceptionally busy. Customers are advised not to travel towards London over the bank holiday weekend. Travel on these dates may further be disrupted by RMT  threatened strike action effecting Cross Country Trains.

Why is this important for North Easst rail users? See below!

A multi-million pound investment into the infrastructure at King’s Cross railway station will transform train travel on the East Coast Main Line by replacing track, signalling and overhead line equipment outside the station.

The project is set to provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve this vital part of the rail network, which carries trains bound for as far afield as northern Scotland, as well as many commuter services across the South East, and prepare the infrastructure for the future.

The track layout has reached the end of its design life and become harder to maintain. While the station itself was modernised in 2012, the existing track and signalling was installed over 40 years ago and is in need of upgrading.

The project will see a-mile-and-a-half of track, signalling and overhead line equipment re-thought, re-planned and re-laid to reduce the long-term cost of operating and maintaining the railway into the station.

At the same time, we will also be opening two new lines by re-opening a disused tunnel on the approach to King’s Cross; increasing the approach from four tracks to six.

During the weekend of the 13/14 July work will begin to remove old signalling equipment from the disused railway tunnel in preparation for the laying new track in the tunnel later this year.

There will be a reduced train service running on this weekend, and passengers should plan their journey in advance.

Further work will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend. This will result in significant disruption and the advice to passengers from train operators on the East Coast Main Line is DO NOT TRAVEL on 24 and 25 August.

Work at Newark will continue on Bank Holiday Monday (26 August), with a reduced train service running. Operators are advising passengers to travel either Friday evening (23 August) or Tuesday morning (27 August) if possible.

Find more information about you train service here