The 2015 Annual General Meeting of the Group will take place on Thursday 19th February at The Athenaeum Club, Church Street, Hartlepool at 7.15pm.

We also expect John O’Grady of Northern Rail  to be present at the meeting.

The Direct Award to Serco/Abellio for the extension of the present Northern franchise included a committment to install real time  Customer Information Screens (CIS) at 100 stations. This included Billingham but not Seaton Carew, Marton, Gypsy Lane or Nunthorpe. John advises that Northern together with Tees Valley Unlimited (TVU) are working together to try to source the funding required to complete CIS installations along the whole of the Coastline and also stations on the Saltburn Line.

November saw some HST power cars adopt a Movember moustache (advertising the men’s health awareness campaign) in place of the usual Grand Central logo. Here 43465 stands at York

whilst the shunter (08648) at Heaton depot also gained Grand Central livery

The strapline ‘Part of Arriva – a DB company’ is also appearing on the side of Grand Central’s trains