Blog
February blog
Tony Potts writes: Our arrival back from Glasgow on 8 February was delayed as all trains were cancelled due to a landslide between Whitehaven and Workington. Virgin Trains staff at Carlisle contacted ARN’s Control who authorized a taxi to take five passengers on to Workington. The suspension of the RMT strike action now that Arriva Trains [...]
December blog
Tony Potts writes: Although talks between Arriva Rail North and the RMT were taking place this week, there is still no sign of the strike action being lifted. Our MP, Trudy Harrison, raised the matter at Prime Minister’s Questions on 7 December, asking the Prime Minister to condemn the RMT action after our local line had suffered 42 days [...]
November blog
Tony Potts writes: There have been several disturbing matters recently. The news that the planned Moorside Nugen nuclear plant is unlikely to proceed will obviously mean that much of the associated railway infrastructure (eg a new station at Mirehouse, a longer passing loop at St Bees and a line into the site) will not be installed. If and [...]
October blog
Tony Potts writes: David, Terry and I attended a meeting with Northern at Preston on 26 September and a report is available. On returning, I had an informal discussion at Carlisle with Craig Johnson, the RMT rep about the current dispute. He wasn’t optimistic about an early settlement. Although Virgin trains were disrupted [...]
September blog
Tony Potts writes: There seems to be no end in sight to the RMT dispute with Northern over the presence of guards on trains, despite Merseyrail settling. According to a report in August’s In Cumbria the first steps have been taken in a business case for improvement to our local line, which has been submitted to the Department for Transport. [...]
August blog
Tony Potts writes: The RMT strike planned for 21 July was suspended pending talks with Northern about a process for reconvening talks around proposals to set up a joint working party to consider a range of proposals on the deployment of on-board staff, including a specific option of retaining a second safety-critical person on board all Arriva [...]
July blog
Tony Potts writes: On 14 June I attended the TravelWatch North West meeting at Blackpool’s Solaris Centre. Although no-one from Arriva was there, I took the opportunity to ask the Network Rail (NR) representative about the situation here in west Cumbria. He replied that the Cumbrian coast is very dear to him as he was involved with [...]