Earlier this week, Andrew met with Northern Rail to discuss the recommencement of some of their services for our area. Following the Covid-19 outbreak, many services were temporarily reduced or removed due to the wider effects of the Pandemic on resources, and, of course, much reduced passenger demand.
Andrew reports, "Northern Trains are proposing a new timetable from September 14th which will reinstate many of the services they reduced or removed in our area. Specifically -
Hull-Goole-Doncaster service - this starts running again broadly hourly, but one of the train crew work schedules needs to be removed due to resources being unavailable, so there will be some times when the frequency drops, mostly in the off peak period. This would be two hourly, but overall it will be back to hourly.
Hull-Goole-Sheffield - will remain at hourly but, alongside the change above, this restores the 2 trains per hour connection from Goole to Doncaster. The route will also resume full connection through to Scarborough.
Doncaster - Scunthorpe - will become hourly all day again up from the current situation where the train is operating at either hourly or two hourly.
Brigg Line - the Saturday only service will be reinstated (see my previous post regarding our bid to upgrade this service).
Goole-Leeds line - the Goole portions of this route will be reinstated (Along with Cllrs Fox and Sargeantson and the LAVRAG campaign group I have met Northern Trains again separately this week as we work to secure a proper service on this route)
These are welcome changes which will restore some of the services that were halted or reduced due to Covid-19. As more and more residents start to return to work or travel for leisure, it is vital that the services many of us rely on for this start to resemble something approaching normal.
This has been a challenging time for the railways with income literally falling through the floor as passengers rightly followed Government advice to avoid public transport. We now have to start building our railways up again."
We will share the full timetables when available.
PHOTO - Andrew previously meeting with representatives of Norther Rail in his constituency office in Goole.
