Rail Sale bargains… but where were the seats?

Problems with the Great British Rail Sale here in the North East were very different from those described in RAIL 956.

With four operators now offering services between Newcastle and Edinburgh, finding bargain-priced tickets seemed very easy.

The situation with Northern was very different. It was offering seemingly large numbers of tickets at £1.50 per single journey, or £0.95 with a railcard discount.

Sensing a bargain using our Senior railcards, I found TransPennine Express offering Durham to Leeds at 0959 on May 25 for £3.30. Two hours in Leeds for shopping and lunch could be followed by a trip over the Settle-Carlisle Line for just £0.95. A further £0.95 would get us back to Newcastle after an hour or two in Carlisle.

A total of 270 miles of rail travel for just £5.20, taking in two scenic routes. What was there to lose?

I started the booking process. No problem with the journey to Leeds. Tickets available to Carlisle on the 1318… but “seat reservations sold out, you may have to stand for all or part of this journey’.

The same message when I tried for different dates, so project abandoned.

A check on Real Time Trains confirmed that almost all trains between Leeds and Carlisle are only two- or three-coach Class 156 or ‘158’ units. Similar problems arose when I attempted to book tickets from Scarborough to Hull.

Until (and unless) Northern is allocated more units, there seems little point in promoting leisure travel on routes such as these. Perhaps it could have some Meridian units when they are replaced by new Hitachi trains on the Midland Main Line?

I am sure we are not alone in thinking that reliable local services with adequate capacity are much more important for our region than any benefit we might gain from HS2… and achieved far sooner at relatively little cost.

Richard Wheeler, Durham