On Trains & Buses

Bus Service Reorganisation in Northumberland

Posted on April 25, 2010

Reading time: 2 minutes.

In truth, there are more helpful local authorities than Northumberland County Council when it comes to the provision of public transport information. Even so, they do have leaflets online for what they call the Experience Northumberland bus network. This turns out to be sufficiently useful for visitors to the area to be able to get about without needing to resort to travel by car as the only option. Saying that, the Sunday service is more limited so walking out from where you located yourself for a weekend in the county might be a sensible plan. Places like Bellingham and Wooler fall into this category though they have useful long distance trails passing near them for getting you back to more populated places.

Things are better by the coast though connections with train services can be less than perfect with the 501 service being a particular offender at Alnmouth station, especially with northbound trains. These coastal services underwent something of of changeover within the last week with changes in provider and even the withdrawal of some services accompanied by the introduction of others.

In the middle of all this, there has been that depot swap between Arriva and Go North East. While it’s easy to see what Arriva might have seen in Morpeth, what Go North East saw in Hexham is not so clear. After all, it may be a pleasant part of the world but there aren’t that can’t be that many bus routes and users around there. Saying all of that, there is a regular service to Newcastle so that may be saying something. Is that what they were seeing?

In summary, it’s been a while since I went casting my eye over over the bus service provision in Northumberland and some things have stayed remarkably familiar while others had changed a lot. With my pondering excursions to the county, the information that I have gleaned so far has to have a use. Only time will tell what use I make of it.